#mtdna

Afro-Jamaicans are Jamaicans of predominant African descent. They represent the largest ethnic group in the country.

The ethnogenesis of the African Jamaican people stemmed from the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th century, when enslaved Africans were transported as slaves to Jamaica and other parts of the Americas. During the period of British rule, slaves brought into Jamaica were primarily Akan, some of whom ran away and joined with Maroons and even took over as leaders

West Africans were enslaved in wars with other West African states and kidnapped by either African or European slavers. The most common means of enslaving an African was through abduction.

Based on slave ship records, enslaved Africans mostly came from the Akan people (notably those of the Asante Kotoko alliance of the 1720's: Asante, Bono, Wassa, Nzema and Ahanta) followed by Kongo people, Fon people, Ewe people, and to a lesser degree: Yoruba, Ibibio people and Igbo people. Akan (then called Coromantee) culture was the dominant African culture in Jamaica.

Originally in earlier British colonization, the island before the 1750s was in fact mainly Akan imported. However, between 1663 and 1700, only six per cent of slave ships to Jamaica listed their origin as the Gold Coast, while between 1700 and 1720 that figure went up to 27 per cent. The number of Akan slaves arriving in Jamaica from Kormantin ports only increased in the early 18th century. But due to frequent rebellions from the then known "Coromantee" that often joined the slave rebellion group known as the Jamaican Maroons, other groups were sent to Jamaica. The Akan population was still maintained, since they were the preference of British planters in Jamaica because they were "better workers", according to these planters. According to the Slave Voyages Archives, though the Igbo had the highest importation numbers, they were only imported to Montego Bay and St. Ann's Bay ports, while the Akan (mainly Gold Coast) were more dispersed across the island and were a majority imported to seven of 14 of the island's ports (each parish has one port).

Myal and Revival

Kumfu (from the word Akom the name of the Akan spiritual system) was documented as Myal and originally only found in books, while the term Kumfu is still used by Jamaican Maroons. The priest of Kumfu was called a Kumfu-man. In 18th-century Jamaica, only Akan gods were worshipped by Akan as well as by other enslaved Africans. The Akan god of creation, Nyankopong was given praise but not worshipped directly. They poured libation to Asase Ya, the goddess of the earth. But nowadays they are only observed by the Maroons who preserved a lot of the culture of 1700s Jamaica.

"Myal" or Kumfu evolved into Revival, a syncretic Christian sect. Kumfu followers gravitated to the American Revival of 1800 Seventh Day Adventist movement because it observed Saturday as god's day of rest. This was a shared aboriginal belief of the Akan people as this too was the day that the Akan god, Nyame, rested after creating the earth. Jamaicans that were aware of their Ashanti past while wanting to keep hidden, mixed their Kumfu spirituality with the American Adventists to create Jamaican Revival in 1860. Revival has two sects: 60 order (or Zion Revival, the order of the heavens) and 61 order (or Pocomania, the order of the earth). 60 order worships God and spirits of air or the heavens on a Saturday and considers itself to be the more "clean" sect. 61 order more deals with spirits of the earth. This division of Kumfu clearly shows the dichotomy of Nyame and Asase Yaa's relationship, Nyame representing air and has his 60 order'; Asase Yaa having her 61 order of the earth. Also the Ashanti funerary/war colours: red and black have the same meaning in Revival of vengeance. Other Ashanti elements include the use of swords and rings as means to guard the spirit from spiritual attack. The Asantehene, like the Mother Woman of Revival, has special two swords used to protect himself from witchcraft called an Akrafena or soul sword and a Bosomfena or spirit sword

Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patwa, is an English creole language spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English. The language developed in the 17th century, when enslaved peoples from West and Central Africa blended their dialect and terms with the learned vernacular and dialectal forms of English spoken: British Englishes (including significant exposure to Scottish English) and Hiberno English. Jamaican Patwa is a post-creole speech continuum (a linguistic continuum) meaning that the variety of the language closest to the lexifier language (the acrolect) cannot be distinguished systematically from intermediate varieties (collectively referred to as the mesolect) nor even from the most divergent rural varieties (collectively referred to as the basilect). Jamaicans themselves usually refer to their use of English as patwa, a term without a precise linguistic definition.

