A construction team working on a highway expansion in Maryland in 1979 discovered human remains on the grounds of an 18th-century ironworks.
Eventually, archaeologists uncovered 35 graves in a cemetery where enslaved people had been buried.
In the first effort of its kind, researchers now have linked DNA from 27 African Americans buried in the cemetery to nearly 42,000 living relatives.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., a historian at Harvard University and an author of the study, published on Thursday in the journal Science, said that the project marked the first time that historical DNA had been used to connect enslaved African Americans to living people.
“The history of Black people was intended to be a dark, unlit cave,” Dr. Gates said.
Persons:
Henry Louis Gates Jr, Gates
Organizations:
Harvard University
Locations:
Maryland