title: Genome-wide ancestry of 17th-century enslaved Africans from the Caribbean.
abstract: Between 1500 and 1850, more than 12 million enslaved Africans were transported to the New World. The vast majority were shipped from West and West-Central Africa, but their precise origins are largely unknown. We used genome-wide ancient DNA analyses to investigate the genetic origins of three enslaved Africans whose remains were recovered on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. We trace their origins to distinct subcontinental source populations within Africa, including Bantu-speaking groups from northern Cameroon and non-Bantu speakers living in present-day Nigeria and Ghana. To our knowledge, these findings provide the first direct evidence for the ethnic origins of enslaved Africans, at a time for which historical records are scarce, and demonstrate that genomic data provide another type of record that can shed new light on long-standing historical questions.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark; Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, 2300 Leiden, The Netherlands; hschroeder@snm.ku.dk tgilbert@snm.ku.dk.
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schroeder
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: María C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Ávila-Arcos
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
authors.forename: Anna-Sapfo
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Malaspinas
authors.affiliation: Program in Biomedical Informatics and Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: G David
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4427-3556
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Poznik
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
authors.forename: Marcela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sandoval-Velasco
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: Meredith L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
authors.forename: José Víctor
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Moreno-Mayar
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sikora
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322;
authors.forename: Philip L F
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
authors.forename: Morten Erik
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Allentoft
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
authors.forename: José Alfredo
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Samaniego
authors.affiliation: St. Maarten Archaeological Center, Philipsburg, Saint Martin;
authors.forename: Jay B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Haviser
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, OX1 3QY Oxford, United Kingdom;
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Dee
authors.affiliation: AMS 14C Dating Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; and.
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Stafford
authors.affiliation: Unidade de Xenética, Departamento de Anatomía Patolóxica e Ciencias Forenses, and Instituto de Ciencias Forenses, Facultade de Medicina, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15872 Galicia, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Salas
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
authors.forename: Ludovic
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Orlando
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
authors.forename: Eske
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Willerslev
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: Carlos D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Bustamante
authors.affiliation: Centre for Geogenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark; hschroeder@snm.ku.dk tgilbert@snm.ku.dk.
authors.forename: M Thomas P
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Gilbert
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa / Q000208:ethnology; D000465:Algorithms; D001106:Archaeology; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D044383:Black People / Q000235:genetics; D017691:Caribbean Region / Q000208:ethnology; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y / Q000235:genetics; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D063948:Enslaved Persons; D063947:Enslavement; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics; D005819:Genetic Markers; D005828:Genetics, Population; D015894:Genome, Human; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011336:Probability; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005819:Genetic Markers
keywords: ancient DNA; genomics; slave trade