Some Indian ancestry in the genes of mediaeval Swahili people: new study

A study of centuries-old DNA has deciphered the complex ancestry of coastal East Africa’s Swahili people with traces from Persia and India.

A study of centuries-old DNA has deciphered the complex ancestry of coastal East Africa's Swahili people, revealing how a cosmopolitan and prosperous medieval civilization arose thanks in large part to women from Africa and men arriving from Persia.

Researchers said on Wednesday they examined the DNA of 80 people from five sites in Kenya and Tanzania dating to about 1250 to 1800 AD. More than half of the genetic input in many of them traced to female ancestors from Africa's east coast while a significant contribution also came from Asia, of which about 90% came from men from Persia - modern Iran - and 10% from India.

After around 1500 AD, the bulk of the Asian genetic contribution shifted to Arabian sources, the study showed.

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The Swahili coast region stretches roughly from the Somali capital Mogadishu at the north to Tanzania's Kilwa island at the south and also includes parts of Kenya and Malawi and the Indian Ocean archipelagoes of Zanzibar and Comoros.

The medieval Swahili people in city-states such as Mombasa and Zanzibar exported goods from the African interior including ivory, gold, ebony and sandalwood, as well as slaves, to destinations across the Indian Ocean. They also were among the first practitioners of Islam among sub-Saharan people.

"The sex-bias in the African-Asian admixture raises questions about the social dynamics and gender roles. On the one hand, you have Persian men mixing with African women, which might highlight social inequalities, usually with the female mixing population of a lower status," said Harvard University geneticist Esther Brielle, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.