DNA Analysis Reveals West African Ancestry in Early Medieval England

Two unrelated young people buried in cemeteries in England in the Early Middle Ages probably had grandparents from West Africa. How and when their relatives arrived in Britain is unknown, but the discovery implies that migrants in Anglo-Saxon times were coming from much further afield than previously thought.

After the Romans finally withdrew from Britain in AD 410, Britain was invaded and settled by Germanic Angles, Saxons and Jutes. To investigate whether people also arrived from elsewhere, Duncan Sayer at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, and his colleagues have analysed ancient DNA from the bones of people buried in two 7th-century cemeteries on England’s southern coast.

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