By Ramin Ganeshram 27 May 2021
When I visited my father s Caribbean home of Trinidad & Tobago from our New York base, I d trail behind him as he walked the streets and byways of his youth. Most exciting were the stops he made at street food vendors, who hawked everything from peppered fruits to peanuts and spiced chickpeas, hand pies stuffed with seasoned potato, and shaved iced cones liberally doused with fruit syrups and sweetened condensed milk.
But of these offerings only one was the indisputable king: doubles. It s the street food of the twin island nation that emerges as a jewel
Doubles is a humble sandwich made from curried chickpeas tucked between two pieces of fried flat bread and dressed in tamarind and coriander sauces, mango chutney,
GAINESVILLE — The history of the Caribbean’s original islanders comes into sharper focus in a new Nature study that combines decades of archaeological work with advancements in genetic technology.
Using the largest study of ancient Caribbean DNA to date, researchers have shed light on the Caribbean s first islanders and pieced together the story of how the archipelago became inhabited thousands of years ago. Like many other ancient DNA studies, it s upended some old assumptions about the past and brought new questions to the table.
As reported in the journal Nature, a multi-national team of geneticists, archaeologists, and anthropologists, including Caribbean-based researchers, have analyzed the genomes of 174 new and 89 previously sequenced people who lived in the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, and Venezuela, between 400 and 3,100 years ago. They received special permission to carry out the study from local governments and cultural institutions who act as caretakers of the remains, involving representatives of Caribbean Indigenous communities in the discussion of their findings.
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Ancient DNA and Archaeology Offer New Insights Into Caribbean
Archaeological research and ancient DNA technology can work hand in hand to illuminate past history. This vessel, made between AD 1200-1500 in present-day Dominican Republic, shows a frog figure, associated with the goddess of fertility in Taino culture.
Credit: Kristen Grace/Florida Museum The history of the Caribbean s original islanders comes into sharper focus in a new Nature study that combines decades of archaeological work with advancements in genetic technology.
An international team led by Harvard Medical School s David Reich analyzed the genomes of 263 individuals in the largest study of ancient human DNA in the Americas to date. The genetics trace two major migratory waves in the Caribbean by two distinct groups, thousands of years apart, revealing an archipelago settled by highly mobile people, with distant relatives often living on different islands.
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IMAGE: Archaeological research and ancient DNA technology can work hand in hand to illuminate past history. This vessel, made between AD 1200-1500 in present-day Dominican Republic, shows a frog figure, associated. view more
Credit: Kristen Grace/Florida Museum
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - The history of the Caribbean s original islanders comes into sharper focus in a new
Nature study that combines decades of archaeological work with advancements in genetic technology.
An international team led by Harvard Medical School s David Reich analyzed the genomes of 263 individuals in the largest study of ancient human DNA in the Americas to date. The genetics trace two major migratory waves in the Caribbean by two distinct groups, thousands of years apart, revealing an archipelago settled by highly mobile people, with distant relatives often living on different islands.