Historical genomes elucidate European settlement and the African diaspora in Delaware

Raquel E Fleskes; Douglas W Owsley; Karin S Bruwelheide; Kathryn G Barca; Daniel R Griffith; Graciela S Cabana; Theodore G Schurr

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.069

Historical genomes elucidate European settlement and the African diaspora in Delaware

Curr Biol. 2023 Jun 5;33(11):2350-2358.e7. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.069. Epub 2023 May 18.

Authors

Raquel E Fleskes¹, Douglas W Owsley², Karin S Bruwelheide³, Kathryn G Barca³, Daniel R Griffith⁴, Graciela S Cabana⁵, Theodore G Schurr⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA; Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. Electronic address: raquel.fleskes@uconn.edu.
² Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA. Electronic address: owsleyd@si.edu.
³ Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
⁴ Archaeological Society of Delaware, Inc, Dover, DE 19903, USA.
⁵ Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA; Molecular Anthropology Laboratories, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
⁶ Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. Electronic address: tgschurr@sas.upenn.edu.

PMID: 37207647
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.069

Abstract

The 17^th-century colonization of North America brought thousands of Europeans to Indigenous lands in the Delaware region, which comprises the eastern boundary of the Chesapeake Bay in what is now the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.¹ The demographic features of these initial colonial migrations are not uniformly characterized, with Europeans and European-Americans migrating to the Delaware area from other countries and neighboring colonies as single persons or in family units of free persons, indentured servants, or tenant farmers.² European colonizers also instituted a system of racialized slavery through which they forcibly transported thousands of Africans to the Chesapeake region. Historical information about African-descended individuals in the Delaware region is limited, with a population estimate of less than 500 persons by 1700 CE.³^,⁴ To shed light on the population histories of this period, we analyzed low-coverage genomes of 11 individuals from the Avery's Rest archaeological site (circa 1675-1725 CE), located in Delaware. Previous osteological and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence analyses showed a southern group of eight individuals of European maternal descent, buried 15-20 feet from a northern group of three individuals of African maternal descent.⁵ Autosomal results further illuminate genomic similarities to Northwestern European reference populations or West and West-Central African reference populations, respectively. We also identify three generations of maternal kin of European ancestry and a paternal parent-offspring relationship between an adult and child of African ancestry. These findings expand our understanding of the origins and familial relationships in late 17^th and early 18^th century North America.

Keywords: North America; Y chromosome; ancient DNA; colonial; kinship; mitochondrial DNA; paleogenomics; trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Adult
Black People* / genetics
Child
DNA, Mitochondrial / genetics
Delaware
Genetics, Population
Haplotypes
Human Migration*
Humans
White

Substances

DNA, Mitochondrial