The sex profile of skeletal remains from a cemetery of Chinese indentured labourers in South Africa

Authors

  • Victoria Gibbon Purdue University
  • Goran Štrkalj Macquarie University
  • Maria Paximadis AIDS Virus Research Unit, National Institute of Communicable Diseases
  • Paul Ruff University of the Witwatersrand
  • Clem Penny University of the Witwatersrand

Keywords:

amelogenin, ancient DNA, gold mines, Chinese indentured labour, South Africa

Abstract

For a short period of time in the early 20th century, indentured labourers from China were imported to work on the South African gold mines. The Raymond A. Dart Collection of Human Skeletons contains 36 skeletons sourced from a Chinese cemetery of this time period on the site of the old Witwatersrand Deep Gold Mine. An earlier morphometric study on this collection recorded a high number of female individuals. However, the general historical records from the early gold mining era conflict with the results of this study, stating that very few Chinese females were among those to arrive in South Africa. In this study, the sex profile of this collection was analysed using molecular sex identification through the amelogenin gene. Results were obtained for 13 (41.93%) specimens, all of which were determined to be male - data that correspond well with the historical records.

Author Biographies

  • Victoria Gibbon, Purdue University
    School of Anatomical Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

    Department of Internal Medicine, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

    Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

  • Goran Štrkalj, Macquarie University
    Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

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Published

2010-08-02

Issue

Vol. 106 No. 7/8 (2010)

Section

Research Letters

License

Creative Commons License
All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Copyright is retained by the authors. Readers are welcome to reproduce, share and adapt the content without permission provided the source is attributed.

Disclaimer: The publisher and editors accept no responsibility for statements made by the authors

How to Cite

Gibbon, V., Štrkalj, G., Paximadis, M., Ruff, P., & Penny, C. (2010). The sex profile of skeletal remains from a cemetery of Chinese indentured labourers in South Africa. South African Journal of Science, 106(7/8), 4 pages. https://sajs.co.za/article/view/10133
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