The DNA of Iceland's First Known Black Man, Recreated from Living Descendants | Hacker News Reader

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

theatlantic.com

96 pointscurtis27 comments

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

10.6% of Iceland's population consists of first-generation immigrants, first and second generation make up 12% of the population. By comparison the US population is 14.4% first-generation immigrant. How is that a low level of immigrants? It's every 10th person on the island.

They also seem to have plenty of migrant workers from continental Europe now that tourism is booming.

Are you Icelandic? Some of this seems misinformed and based on hearsay rather than fact.

Around 10% of the Icelandic population are immigrants, which hardly qualifies as a low level. You could easily call it "wild, rugged" if you live in the highlands, but where most people live there's no stronger feeling of ruggedness than in any other northern European city or town.

High prices are a barrier, I'll give you that, but the winters are milder than you'd think (we can thank the Gulf Stream for that). The language is definitely a barrier, but culturally I wouldn't say it's a big hurdle.

>Around 10% of the Icelandic population are immigrants, which hardly qualifies as a low level.

What percentage is first generation low-skilled laborers outside of mainstream Icelandic society, or integrated immigrant citizens in all walks of life?

There's a big difference between the two.

I'll bite, what's the big difference? Are you asking whether Iceland's foreign-born population is mainly seasonal workers? No, they're not.

There's been a consistent increase in immigration since the mid-90s when Iceland joined the EU's free movement program. This pattern continued even though the 2008 crash (accelerated if anything).

Iceland's the 6th richest country in the EEA by GDP PPP. There's a general trend in the EEA of people moving from east to west for better pastures, Iceland's biggest foreign-born population is Poland, followed by Lithuania.

1. https://hagstofa.is/utgafur/frettasafn/mannfjoldi/innflytjen...

>I'll bite, what's the big difference?

The big difference would be as to whether immigrants are welcome and integrated, or merely tolerated as necessary evil unskilled laborers.

They are overwhelmingly welcome and integrated, although the integration level differs based on background, length of stay, language skills, etc.

> Are you Icelandic

No, and I guess I should not comment based on a shallow understanding, as I clearly got some things wrong. The upside is that the replies like yours are informative and factual.

Over 10% of Iceland's population is now foreign-born: http://archive.is/pTe5O You should reconsider your embrace of eugenics, btw.

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

What was the name of the village he lived in?

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

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.

All the original Europeans were black

I thought they were Neanderthal.

I think people are downvoting you because they think you are saying black people are Neanderthals.

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

here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/03/13/016... lighter-skin is a very recent adaption, only 8000 years 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_alb...

I do not think that is the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color#Evolution_of_...

cd/m^2?

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