Eleuthera, Harbour Island & Spanish Wells
Harbour Island Spanish Wells Eleuthera
Volume 11, Issue 2, March 2018
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PREACHER’S CAVE YIELDS FIRST
EVIDENCE OF ELUSIVE LUCAYAN-TAINO DNA
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REAL ESTATE DEALS
BACK COVER: Damianos Sotheby’s International PAGE 3: Coldwell Banker Lightbourn Realty PAGE 5: HG Christie
An international team of scientists led by Dr. Hannes Schroeder and Professor Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen successfully reconstructed the full genome of a Lucayan-Taino individual from a thousand-year-old tooth discovered at Preacher ’s Cave on Eleuthera in the northern Bahamas. Previous attempts to extract DNA from other samples from archaeological sites across the Caribbean had limited success because of the poor preservation conditions common throughout the tropics. The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The results indicate that the Lucayan-Taino ancestry can be traced to northern South America. The researchers also found evidence that the Taino, the first indigenous Americans to feel the full impact of European colonization after Columbus arrived in the New World, still have living descendants in the Caribbean today. The tooth that Schroeder and his colleagues used to reconstruct the genome was discovered by an archaeological team directed by historian Dr. Jane S. Day of Research Atlantica, Inc. under the field direction of Robert S. Carr, director of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy, and identified by bioarchaeologist Dr. William Shaffer of Phoenix College. The tooth was recovered in 2007 as part of an extensive study of Preacher ’s Cave, a Bahamian cave used for shelter by the Eleutherian Adventurers, the first English colonists in the Bahamas, who were shipwrecked on north Eleuthera in 1648. The archaeological team was surprised to discover intact Lucayan-Taino graves within meters of the Eleutherian Adventurers’ cemetery. The project was carried out with a permit and support from the Antiquities, Monuments & Museum Corporation (AMMC), and funded by the Bahamian Ministry of Tourism working toward the goal of establishing Preachers Cave as a National Heritage Tourism Park. The picturesque cave is a protected archaeological site that will enhance tourism on Eleuthera and the Bahamas. Researchers were able to use this tooth to sequence the first complete ancient human genome from the CaContinued On Page 4