7 ms·

The DNA of Iceland's First Known Black Man, Recreated from Living Descendants

96 points by curtis 9y ago

randomdrake 9y ago
Study: Reconstructing an African haploid genome from the 18th century Citation: Jagadeesan, Anuradha. Gunnarsdóttir, Ellen D.. Ebenesersdóttir, S. Sunna. Guðmundsdóttir, Valdis B.. Thordardottir, Elisabet Linda. Einarsdóttir, Margrét S.. Jónsson, Hákon. Dugoujon, Jean-Michel. Fortes-Lima, Cesar. Migot-Nabias, Florence. Massougbodji, Achille. Bellis, Gil. Pereira, Luisa. Másson, Gísli. Kong, Augustine. Stefánsson, Kári. Helgason, Agnar. Nature Genetics 1,7 1061-4036 2018. Link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-017-0031-6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-017-0031-6 DOI: 10.1038/s41588-017-0031-6 Abstract: A genome is a mosaic of chromosome fragments from ancestors who existed some arbitrary number of generations earlier. Here, we reconstruct the genome of Hans Jonatan (HJ), born in the Caribbean in 1784 to an enslaved African mother and European father. HJ migrated to Iceland in 1802, married and had two children. We genotyped 182 of his 788 descendants using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chips and whole-genome sequenced (WGS) 20 of them. Using these data, we reconstructed 38% of HJ’s maternal genome and inferred that his mother was from the region spanned by Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.
matte_black 9y ago
What was the name of the village he lived in?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- haraldurt 9y ago
  Per Wikipedia, Hans Jonatan worked in Djúpivogur and lived in Borgargarður (which I believe is/was a farm or homestead located in the former) in the East Fjords of Iceland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Jonatan#Life_in_Iceland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Jonatan#Life_in_Iceland
ujal 9y ago
cd/m^2?
noetic_techy 9y ago
How easy is it to immigrate to Iceland these days? You would think such a tight gene pool, enough so that you can reconstruct a past newcomer, would want some refreshers now and then.
- wavegeek 9y ago
  Hybrid vigor is much overstated. It only has value in cases of extreme inbreeding, such as where first cousin marriage is common or the society is very small.
  - hrc_imwithher 9y ago
    The report Ethnic Origin and Disability Data Collection in Europe: Measuring Inequality—Combating Discrimination is published within the framework of the Equality Data Initiative, a project launched by the Open Society Foundations in collaboration with the Migration Policy Group and the European Network Against Racism to increase awareness within the European Union for the need to collect reliable data for groups at risk of discrimination. The report challenges the commonly held view in Europe that the collection of disability and ethnic data is categorically prohibited. It voices the necessity to involve the affected communities in the process of defining best practices and to respect binding core principles of data collection such as self-identification of the data subject and consent-based, voluntary, and anonymized data collection.
- avar 9y ago
  If you're one of the half a billion people in the European Economic Area it's really easy. It's part of the same freedom of movement program as EU countries. Outside of that easy if you're highly educated and have a job waiting for you, pretty much impossible otherwise.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago
    Iceland is an isolated small country with a low level of immigrants and it's own language and culture. It seemed to me rather insular and self-reliant. It's a wild, rugged country. I expect that the real barriers will be language and cultural - i.e. how to integrate, not just make a living. It's probably easiest if you come from a Scandinavian country. The other barriers are the the high prices and the arctic winters.
vbuwivbiu 9y ago
All the original Europeans were black
- ken47 9y ago
  I thought they were Neanderthal.
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    I think people are downvoting you because they think you are saying black people are Neanderthals.
- tomji 9y ago
  Out of Africa does not mean „were black“. This is such a stupid 21st century statement about prehistoric conditions.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - vbuwivbiu 9y ago
    here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/03/13/016477.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/03/13/016... lighter-skin is a very recent adaption, only 8000 years ago
    - Zenst 9y ago
      I've often wondered about albino's and how they got treated in prehistory. Many got persecuted and outcast from their community and is it possible they got driven out and away from the country away and thru interbeading played a part in what we class today as lighter-skin people, who may of very well been a driven north towards Europe etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_people_with_albinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_people_with_alb...
      - 9y ago
interfixus 9y ago
A note on the backstory: Slavery was not legal in Denmark proper in 1801 ("only" in the colonies). Hans Jonatan, when the case against him was brought before court, was explicitly not judged as a slave, but as someone not allowed residence in the country. He was to be deported back to the Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands), and that was the prospect from which he escaped to Iceland (then under the Danish-Norwegian crown). Tangential: The presiding judge was Anders Sandø Ørsted, brother of the Hans Christian Ørsted who set the whole electromagnetism thing in motion, and lends his name to the oersted unit.
avar 9y ago
Davíð Oddason, Iceland's longest serving prime minister, is one of his descendants: https://www.mbl.is/greinasafn/grein/120768/ https://www.mbl.is/greinasafn/grein/120768/
yakitori 9y ago
Half black man. His father was european and his mother was a black slave. Though he may be socially/culturally black, he was genetically half white. But I don't expect much integrity from the atlantic. That out of the way, it is biologically and statistically impossible to recreate a person's DNA that far back because every generation, a portion of an ancestor's genes are lost. You get about 50% of your mother's genes and 50% of your father's genes. Also, you didn't need to "reconstruct" a portion of the maternal genome to find out the lineage. All you needed was the X chromosome of one of the descendents to get an idea of where the slave ancestor came from. Beyond that, you don't really need a DNA test since most slaves in the americas came from west africa - predominantly nigeria/cameroon/benin region.

