DNA identification of a sailor from the 1845 Franklin northwest passage expedition

Polar Record ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas R. Stenton ◽  
Stephen Fratpietro ◽  
Anne Keenleyside ◽  
Robert W. Park
Keyword(s):  
Y Chromosome ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Dna Identification ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
Life Event ◽  
Northwest Passage ◽  
Dna Analyses ◽  
Archaeological Sample ◽  
History Of

Abstract The 1845 British polar expedition in search of a northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic under the command of Sir John Franklin resulted in the greatest loss of life event in the history of polar exploration. The names of the 129 officers and crew who sailed and died on the catastrophic voyage are known, but the identification of their skeletons found scattered along the route of their attempted escape is problematic. Here, we report DNA analyses from skeletal remains from King William Island, where the majority of the expedition fatalities occurred, and from a paternal descendant of a member of the expedition. A match was found between an archaeological sample and a presumed descendant sample using Y-chromosome haplotyping. We conclude that DNA and genealogical evidence confirm the identity of the remains as those of Warrant Officer John Gregory, Engineer, HMS Erebus. This is the first member of the 1845 Franklin expedition whose identity has been confirmed through DNA and genealogical analyses.

Marine Navigation in the Canadian Arctic

1952 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
J. H. MacLean
Keyword(s):  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Ellesmere Island ◽  
North Pole ◽  
British Government ◽  
Short Route ◽  
Northwest Passage ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Marine Navigation

The history of marine navigation in the area to the north of Hudson Straits and west of Greenland dates back to Martin Frobisher in 1567, John Davis in 1585 (who reached N. 72° 15′), and William Baffin, who got as far as Smith Sound (N. 77° 45′) in 1616. All of them were searching for a short route to the East. There was little exploration in the area for the next two-hundred years, until, in 1818, the British Government recommended explorations for the Northwest Passage: This activity continued throughout the Franklin era up to 1875, when Captain George Nares proceeded to N. 82° 25′ on the northern end of Ellesmere Island. After this, the role of exploration gradually passed to American hands, largely culminating in 1909 with Robert E. Peary's attainment of the North Pole.

scholarly journals Faces from the Franklin expedition? Craniofacial reconstructions of two members of the 1845 northwest passage expedition

Polar Record ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas R. Stenton ◽  
Anne Keenleyside ◽  
Diana P. Trepkov ◽  
Robert W. Park
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Northwest Passage ◽  
Dna Analyses

ABSTRACTIn 2013, partial skeletal remains from three members of the 1845 John Franklin expedition were recovered from an archaeological site at Erebus Bay, King William Island, Nunavut. The remains included three crania, two of which were sufficiently intact to allow craniofacial reconstructions. Identifications are not proposed for either reconstruction; however, tentative identifications are being explored through DNA analyses currently underway that include samples obtained from both crania.

scholarly journals Exhibition Note: Lines in the Ice at the British Library

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Hatfield
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
British Library ◽  
Northwest Passage ◽  
American Interest ◽  
Innovation And Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Science Innovation

During the winter of 2014-15 the British Library ran a medium-sized exhibition in its Entrance Hall Gallery, Lines in the Ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage. Fortuitously benefiting from news in the summer of 2014 about the location of HMS Erebus, one of the ships from the fateful expedition of Sir John Franklin, the exhibition sought to take a long view of the history of polar exploration, particularly in the Canadian Arctic. In so doing, the aim of the exhibition was to explore the circumstances which have maintained European and North American interest in the Arctic, from trade to resources and geopolitics. The exhibition sought to ask how this has developed and what effect it has had on the societies of the explorers and the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Within this historical narrative, science, innovation and technology played an important role. This note considers how the exhibition developed our understanding of the historic and contemporary significance of science and its practice in the Arctic.

Claiming Spaces for Science

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-199
Author(s):  
Adam M. Sowards
Keyword(s):  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
Popular Discourse ◽  
Scientific Authority ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Complicated Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Forces ◽  
Reciprocal Process

Exploration has always centered on claims: for country, for commerce, for character. Claims for useful scientific knowledge also grew out of exploration’s varied activities across space and time. The history of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913–18 exposes the complicated process of claim-making. The expedition operated in and made claims on many spaces, both material and rhetorical, or, put differently, in several natural and discursive spaces. In making claims for science, the explorer-scientists navigated competing demands on their commitments and activities from their own predilections and from external forces. Incorporating Arctic spaces into the Canadian polity had become a high priority during the era when the CAE traversed the Arctic. Science through exploration—practices on the ground and especially through scientific and popular discourse—facilitated this integration. So, claiming space was something done on the ground, through professional literature, and within popular narratives—and not always for the same ends. The resulting narrative tensions reveal the messy material, political, and rhetorical spaces where humans do science. This article demonstrates how explorer-scientists claimed material and discursive spaces to establish and solidify their scientific authority. When the CAE claimed its spaces in nature, nation, and narrative, it refracted a reciprocal process whereby the demands of environment, state, and discourse also claimed the CAE.