Jamaican Patois contains many loanwords of African origin, a majority of those etymologically from Gold Coast region (particularly of the Asante-Twi dialect of the Akan language of Ghana).

Most Jamaican proverbs are of Asante people, while some included other African proverbs

Jamaican mtDNA

A DNA test study submitted to BMC Medicine in 2012 states that "....despite the historical evidence that an overwhelming majority of slaves were sent from the Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa near the end of the British slave trade, the mtDNA haplogroup profile of modern Jamaicans show a greater affinity with groups found in the present-day Gold Coast region Ghana....this is because Africans arriving from the Gold Coast may have thus found the acclimatization and acculturation process less stressful because of cultural and linguistic commonalities, leading ultimately to a greater chance of survivorship and a greater number of progeny."

More detailed results stated: "Using haplogroup distributions to calculate parental population contribution, the largest admixture coefficient was associated with the Gold Coast(0.477 ± 0.12 or 59.7% of the Jamaican population with a 2.7 chance of Pygmy and Sahelian mixture), suggesting that the people from this region may have been consistently prolific throughout the slave era on Jamaica. The diminutive admixture coefficients associated with the Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa (0.064 ± 0.05 and 0.089 ± 0.05, respectively) is striking considering the massive influx of individuals from these areas in the waning years of the British Slave trade. When excluding the pygmy groups, the contribution from the Bight of Biafra and West-central rise to their highest levels (0.095 ± 0.08 and 0.109 ± 0.06, respectively), though still far from a major contribution. When admixture coefficients were calculated by assessing shared haplotypes, the Gold Coast also had the largest contribution, though much less striking at 0.196, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.189 to 0.203. When haplotypes are allowed to differ by one base pair, the Jamaican matriline shows the greatest affinity with the Bight of Benin, though both Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa remain underrepresented. The results of the admixture analysis suggest the mtDNA haplogroup profile distribution of Jamaica more closely resembles that of aggregated populations from the modern-day Gold Coast region despite an increasing influx of individuals from both the Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa during the final years of trading enslaved Africans.

The aforementioned results apply to subjects whom have been tested. Results also stated that African Jamaicans (that make up more than 90% of the population) on an average have 97.5% of African MtDNA and very little European or Asian ancestry could be found. Both ethnic and racial genetic results are based on a low sample of 390 Jamaican persons and limited regional representation within Jamaica. As Afro-Jamaicans are not genetically homogeneous, the results for other subjects may yield different results.

Brought to you by a marine biologist back from series hiatus...

CLICK HERE FOR THE AC FISH EXPLAINED MASTERPOST!

I'm actually surprised AC Pocket Camp is still going strong, but good for them! It means we have some new stuff to cover! In particular, there are 10 new things I will cover as an extension of this series and, if ACPC continues to live on and give us new fish, then we'll keep going. Today we will begin the series humbly with the Sailfin Sandfish.

What a cute little guy. This fish first appeared in ACPC in December of 2023 and appears to be a new staple of winter time fishing at Saltwater Shores. It is currently available, most likely into March just as it was last winter. It's very common, so if you have played ACPC recently, you probably already have this.

Anyway, wtf is a sandfish? It's OK if you don't know them. I mean, for one - I don't either. But also, there are only two species of sandfish in the world and they are both from the North Pacific. The one in ACPC is named to species, but it is also called the Japanese Sandfish since its range is mostly all around Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Kuril Islands (basically, Japan and then north along the Russian shore and the little islands there). No matter what you call it, it's scientific name is Arctoscopus japonicus. It, and the Pacific Sandfish, are the only two species within the Family Trichodontidae.

By Totti - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87245526

The colors on the sprite are spot-on!

