Ancient DNA Reveals African Origins For Caribbean Bumboclots and Taxes in Egypt

[Oceanicpuppy]

Ancient DNA Reveals African Origins of Enslaved Individuals in Caribbean
Mar 10, 2015
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Andrea Anderson
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – An analysis of ancient DNA is providing a closer look at the ancestry and geographic origins of African individuals exploited by the transatlantic slave trade.

As detailed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team led by investigators in Denmark, the Netherlands, and the US enriched and sequenced ancient DNA that was extracted from the remains of three African individuals from a 17th century burial site on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin.


After verifying the African ancestry of the remains, the team used genotyping data for individuals from 11 present-day populations in sub-Saharan Africa to more precisely tease apart the ancient individuals' origins. The results suggest one of the individuals belonged to a Bantu-speaking population from northern Cameroon, while the other two shared genetic features with non-Bantu populations in Nigeria and Ghana.

"These three individuals were buried together and may have even arrived on the same vessel, the same ship," co-first author Hannes Schroeder, a researcher affiliated with the University of Copenhagen's Centre for Geogenetics and Leiden University, told GenomeWeb. "Yet they were genetically very distinct, they probably had different genetic backgrounds, and were maybe even speaking different languages."

More generally, he explained, the proof-of-principle study underscores the potential of using genomic data as a historical record or a type of archive. "You can use this data to start to answer historical questions," Schroeder said, noting that it can be applied to a wide range of sites and contexts, even in places where DNA preservation may be subpar.

The remains tested for the current study were discovered in around 2010 during a construction project. Researchers and archeologists suspected the individuals, who were buried some time between 1660 and 1688, had been born in Africa based on the presence of characteristic dental modifications that were common to some African cultures at the time.

"The remains themselves, obviously, gave no indication that they were enslaved," Schroeder noted. "But from the context, from the date, and from the fact that they had these dental modifications and were African, it's pretty clear that they were probably victims of the slave trade."

The team's first crack at doing shotgun sequencing on DNA from the samples came up short due to the fragmented, degraded, and deaminated nature of the genetic material. While that was no surprise given the Caribbean's toasty environment, it did present challenges when trying to directly apply next-generation sequencing to DNA extracted from the samples.

To get around those problems, the researchers enriched for ancient DNA using whole genome in-solution and capture (WISC) with the MYbait human genome kit, each of which rely on the use of biotinylated RNA probes to nab human DNA from the ancient libraries, Schroeder explained.

After preparing enriched libraries for each sample and sequencing them with the Illumina HiSeq 2000, the researchers compared the resulting sequences to one another and to panels of existing genome and/or genotyping information for individuals from present-day populations around the world.

Since the genome sequences generated from the ancient samples were still somewhat patchy, that involved comparisons with genotyping data for more than 850 global individuals from the Human Genome Diversity Cell Line Panel as well as comparisons with whole-genome sequences for individuals from 11 present-day populations.

Once they verified African ancestry for the ancient Caribbean samples, the researchers turned to genotyping data for more than 150 individuals from relevant African populations to tease apart more specific ancestry patterns.

Their results suggest that the female individual clustered with non-Bantu speaking populations currently found in Nigeria and Ghana, as did one of the male individuals. The other male shared ancestry with present-day Bantu-speaking groups in northern Cameroon.

Likewise, Schroeder noted that the latter individual carried Y chromosome sequences that fit that region, Schroeder noted, and belonged to a mitochondrial haplogroup that is common in northern Cameroon but rare in other parts of Africa.

"These two separate or independent indicators pointed at this one part of Cameroon as a potential place of origin," Schroeder said. That finding is consistent with historical records indicating that slaves brought to European trading posts in coastal regions of Africa came from more inland sites.

Because findings from the study represent only a few individuals, Schroeder emphasized that it is difficult to generalize the results for insights into the ancestry of the millions of individuals enslaved during the slave trade.

Schroeder and his collaborators are currently studying DNA from remains found at the African Burial Ground of New York. They are also looking at other locations relevant to the slave trade and/or Caribbean history through a research network called EUROTAST.

You Think Taxes Are Bad? They Were Heavier in Ancient Egypt
Tax day is never fun, but you can take solace in a new finding: A recently translated ancient Egyptian tax receipt shows a bill that is literally heavier than any American taxpayer will pay this year — more than 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of coins.

Written in Greek on a piece of pottery, the receipt states that a person (the name is unreadable) and his friends paid a land transfer tax that came to 75 talents, with a 15-talent charge added on. The tax was paid in coins and was delivered to a public bank in a city called Diospolis Magna (also known asLuxor or Thebes).


Just how much was 90 talents worth in ancient Egypt? [See photos of the ancient Egyptian tax receipt]

MCGILL UNIV. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES
Several ancient and medieval texts at McGill University Library and Archives are in the process of being deciphered and published by Concordia University's Brice Jones. Until now the texts had not been studied.
"It's an incredibly large sum of money," said Brice Jones, a Ph.D. student at Concordia University in Montreal who translated the text. "These Egyptians were most likely very wealthy."

The receipt has a date on it that corresponds to July 22, 98 B.C. Paper money didn't exist at that time, and no coin was worth anywhere near one talent, the researchers said. Instead people made up the sum using coins that were worth varying amounts of drachma.

One talent equaled 6,000 drachma, so 90 talents totaled 540,000 drachma, researchers say. For comparison, an unskilled worker at that time would have made only about 18,000 drachma a year, said Catharine Lorber, an independent scholar who has published numerous journal articles on Egyptian coins.

Back then, the highest-denomination coin was probably worth only 40 drachma, Lorber said.

It "would have taken 150 of these coins to make a talent, and 13,500 of them to equal 90 talents," Lorber told LiveScience in an email. "The coins in question weigh, on average, 8 grams [0.3 ounces], so the total payment of 90 talents probably had a weight in excess of 100 kilograms [220 pounds]."

The ancient tax receipt is located at McGill University Library and Archives in Montreal. Jones is studying and translating several texts from the library and is set to publish his findings in an upcoming issue of the journal Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists.

— Owen Jarus, LiveScience
This is a condensed version of a report from LiveScience. Read the full report. Follow LiveScience on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

• Photos: 3,300-Year-Old Egyptian Hairstyles Revealed
• Image Gallery: Egypt's Valley of the Kings
• In Photos: Ancient Egypt on Google Street View

First published March 16th 2015, 5:49 pm

/QUOTE]

 

[Cat piss martini]

it's saturday.

 

[BigMan]

I dont get the title

 

[Deluuxe]

I don't know the supposed history of St.Martin, but wikipedia says this:

"A massive influx of African slaves took place in the 18th century with the development of sugarcane plantations by the French Protestants and Dutch. Slavery was abolished in the first half of the 19th century. On some of their territories the British imported Chinese and East Indians to take the place of slaves. Thus, St. Martin and the other islands are populated by a mixture of Amerindian, European, African, Indian and Asian peoples."

They claim these people were barried between 1660-1668 and arrived threw the transatlantic slave trade?

Supposedly when Christopher Columbus discovered the island nobody was there if only some "Amerindians". These cac's cannot keep their lies in order . If you believe the synopsis found on these peoples site in 2015 you're loosing.

"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."