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Newly published research has added more evidence to our growing understanding of kinship and migration in Anglo-Saxon England, revealing that two 7th-century individuals, buried over 250km (153 miles) apart, each had a grandparent with West African ancestry.
One of these was a young man, aged between 17 and 25 years old at the time of his death, who was buried in a small cemetery at Worth Matravers on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. Previous analysis of the site had revealed that the majority of people buried there had a large proportion (c.77.4%) of Western British and Irish (WBI) ancestry, which is derived from British Iron Age lineages (see CA 392). This is in keeping with the burial rites observed there, which showed a continuation of late Roman practices: east–west inhumations, largely without grave goods.
In order to identify patterns of kinship between the burials, a recent study led by Ceiridwen Edwards from the University of Huddersfield reanalysed aDNA from 20 people buried at Worth Matravers. The results of this work revealed that 13 of the examined individuals belonged to one of four primary family groups, and that, on the whole, family members were clustered together within the cemetery. Additionally, while most of the mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited maternally) was found to be local during the British Iron Age, the Y-chromosome lineages were more diverse. Indeed, while almost 70% of the males examined in this way were related to at least one other individual from the cemetery, they were primarily related along the maternal line.
As for the young man with West African links mentioned above, he does not appear to have been related to any of the other analysed individuals. While his mitochondrial DNA was pan-European, his Y-chromosome DNA was consistent with West African ancestry. This evidence, along with the level of admixture in his genome, indicates that this man’s paternal grandparents were probably a European woman and a West African man. Adding to the interest of this burial, the young man had been placed in a grave with an adult man who was not a blood relative (below) – though another form of social kinship may have been at work. The older man was found with his head resting on a Purbeck limestone anchor, perhaps hinting at seafaring connections.
The young man from Worth Matravers is now the second 7th-century individual from England to be identified as having African ancestry. The first – discovered during a larger project examining Anglo-Saxon DNA, led by Duncan Sayer from the University of Lancashire – had been buried at Updown, near Eastry in Kent (CA 392). In contrast to the Worth Matravers cemetery, Updown appears to have been a much more typically ‘Anglo-Saxon’ site, with well-furnished burials. This interpretation was confirmed by aDNA analysis, establishing that 60% of the Updown cemetery population had Continental Northern European (CNE) ancestry.
There, the individual with African ancestry was a young girl (grave 47), aged between 11 and 13. While her autosomal DNA was 67% CNE, the other 33% indicated West African ancestors. As her mitochondrial DNA was European, it appears that, like the young man from Worth Matravers, her African ancestry was derived from her father’s family.
Unlike the man from Worth Matravers, however, this individual was related to three others buried at Updown: two women who are likely to have been her maternal grandmother (grave 34) and maternal aunt (grave 45), and a man who was probably her maternal great-grandfather (grave 52). All three of these individuals had predominately CNE ancestry.
These young individuals show that West African ancestry was present in both a population affected by the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ migration and one that saw more demographic continuity from the Roman period. While it is unknown where the individuals’ parents met, during the 7th century ivory and probably gold from West Africa was brought into Britain via Byzantine trade routes, and it could be that both of their genetic heritages are linked with this international trade.
The results from Worth Matravers (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10133) and Updown (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10139) were published in Antiquity.
Text: Kathryn Krakowka / Photo: Lilian Ladle