96 points by curtis 9y ago

Study: Reconstructing an African haploid genome from the 18th century Citation: Jagadeesan, Anuradha. Gunnarsdóttir, Ellen D.. Ebenesersdóttir, S. Sunna. Guðmundsdóttir, Valdis B.. Thordardottir, Elisabet Linda. Einarsdóttir, Margrét S.. Jónsson, Hákon. Dugoujon, Jean-Michel. Fortes-Lima, Cesar. Migot-Nabias, Florence. Massougbodji, Achille. Bellis, Gil. Pereira, Luisa. Másson, Gísli. Kong, Augustine. Stefánsson, Kári. Helgason, Agnar. Nature Genetics 1,7 1061-4036 2018. Link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-017-0031-6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-017-0031-6 DOI: 10.1038/s41588-017-0031-6 Abstract: A genome is a mosaic of chromosome fragments from ancestors who existed some arbitrary number of generations earlier. Here, we reconstruct the genome of Hans Jonatan (HJ), born in the Caribbean in 1784 to an enslaved African mother and European father. HJ migrated to Iceland in 1802, married and had two children. We genotyped 182 of his 788 descendants using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chips and whole-genome sequenced (WGS) 20 of them. Using these data, we reconstructed 38% of HJ’s maternal genome and inferred that his mother was from the region spanned by Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.

matte_black 9y ago

What was the name of the village he lived in?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
haraldurt 9y ago
Per Wikipedia, Hans Jonatan worked in Djúpivogur and lived in Borgargarður (which I believe is/was a farm or homestead located in the former) in the East Fjords of Iceland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Jonatan#Life_in_Iceland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Jonatan#Life_in_Iceland

ujal 9y ago

cd/m^2?

noetic_techy 9y ago

How easy is it to immigrate to Iceland these days? You would think such a tight gene pool, enough so that you can reconstruct a past newcomer, would want some refreshers now and then.

wavegeek 9y ago
Hybrid vigor is much overstated. It only has value in cases of extreme inbreeding, such as where first cousin marriage is common or the society is very small.
- hrc_imwithher 9y ago
  The report Ethnic Origin and Disability Data Collection in Europe: Measuring Inequality—Combating Discrimination is published within the framework of the Equality Data Initiative, a project launched by the Open Society Foundations in collaboration with the Migration Policy Group and the European Network Against Racism to increase awareness within the European Union for the need to collect reliable data for groups at risk of discrimination. The report challenges the commonly held view in Europe that the collection of disability and ethnic data is categorically prohibited. It voices the necessity to involve the affected communities in the process of defining best practices and to respect binding core principles of data collection such as self-identification of the data subject and consent-based, voluntary, and anonymized data collection.
avar 9y ago
If you're one of the half a billion people in the European Economic Area it's really easy. It's part of the same freedom of movement program as EU countries. Outside of that easy if you're highly educated and have a job waiting for you, pretty much impossible otherwise.
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago
  Iceland is an isolated small country with a low level of immigrants and it's own language and culture. It seemed to me rather insular and self-reliant. It's a wild, rugged country. I expect that the real barriers will be language and cultural - i.e. how to integrate, not just make a living. It's probably easiest if you come from a Scandinavian country. The other barriers are the the high prices and the arctic winters.

vbuwivbiu 9y ago

All the original Europeans were black

ken47 9y ago
I thought they were Neanderthal.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  I think people are downvoting you because they think you are saying black people are Neanderthals.
tomji 9y ago
Out of Africa does not mean „were black“. This is such a stupid 21st century statement about prehistoric conditions.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- vbuwivbiu 9y ago
  here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/03/13/016477.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/03/13/016... lighter-skin is a very recent adaption, only 8000 years ago
  - Zenst 9y ago
    I've often wondered about albino's and how they got treated in prehistory. Many got persecuted and outcast from their community and is it possible they got driven out and away from the country away and thru interbeading played a part in what we class today as lighter-skin people, who may of very well been a driven north towards Europe etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_people_with_albinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_people_with_alb...
    - 9y ago

interfixus 9y ago

A note on the backstory: Slavery was not legal in Denmark proper in 1801 ("only" in the colonies). Hans Jonatan, when the case against him was brought before court, was explicitly not judged as a slave, but as someone not allowed residence in the country. He was to be deported back to the Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands), and that was the prospect from which he escaped to Iceland (then under the Danish-Norwegian crown). Tangential: The presiding judge was Anders Sandø Ørsted, brother of the Hans Christian Ørsted who set the whole electromagnetism thing in motion, and lends his name to the oersted unit.

avar 9y ago

Davíð Oddason, Iceland's longest serving prime minister, is one of his descendants: https://www.mbl.is/greinasafn/grein/120768/ https://www.mbl.is/greinasafn/grein/120768/

yakitori 9y ago

Half black man. His father was european and his mother was a black slave. Though he may be socially/culturally black, he was genetically half white. But I don't expect much integrity from the atlantic. That out of the way, it is biologically and statistically impossible to recreate a person's DNA that far back because every generation, a portion of an ancestor's genes are lost. You get about 50% of your mother's genes and 50% of your father's genes. Also, you didn't need to "reconstruct" a portion of the maternal genome to find out the lineage. All you needed was the X chromosome of one of the descendents to get an idea of where the slave ancestor came from. Beyond that, you don't really need a DNA test since most slaves in the americas came from west africa - predominantly nigeria/cameroon/benin region.