Overview

• Autosomal DNA from a girl at Updown and a youth at Worth Matravers contained 20–40 percent affinity to present-day West African groups while their mitochondrial lineages were northern European.
• Carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios indicate the Worth Matravers individual was born and raised locally and both were buried with customary grave goods and funerary rites.
• Researchers applied high-resolution ancient genome sequencing coupled with isotope and burial-context data to trace mixed ancestry and community status.
• Genealogical modelling suggests each individual’s West African ancestry entered the lineage through an unrelated paternal grandparent.
• Authors argue the findings challenge notions of an ethnically homogeneous Anglo-Saxon England and propose reopened Mediterranean trade after the Byzantine reconquest as a potential conduit for African gene flow.