Charleston honors Black ancestors, with both science and ceremony

doi:10.1126/science.373.6551.153

GSTDTAP > 气候变化

DOI	10.1126/science.373.6551.153
	Charleston honors Black ancestors, with both science and ceremony
	Lizzie Wade
	2021-07-09
发表期刊	Science
出版年	2021
英文摘要	Archaeology and genetics help reveal the life stories of 36 enslaved people Like the 51 enslaved people of African descent whose bodies were dug up in Cuba in 1840 for anthropologist Samuel Morton's collection, the 36 people buried in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, were nameless. No record of the graveyard or those buried in it existed, making it likely they were also enslaved Africans or their descendants. But the fate of their remains, found during construction in 2013, was different from those in the Morton collection (see main story, p. [148][1]). Instead of being acquired by scientific collectors, the 36—as African American retired teacher La'Sheia Oubré of Charleston calls them—became the responsibility of the city and its Black community, who turned to scientists to help discover their identities and life stories. Called to investigate, archaeologists noted that the 36, also known as the Anson Street Ancestors after the location of their graves, had been buried with care, in regular rows. Nails and brass pins showed many had been wrapped in shrouds. Buttons, including one made of mother-of-pearl, showed they had been dressed by people who mourned them. Pieces of clay tobacco pipes were buried with two men, and a copper coin—a West African tradition—with another person. One man's incisors had been filed into points, a rite of passage in West Africa. A child had two copper half-pennies placed over their eyes. The half-pennies, minted in 1773, and other offerings helped date the graveyard to between 1760 to 1790, when enslaved Africans made up nearly half of Charleston's population. The nonprofit Gullah Society, which protects African and African American burial grounds around Charleston, held consultations about the 36 with the city's Black and African American communities. The community wanted to rebury them with love, honor, and respect. But first they wanted to learn everything they could about the 36, including their genetic ancestry. So Ade Ofunniyin, an African American anthropologist and founder of the Gullah Society, invited anthropological geneticists from the University of Pennsylvania to collaborate. “Right from the get-go it was set up that we were going to try to levy our resources and expertise to answer the questions and [serve the] needs of the community,” says one of the geneticists, Raquel Fleskes, who is white and now at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. When, working alone in a sterile lab, she ground up small pieces of bone from each of the 36 and extracted their DNA, she wore a GoPro camera on her head to share the process with the community. Every bit of sampled bone was saved to be reburied. Other researchers measured strontium isotopes in teeth and bones, which preserve chemical signatures of where a person grew up and lived. Although 35 of the 36 had types of mitochondrial DNA—genetic material inherited through the mother—common in Central and West Africa, one woman's mtDNA linked her with Native American groups. The finding pointed to the intertwined histories of Black and Indigenous people in Charleston, as people from both communities were enslaved. Most of the 36 had lived in Charleston all their lives. The results were published in October 2020 in biological anthropology's flagship journal, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology . From what was learned about the heritage and sex of the 36, the Gullah Society organized a ceremony, presided over by Yoruba priests, to give each a name. The child with the half-pennies placed on the eyes is Welela. Welela was buried next to Isi, an adult with an identical mitochondrial genome, so at least two of the 36 were buried with family. On 4 May 2019, a horse-drawn hearse carried some of the remains through Charleston's streets for reburial near their original resting place. A crowd followed, filling the air with drumming and chants. “Every group of people that were identified within the 36 were part of the ceremony,” remembers Oubré, who works with the Anson Street African Burial Ground project. “Native American, African, Caribbean, children, adults. We had dancing, we had music. … Never before had Charleston seen such grandeur.” The remains were laid in a burial vault with notes written by the community. “To my beloved ancestors, thank you for life and making your journey to Charleston, SC. You are honored and may God bless your souls,” one read. Ofunniyin read out each of the 36 names, and the community echoed them back. “It is our responsibility to take care of our elders,” Oubré says. “Without them, there would be no us.” [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/373/6551/148
领域	气候变化 ; 资源环境
URL	查看原文
引用统计
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/334198
专题	气候变化资源环境科学
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Lizzie Wade. Charleston honors Black ancestors, with both science and ceremony[J]. Science,2021.
APA	Lizzie Wade.(2021).Charleston honors Black ancestors, with both science and ceremony.Science.
MLA	Lizzie Wade."Charleston honors Black ancestors, with both science and ceremony".Science (2021).