London Historically Ethnically Diverse

A DNA study has confirmed that London was an ethnically diverse city from its very beginning.

17:30 24 November 2015

A DNA study has revealed that the very first Londoners are composed of people from outside Europe, from continental Europe, and native Briton.

 

The researchers, who have completed the initial phase of the study, plan to analyse more of the 20,000 human remains stored at the Museum of London.

 

Caroline McDonald, the senior curator of the museum, said: "The thing to remember with the original Londoners is that they were not born here. Every first-generation Londoner was from somewhere else - whether it was somewhere else in Britain, somewhere else on the continent, somewhere else in the Mediterranean, somewhere else from Africa."

 

"So the stories we can tell about our ancient population are absolutely relevant to modern contemporary London because these are our stories - these are people just like us."

 

The museum researchers, who worked with scientists at Durham University and an ancient DNA lab at McMaster University in Canada, were able to reconstruct the DNA of four individuals.

 

Ms McDonald said: "Their stories are written in their bones and these were stories we did not realise until we did this scientific analysis.”