Sandfish are within the Order Perciformes, which tells you literally nothing, since a great chunk of fish are in that group. But wait, there's more! In 2001 it was discovered that the sandfish most likely belong to Scorpaenaformes, the scorpion fish, like lionfish. There is so much debate around what is and isn't in Perciformes. Just know that these guys are a pretty niche selection for ACPC to pick, and it is most definitely because they are fished extensively in Japan.

But how do they know that? What did they do to find that out? There are a bunch of ways that biologists employ to find out which animals are related to other animals, or simply put, figure out their phylogeny. In the past, and sometimes still used today, organisms are put into groups together based on common traits. The idea, at least we assume, is that if two animals share a trait, it means they are more closely related to each other than they are to animals without that trait. Now, this isn't without caveats (looking at convergent evolution scenarios) but it's still helpful.

In recent times, to get to the nitty gritty of phylogeny and determine with more certainty who is related to whom, we can use DNA. Now what does that really mean? Well, it could mean a lot of things - there are a lot of ways to use DNA to find out all sorts of secrets about disease, heredity, speciation, etc. But we don't have time for that. Without getting down a deeper rabbit hole, you have seen the double helox of DNA before in textbooks and stuff. The DNA is located in the nucleus of the cell where it stores all of the instructions the rest of cell reads in order to build and maintain a living thing. But it's the same concept - the fewer differences in genes (traits) between two species, the more related they are.

But what if I told you that the nucleus isn't the only place you can find DNA? There is also a little bit in your mitochondria (yes, the powerhouse of the cell). The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is only inherited maternally, meaning this DNA usually comes from the mother, the egg cell (there are always exceptions in bio...also, we're just going to focus on animals, but fun fact, plants have some DNA in their chloroplasts, too). mtDNA is really useful in phylogeny, especially when we start to parse out species that are very closely related. The mtDNA is unique from nuclear DNA because it gets less efficient DNA repair, giving it a chance to keep mutations that can build up in a species. Again, this is just comparison at the end of the day - if two species have fewer differences in their mtDNA genome, the more closely related they are. The advantage of using mtDNA is that it is even more precise than nuclear DNA because it evolves faster. (This is actually one way in which new species are found!) You can even use mtDNA to show the relatedness between populations within a species. It's just another really cool way we can find stuff out about our living world!

Quick DNA 'testing' services thread, because it bares repeating. Using the Volga Germans as an example.

Bob is from Michigan, both ma and pa have bloodlines indigenous to the Americas. He's an enrolled Mohawk, but fairly 'pale' as it goes. Which is because both ma and pa also have bloodlines that trace back to western Europe. He's independently documented back his genealogy ten generations, there is no trace to Western or Central Asia. However, one day he decides to take one of those mail-in DNA tests and he is startled to find out he's been Turkish this whole time.

RESEARCH ARTICLE:

Museum specimens of a landlocked pinniped reveal recent loss of genetic diversity and unexpected population connections

In 2015, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to legalize the creation of babies from the DNA of three people in a technique known as mitochondrial DNA replacement therapy. – WTF Fun Facts

Baby with DNA from three people born in Greece 

A baby with DNA from three people has been born in Greece following a controversial fertility treatment.

The baby boy, weighing 2.9kg (6lb), was born on Tuesday and both he and his mother, who is 32, are said to be in good health.

The doctors behind the treatment, from Greece and Spain, say it marks a historic advance – it is the first time an IVF technique involving DNA from three people has been used with the aim of addressing fertility problems.

But UK experts criticised the decision to proceed with the treatment, which they said was not backed by evidence and involved unjustifiable risks.

Humankind’s maternal roots extend back about 200,000 years to what was then a lush region of southern Africa, a study suggests. But these results highlight how much remains unknown about human origins.

Examining variations in a type of maternally inherited DNA, scientists concluded that the founding maternal line of Homo sapiens arose in what’s now northern Botswana. Then around 130,000 years ago, some members of that group migrated in two waves to East Africa via a vegetated corridor created by increased rainfall, the researchers report. Until then, that corridor was arid and sparsely vegetated. Those East African migrants may have eventually given rise to early herding and farming groups there.

