LUSAKA: A newly developed genetic technique has enabled researchers to sequence DNA from the teeth of
300-year-old skeletons, helping to pinpoint where in Africa three slaves had likely lived before being captured and transported to the Caribbean.
More than 300 years ago, three African-born slaves died in St Martin but their names and precise ethnic background remained a mystery.
For centuries, their skeletons were subjected to the hot, wet weather until they were unearthed in 2010 during a construction project in the Zoutsteeg area of the capital city of Philipsburg.
Now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California and the University of Copenhagen, have extracted and sequenced tiny bits of DNA remaining in the skeletons’ teeth.
From this data, they were able to determine where in Africa the individuals likely lived before they were captured and enslaved.
An article in Stanford Medicine News said the research marks the first time that scientists have been able to use “old, poorly preserved DNA to identify with high specificity the ethnic origins of long-dead individuals”.
They learned that one skeleton was that of a man who most likely belonged to a Bantu-speaking group in northern Cameroon, while the other two shared similarities with non-Bantu-speaking groups in present-day Nigeria and Ghana.
According to the article, this finding, paves the way for a greater understanding of the patterns of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and may transform the general practice of genealogical and historical research.
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