Tooth enamel reveals the origins of African slaves buried on St Helena
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In the mid-19th century, the remote island of St. Helena, located about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) off the southwestern coast of Africa, became a receiving point for thousands of enslaved Africans rescued from illegal slave ships by the British Royal Navy. Tragically, about 8,000 died shortly after arriving and were buried in unmarked graves in Rupert's Valley.
Little was known about their lives because ship records usually named only coastal departure ports, not where captive people were born or lived before they were taken. But now, nearly two centuries after their arrival, new analysis of their remains is revealing more about them.
The findings are presented in a paper published in Science. R. Alexander Bentley of the University of Tennessee has written a Perspective piece on the work in the same issue.
Reconstructing journeys
To retrace the past, the research team analyzed tooth enamel from 152 people. Their remains were excavated in 2007 and 2008 after being discovered during construction of the island's first commercial airport.
Tooth enamel forms during childhood and adolescence and does not change over time. Because it absorbs strontium from food and drinking water, it locks in a permanent record of where a person lived during their formative years. Different areas have different strontium isotope signatures because of differences in the underlying rocks and soils.
The scientists then compared their results with a map showing strontium isotope patterns across sub-Saharan Africa. They also combined this information with historical shipping logs and DNA results from a previous study of the remains to estimate the most likely places of origin of these individuals.
"Together, these analyses shed light on two aspects of the trade in enslaved Africans that have been difficult to reconstruct: individuals' likely regions of origin and their forced movements before embarkation," wrote the researchers in their paper.
The results indicate that the captured individuals came from diverse backgrounds. Most grew up in coastal or near-coastal regions of western Central Africa, in areas around modern-day Angola and Gabon. However, the chemical signatures of some individuals point to origins much farther inland, as far as present-day Zimbabwe.
The authors also discovered clues about the journeys some children took. While strontium isotope signatures were consistent in most individuals, the chemical signatures in a small number of children shifted sharply between teeth formed in early and later childhood. This indicates that they may have relocated during childhood, possibly over hundreds of miles before reaching the slave ships on the coast.
Connecting to the past
As well as providing answers about the past, research like this can also help descendant communities connect with their heritage. "Rather than determining a single destination for return, these approaches provide an empirical framework to support informed, community-led decisions about remembrance and potential repatriation."
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Publication details
Xueye Wang et al, Tracing the origins of St Helena's liberated Africans, Science (2026). DOI: 10.1126/science.aeb3661
R. Alexander Bentley, Recovering lost origins, Science (2026). DOI: 10.1126/science.aej4801
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Citation: Tooth enamel reveals the origins of African slaves buried on St Helena (2026, July 17) retrieved 17 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tooth-enamel-reveals-african-slaves.html
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