A second population pulse out of the maternal homeland moved southwest, all the way to the southern tip of Africa, by around 110,000 years ago, while some members stayed behind, geneticist Vanessa Hayes and colleagues report online October 28 in Nature.

As in the previous migration, climate data indicate that wetter conditions created a green pathway for people to traverse. Southern migrants became specialists in hunting and gathering along the coast, the scientists speculate.

New DNA analyses suggest that, around 200,000 years ago, a founding maternal line of Homo sapiens (red circle) emerged in a region (green) of what’s now Botswana that was home to the ancient Makgadikgadi-Okavango wetlands (blue). Members of that population migrated northeast and southwest between 130,000 and 110,000 years ago.

CREDIT:  E.K.F. CHAN ET AL/NATURE 2019

“Everyone alive today goes back genetically to one maternal starting point in southern Africa,” said Hayes, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, in an Oct. 24 news conference. Geologic and archeological evidence suggest that the homeland was characterized by vast, ancient wetlands that allowed humans to thrive there for about 70,000 years.

But the question of how, when and where H. sapiens originated remains far from settled.

That’s because Hayes’ team examined only mitochondrial DNA, which represents a tiny fraction of human ancestry, says archaeologist Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.

Ancient folks who possessed forms of mitochondrial DNA that managed to get passed to people today were not the only people living in Africa 200,000 years ago or earlier, Scerri emphasizes. So only studies of entire genomes (SN: 9/28/17), or at least analyses of nuclear DNA, can provide reliable glimpses of ancient human origins, she argues. In contrast to mitochondrial DNA, nuclear DNA is inherited from both parents and would provide clues to the timing and location of humankind’s paternal roots.

Researchers will need to extract ancient DNA from human fossils to determine whether southern African foraging groups today are related to people who lived in the same region 50,000 or 200,000 years ago, says geneticist Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania. And numbers of East African foragers are now so small that mitochondrial DNA can’t resolve the age and location of their maternal roots, leaving a big question mark about humankind’s maternal evolution, Tishkoff says.

Taking available archaeological, fossil and DNA evidence into account, present-day H. sapiens probably originated from mating among human groups all across Africa that had different mixes of skeletal traits (SN: 12/13/17), beginning around 300,000 years ago, Scerri argues.

“It’s possible, even likely, that [multiple] geographic centers contributed portions of their heritage to build our genome, which cannot be addressed by mitochondrial diversity alone,” says geneticist Rebecca Cann of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

But the new study provides crucial support for evidence that the roots of human mitochondrial DNA extend back as early as 200,000 years ago in sub-Saharan Africa, Cann says. She and colleagues reported the first mitochondrial DNA support for that scenario in a landmark 1987 paper. Cann’s group concluded that living people’s mitochondrial DNA stemmed from one woman, popularly dubbed “mitochondrial Eve,” who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. But it was unclear where she originated and how subsequent human migrations from there might have occurred.  

Hayes’ team studied a rare form of mitochondrial DNA, known as L0, which is today largely restricted to the Khoisan people of southern Africa. Khoisan consist of separate populations of herder-gatherers and hunter-gatherers who speak languages containing “click” consonants. Over the last decade, researchers have determined that L0 has far more ancient roots than other forms of mitochondrial DNA that have been inherited by living people.

The researchers collected L0 mitochondrial DNA from 198 indigenous people living in southern Africa, mainly Khoisan. Adding in previously published samples, Hayes’ group analyzed L0 mitochondrial DNA from a total of 1,217 people.

Mitochondrial DNA accumulates changes slowly over many generations. Based on numbers of mitochondrial DNA alterations to samples from different parts of southern Africa, the scientists calculated how long ago and approximately where each L0 variant originated, revealing the ancient migrations and the ancestral homeland.

Comparisons with geologic data and computer simulations of ancient climate shifts corroborated the genetic evidence for the timing of migrations out of that homeland, the researchers say.