
The DNA of Iceland's First Known Black Man, Recreated from Living Descendants - curtis
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/hans-jonatan-iceland-genome-reconstructed/550667/?single_page=true
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randomdrake
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.

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interfixus
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.

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noetic_techy
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.

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wavegeek
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.

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avar
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/)

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matte_black
What was the name of the village he lived in?

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haraldurt
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)

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yakitori
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.

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vbuwivbiu
All the original Europeans were black

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tomji
Out of Africa does not mean „were black“. This is such a stupid 21st century
statement about prehistoric conditions.

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vbuwivbiu
here
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/03/13/016...](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/03/13/016477.full.pdf)
lighter-skin is a very recent adaption, only 8000 years ago

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Zenst
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_alb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_people_with_albinism)

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sorisos
I do not think that is the case.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color#Evolution_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color#Evolution_of_skin_color)

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ujal
cd/m^2?

