Update
STILBAAI NEWS - The role played by genetics in archaeological research with reference to developments in Africa, was the topic of a lecture by Prof Carina Schlebusch on Monday 13 November.
Schlebusch is from the Department of Organismal Biology at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at the Uppsala University in Sweden at Die Waenhuis at Jagersbosch.
This lecture was arranged by the Hessequa Archaeology Association.
Schlebusch, who is from Kroonstad in the Free State, together with Prof Michael de Jongh, an anthropologist at Unisa and Mario Vicente, a student at the Uppsala University conducted a genetic study among the Southern Cape Hessequa descendants to try to trace the genetic ancestry of the people of the Southern Cape.
During 2016 they collected saliva from volunteers and the results were analyzed at the Uppsala University.
A total of 160 samples from nine locations along the Cape south coast, between Stormsvlei in the West to Melkhoutfontein in the East were collected.
After genetic data analysis, they found that five main ancestral groups form part of the genetic ancestry of the people of the Southern Cape, i.e. San (the aboriginal inhabitants of Southern Africa), East African (Khoikhoi people resulted from a mix of San and East African stock farmers), European (from colonial time admixture), West Africans (from e.g. Xhosa, Zulu people who trace most of their ancestry to West Africa) and Asian (from the slave trade during colonial times).
The different individuals had different percentages of these components. Presently they are back in the southern Cape to give feedback on results in the different communities and give personal reports to every one of the study participants and discuss the meaning of the results with them.
From the left are Mario Vicente, Prof Carina Schlebusch and Prof Michael de Jongh.
They found that in general, the people are very excited to receive these ancestry reports and are extremely interested in where their genetic components came from.
ARTICLE & PHOTO: ELZA THIART-BOTES, SOUTH CAPE FORUM CORRESPONDENT
'We bring you the latest Stilbaai, Hessequa news'
