DNA shows West African roots in 7th-century England

Two people buried 1,300 years ago in Britain had West African grandparents, a DNA test finds, in a discovery that rewrites the history of Africans’ integration into Medieval European society.

Archaeologists tested ancient DNA from skeletons found in two 7th-century graves in Kent and Dorset on the South Coast of England.

They were perplexed to discover that the remains of one woman and one man shared close genetic similarity with present-day Yoruba, Mende, Mandenka, and Esan groups from Sub-Saharan West Africa.

The DNA match, published in a study in the journal Antiquity, was so close that scientists estimated that each individual had an African paternal grandparent.

The finding is significant, as most previous evidence had suggested that migrants arriving in England during the period only came from as far as the Mediterranean region.

“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,” said Dr. Ceiridwen J. Edwards, one of the authors of the study.

A long journey from West-Africa to England

Scientists believe that the two individuals descended from migrants who left the southern Sahel area between the mid-sixth and the early seventh centuries during Byzantine control of North Africa.

As the heir to the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantine culture was highly influential, even in distant Britain. Researchers have found Byzantine coins - made with gold from Sub-Saharan Africa – across England.

But the discoveries in Kent and Dorset are some of the first evidence that the long-distance travels  also included the movement of people.

The study notes that African migrants to England were most likely not slaves  in the 7th century, as large-scale enslavement and trafficking in Africa started about two hundred years later.

The part-African Englishman and woman were buried as typical members of their communities, showing that they were fully integrated members of medieval British society.