Ancient DNA and Cranial Morphometric Analysis into Ancestry of Five Burials from Colonial Delaware

Summary

Five burials were excavated from a small Colonial cemetery at the Elkins site in New Castle County, Delaware by Hunter Research, Inc. for Delaware DOT. The remains were analyzed for mitochondrial DNA haplogroups in conjunction with a standard skeletal biological assessment. Analysis of the mtDNA demonstrated European maternal lineages for all of the individuals. Additionally, an infant and an elderly male shared a derived haplogroup T haplotype, suggesting a matrilineal relationship between them. The infant was also established as male by amelogenin genetic testing. The craniofacial morphology of three of the adults is consistent with that seen in other early Colonial Europeans in the Chesapeake and Middle Atlantic, although it could be misinterpreted as indicating African ancestry. These individuals serve as an excellent example of this early Colonial pattern in Europeans and the mtDNA analysis confirms the European ancestry for all individuals from this cemetery.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage