DNA analysis of two burials from 1,000 years ago reveals West African heritage

Excavation at the post-Roman cemetery at Worth Matravers cemetery. (Antiquity/Lilian Ladle)

Archeologists studied two separate burials on the southern coast of England from more than 1,000 years ago, suggesting they had recent ancestors, likely grandparents, from West Africa.

Researchers from universities based in the U.K. conducted ancient DNA analysis on individuals buried at two seventh-century AD cemeteries in England – Updown in Kent and Worth Matravers in Dorset – to explore migration patterns in early medieval Europe, according to research published in Antiquity on Wednesday.

“Migration and its direction, scale and impact have been much debated in European archeology,” the authors said in a news release. “Archeogenetic research can now provide new insight, even identifying individual migrants”.

Duncan Sayer, lead author of the Updown research article and a professor at the University of Lancashire, told CTVNews.ca Monday that at first, the researchers were trying to understand kinship patterns.

“Initially, we were exploring ancient DNA to look at early medieval migrations into Britain from continental Europe in the early Middle Ages – specifically if we could see an early Anglo-Saxon migration in the genetics," he said.

In the news release, Sawyer called Kent a “conduit for influence from the adjacent continent” of Africa, which was particularly seen in the sixth century, also known as Kent’s “Frankish Phase.”

“Updown is also located near to the royal centre of Finglesham, indicating that these connections were part of a wider royal network,” Sayer said.

Sawyer also brought up the diversity of the region, adding that people with different accents or ways of life would not have been uncommon at the time.

The Updown grave contained several goods, according to Sawyer: a pot, possibly from Frankish Gaul; a spoon that could indicate Christian faith and exotic gold, silver, and garnet items, often left as gifts or possessions of the buried.

‘The boy from Worth Matravers’

Meanwhile, Dorset “sat on the fringes of continental influence” compared to Updown, according to Ceiridwen J. Edwards, lead author of the Worth Matravers article from the University of Huddersfield.

“The archeological evidence suggests a marked and notable cultural divide between Dorset and areas to the west, and the Anglo-Saxon influenced areas to the east,” Edwards said in the news release.

“The difference is in the context and part of why this is so important,” Sawyer said. “In Dorset, this is a costal community who relied on the sea and consumed costal shellfish.”

“The boy from Worth Matravers” was buried in a double grave, but the children in both cases were a part of the fabric of their community, Sawyer said.

His grave contained a local limestone anchor, which links the site or the occupants to the sea or seafaring travel, he added.

Most of the individuals buried at the cemeteries were either northern European descendants, or had western British and Irish ancestry, both of which were prevalent in England at the time. However, one individual at each cemetery had a recent ancestor from West Africa, the paper read.

The mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the mother, was northern European. But the researched indicated that autosomal DNA, which comes from both parents, showed non-European ancestry, connecting them to present-day Yoruba, Mende, Mandenka, and Esan groups from sub-Saharan West Africa.

That means both individuals had genetic and geographical mixed descent, further suggesting that both had one paternal grandparent from West Africa, the research article said.

According to Sawyer, the genetics place the two individuals’ maternal grandparents around Nigeria, Tongo, Gambia, Senegal or Sierra Leone.

“In both cases, the DNA points to long distance connections. The movement not just of exotic goods, but of people seen in their DNA,” Sawyer explained. “The Byzantines used this as a way to get to new gold supplies from sub-Saharan Africa to mint coins.”

‘Cosmopolitan nature of England’

The route into Europe could have been across east Africa to the Nile, up north into Alexandra in Egypt, over the Mediterranean to Byzantium Rome, over the Alps into France and Germany, then eventually, the U.K., Sawyer added.

Despite the lack of written literature that can point out migration patterns of the early Middle Ages, DNA has proven helpful in understanding how people from long distances may have travelled and integrated into communities in England, the research paper said.

“Our joint results emphasise the cosmopolitan nature of England in the early medieval period, pointing to a diverse population with far-flung connections who were, nonetheless, fully integrated into the fabric of daily life,” Edwards said.

“Britian was quite bohemian, even in the sixth and seventh centuries,” Sawyer added.