An early nineteenth century meteorological register from the eastern Canadian Arctic

Polar Record ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (178) ◽  
pp. 335-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Kay
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Northwest Passage ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Modern Experience ◽  
Eastern Canadian Arctic

AbstractSignificant warming in the Arctic is anticipated for doubled-CO2 scenarios, but temperatures in the eastern Canadian Arctic have not yet exhibited that trend in the last few decades. The spatial juxtaposition of the winter station in 1822–1823 of William Edward Parry's Northwest Passage expedition with the modern Igloolik Research Centre of the Science Institute of the Northwest Territories affords an opportunity for historical reconstruction and comparison. Parry's data are internally consistent. The association of colder temperatures with westerly and northerly winds, and wanner temperatures with easterly and southerly winds, is statistically significant. Temperatures are not exactly comparable between the two time periods because of differences in instrumentation, exposure, and frequency of readings. Nevertheless, in 1822–1823, November and December appear to have been cold and January to March mild compared to modern experience. Anomalously, winds were more frequently northerly (and less frequently westerly) in the latter months than in recent observations. Parry recorded two warm episodes in mid-winter, but, overall, it appears that the winter of 1822–1823 was not outside the range of modern experience.

scholarly journals ’Taters versus Sliders: Evidence for a Long-Lived History of Strike-Slip Displacement along the Canadian Arctic Transform System (CATS)

GSA Today ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William McClelland ◽  
Justin Strauss ◽  
Maurice Copron ◽  
Jane Gilotti ◽  
Karol Faehnrich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Strike Slip ◽  
History Of ◽  
Slip Displacement

scholarly journals The role of matrilineality in shaping patterns of Y chromosome and mtDNA sequence variation in southwestern Angola

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Oliveira ◽  
Alexander Hübner ◽  
Anne-Maria Fehn ◽  
Teresa Aço ◽  
Fernanda Lages ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Y Chromosome ◽  
Sequence Data ◽  
Population History ◽  
Female Population ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Mtdna Sequence ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
Group Variation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Previous Demonstration

AbstractSouthwestern Angola is a region characterized by contact between indigenous foragers and incoming food-producers, involving genetic and cultural exchanges between peoples speaking Kx’a, Khoe-Kwadi and Bantu languages. Although present-day Bantu-speakers share a patrilocal residence pattern and matrilineal principle of clan and group membership, a highly stratified social setting divides dominant pastoralists from marginalized groups that subsist on alternative strategies and have previously been though to have pre-Bantu origins. Here, we compare new high-resolution sequence data from 2.3 Mb of the non-recombining Y chromosome (NRY) from 170 individuals with previously reported mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA), to investigate the population history of seven representative southwestern Angolan groups (Himba, Kuvale, Kwisi, Kwepe, Twa, Tjimba, !Xun) and to study the causes and consequences of sex-biased processes in their genetic variation. We found no clear link between the formerly Kwadi-speaking Kwepe and pre-Bantu eastern African migrants, and no pre-Bantu NRY lineages among Bantu-speaking groups, except for small amounts of “Khoisan” introgression. We therefore propose that irrespective of their subsistence strategies, all Bantu-speaking groups of the area share a male Bantu origin. Additionally, we show that in Bantu-speaking groups, the levels of among-group and between-group variation are higher for mtDNA than for NRY. These results, together with our previous demonstration that the matriclanic systems of southwestern Angolan Bantu groups are genealogically consistent, suggest that matrilineality strongly enhances both female population sizes and interpopulation mtDNA variation.

scholarly journals History of Click-Speaking Populations of Africa Inferred from mtDNA and Y Chromosome Genetic Variation

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 2180-2195 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Tishkoff ◽  
M. K. Gonder ◽  
B. M. Henn ◽  
H. Mortensen ◽  
A. Knight ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Y Chromosome ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Tracing the genetic history of the ‘Cañaris’ from Ecuador and Peru using uniparental DNA markers

BMC Genomics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (S7) ◽  
Author(s):  
José R. Sandoval ◽  
Daniela R. Lacerda ◽  
Marilza M. S. Jota ◽  
Paulo Robles-Ruiz ◽  
Pierina Danos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mitochondrial Dna ◽  
Y Chromosome ◽  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Tandem Repeats ◽  
Geographic Proximity ◽  
Lake Titicaca ◽  
Control Region Sequences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Question ◽  
Close Genetic Relationship

Abstract Background According to history, in the pre-Hispanic period, during the conquest and Inka expansion in Ecuador, many Andean families of the Cañar region would have been displaced to several places of Tawantinsuyu, including Kañaris, a Quechua-speaking community located at the highlands of the Province of Ferreñafe, Lambayeque (Peru). Other families were probably taken from the Central Andes to a place close to Kañaris, named Inkawasi. Evidence of this migration comes from the presence near the Kañaris–Inkawasi communities of a village, a former Inka camp, which persists until the present day. This scenario could explain these toponyms, but it is still controversial. To clarify this historical question, the study presented here focused on the inference of the genetic relationship between ‘Cañaris’ populations, particularly of Cañar and Ferreñafe, compared to other highland populations. We analysed native patrilineal Y chromosome haplotypes composed of 15 short tandem repeats, a set of SNPs, and maternal mitochondrial DNA haplotypes of control region sequences. Results After the genetic comparisons of local populations—three from Ecuador and seven from Peru—, Y chromosome analyses (n = 376) indicated that individuals from the Cañar region do not share Y haplotypes with the Kañaris, or even with those of the Inkawasi. However, some Y haplotypes of Ecuadorian ‘Cañaris’ were associated with haplotypes of the Peruvian populations of Cajamarca, Chivay (Arequipa), Cusco and Lake Titicaca, an observation that is congruent with colonial records. Within the Kañaris and Inkawasi communities there are at least five clans in which several individuals share haplotypes, indicating that they have recent common ancestors. Despite their relative isolation, most individuals of both communities are related to those of the Cajamarca and Chachapoyas in Peru, consistent with the spoken Quechua and their geographic proximity. With respect to mitochondrial DNA haplotypes (n = 379), with the exception of a shared haplotype of the D1 lineage between the Cañar and Kañaris, there are no genetic affinities. Conclusion Although there is no close genetic relationship between the Peruvian Kañaris (including Inkawasi) and Ecuadorian Cañar populations, our results showed some congruence with historical records.

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