Event held at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi
As the place where humans evolved and have lived the longest, Africa is key to understanding the origins and evolutionary history of our species—Homo sapiens. Archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists have explored such questions for over a century by studying fossils and stone tools. More recently, DNA has become an important part of the story. The study of the sequence of our DNA, and especially those parts of the sequence where humans might differ from one another, helps scientists reconstruct human population history and understand the biological, environmental, and social forces that have shaped patterns of human genetic diversity over time. In other words, peering into our DNA can help us learn more about our ancestors, and why the world looks like it does today.
While the science of DNA goes back decades, almost everything we’ve learned about human population history has been fairly recent. Beginning in the 1980s, studies of DNA from living people revealed that every single person on the planet is descended from populations who lived in Africa. Since 2010, a number of scientific breakthroughs have made it possible to study the ancient DNA (aDNA) of a people who lived hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years ago. This “ancient DNA revolution” has fundamentally changed our views of the past.
While the number of published ancient human genomes recently passed 10,000, only about 3% of the individuals come from Africa. The continent has an extremely rich archaeological record, but recovering DNA from biological material like bones and teeth is challenging because hot and humid conditions break down the DNA molecules much faster than cold and dry settings. But the situation is rapidly changing. Methods are continually improving, setting the stage for research to dramatically increase in the coming decade. It’s therefore important we go about this work the right way.
While there is broad consensus among scientists that strong scientific research involves a diverse range of collaborators, African scholars remain starkly underrepresented in this field. Many factors contribute to this problem, but a big one is that genetics conferences are typically held in places like Europe and North America where it is hard for African scholars, particularly students, to attend. No genetics workshops focused on population history or ancient DNA had ever been held in Africa. In the course of pursuing our own collaborative aDNA research on the African past, my colleagues and I decided that this had to change.
In May 2023, we co-organized the first African DNA and aDNA conference as a joint effort between the National Museums of Kenya, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, and Rice University. We held the event at the Nairobi National Museum with grant funding from the John Templeton Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Around 100 people from 11 countries attended, about 80% of whom were scholars based in Africa. Participants included leading scientists in archaeology and genetics, museum curators and heritage officials, community leaders, and students from across Africa and around the world.
We spent three days discussing recent and ongoing DNA and aDNA research in Africa, identifying ethical challenges unique to African contexts and brainstorming solutions, and strategizing how to ensure that this work benefits African scholars and communities in the years to come. We are now working to publish our ideas to start a broader conversation with scientists in Africa and beyond, as well as people all over the world who are interested in what DNA tells us about our human past in Africa.
Holding this workshop was not an easy task. It was originally scheduled for August 2020 and had to be postponed three times because of the COVID-19 pandemic and international travel restrictions. Although we held a virtual meeting in the meantime, time zones and variable internet connections posed major roadblocks. By the time we could finally gather in person three years later, our goals for this workshop had grown and evolved, much like the field itself.
The pandemic saw a steep increase in the number of publications on the ethics of DNA and aDNA research, resulting in broad global guidelines calling for researchers to create comprehensive plans prior to beginning work, consult with local communities, and minimize damage to human remains and other archaeological materials. But despite knowing where we want to go, we still lack a detailed roadmap on how to get there. Recommendations developed in other parts of the world are not always appropriate in parts of Africa. And ultimately, it should be African scholars who decide how best to proceed. This is why it is important to continue having conversations about Africa in Africa.
There is still much work left to do, but DNAirobi was an important first step on the path toward an ethical and equitable future for DNA and aDNA research in Africa, and creating a community of people committed to walking it. After all, we are connected to Africa through our DNA. Such research tells the story of all of us and how we came to be—and it is important we get it right.
