Did Africans Come to Americas With Columbus?
...Using DNA tests, archaeologists believe they have identified at least two people of African descent buried at the site of the first European colony in the Americas, La Isabela, which was founded (and swiftly abandoned) by Columbus in the late 15th century.
La Isabela -- on the north coast of what is now the Dominican Republic -- was established by Columbus in 1493 on his second trip to the New World. His 17-ship armada dropped off 1,500 men (including Franciscan friars, farmers and craftsman) together with the livestock and agricultural equipment that would help them tame the land. Unfortunately, while Columbus may have been a great navigator, he was a lousy urban planner. La Isabela was surrounded by infertile land and sat in the firing line of hurricanes blowing in from the north and west. Famine, tropical disease and unfriendly locals killed some 1,200 colonists in the first two years. And in 1498, the colony was permanently abandoned.
While tragic, the pioneers' high fatality rate has left rich pickings for archaeologists interested in the lives and origins of the first modern Americans. Forty-nine skeletons were excavated from La Isabela's packed graveyard between 1983 and 1991, and now -- with the help of modern technology -- those bones are starting to give up their secrets.
Professor T. Douglas Price from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of Schroeder's colleagues, recently attempted to pin down the 49 settlers' birthplaces by analyzing the carbon, oxygen and strontium isotope ratios in their tooth enamel. These elemental signatures are locked in tooth enamel during childhood and vary depending on the diet, climate, altitude and local geology of a person's homeland. Last year, Price noted that the isotopic ratios in seven of the skeletons suggested they could have African origins....
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La Isabela -- on the north coast of what is now the Dominican Republic -- was established by Columbus in 1493 on his second trip to the New World. His 17-ship armada dropped off 1,500 men (including Franciscan friars, farmers and craftsman) together with the livestock and agricultural equipment that would help them tame the land. Unfortunately, while Columbus may have been a great navigator, he was a lousy urban planner. La Isabela was surrounded by infertile land and sat in the firing line of hurricanes blowing in from the north and west. Famine, tropical disease and unfriendly locals killed some 1,200 colonists in the first two years. And in 1498, the colony was permanently abandoned.
While tragic, the pioneers' high fatality rate has left rich pickings for archaeologists interested in the lives and origins of the first modern Americans. Forty-nine skeletons were excavated from La Isabela's packed graveyard between 1983 and 1991, and now -- with the help of modern technology -- those bones are starting to give up their secrets.
Professor T. Douglas Price from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of Schroeder's colleagues, recently attempted to pin down the 49 settlers' birthplaces by analyzing the carbon, oxygen and strontium isotope ratios in their tooth enamel. These elemental signatures are locked in tooth enamel during childhood and vary depending on the diet, climate, altitude and local geology of a person's homeland. Last year, Price noted that the isotopic ratios in seven of the skeletons suggested they could have African origins....