Ancient DNA from 45 colonial Montreal burials shows French ancestry in every one
Researchers found French ancestry in all 45 people sequenced from Montreal's Notre-Dame Cemetery, with no recent Indigenous or African admixture. It bears on Quebec family stories of Indigenous ancestry, but it describes one small cemetery sample.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- The team compared DNA from the 45 burials with genomes of people from Europe, West Africa and Indigenous groups in the Americas.
- The DNA also revealed several lineages spanning multiple generations, but their graves were scattered across the cemetery, so burials were apparently not organized into family plots.
- In Montreal, the archives record Catholic cemetery burials of some Indigenous people going back to the 17th century.
Why it matters
- exposure Martin-Moya names the stake: distant or claimed Indigenous identities can undermine the rights, resources and recognition of Indigenous nations.
- contradiction Live Science says there may be little truth to intermarriage stories, but the first author cautioned that the sample 'does not show that such unions never happened'.
- capability Burials that earlier skeletal studies could not classify can now be sorted by ancestry from DNA, though only for the individuals who survive to be sampled.
Forty-five skeletons is a narrow base for a cemetery that took Catholic burials for 113 years [16][2]. It is also a filtered one. Martin-Moya, a biological anthropologist at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres who did the work while at the University of Montreal, explained the filter [15]. "Those buried inside the church, mostly clergy and wealthier residents, were more likely to be exhumed and moved," she said [9]. The city's poorer residents lay outside the church and were later buried further beneath the expanding city [10]. The skeletons studied may therefore be those of lower-class French colonists, and reburials and urban development disturbed or destroyed earlier graves [10][11]. The Live Science report does not say how many people were buried in the cemetery in all, so the 45 cannot be set against a total.
The finding is about recent admixture in those 45 people, and Martin-Moya is explicit about the limit. "Not identifying recent Indigenous or African admixture in this sample does not imply that Indigenous or African-descended people were absent from the city," she said [18]. She calls the result "consistent with genealogical and genetic studies suggesting that Indigenous ancestry among present-day French Canadians is very limited" [17]. That is a statement of fit with earlier work.
Two readings of the absence appear in the report. Martin-Moya said the findings suggest Indigenous and African-descended people may have been marginalized in early Montreal, and that this challenges the popular narrative of cooperation and intermarriage [20]. Raquel Fleskes, a molecular anthropologist at Dartmouth College who was not involved in the study, described a picture "where perhaps nongenetic interactions were present but no biological relationships were found" [13]. We think the narrower reading is the one this sample can carry. A genome records who had children together. A sample with no admixture cannot say whether contact was refused or simply produced no children in these families.
The paper appeared Oct. 5 in PNAS [1]. Martin-Moya told Live Science that "Family stories of an Indigenous ancestor are very common" in Quebec, and that "commercial genealogy and DNA tests have amplified this" [6]. The thing this study does not tell you is whether any given family's story is true: it sequenced burials from one cemetery [4]. She also separates ancestry from belonging. In her words, "biological ancestry cannot by itself establish Indigenous belonging," and belonging "is rooted in kinship, community and relationships with land, not in blood or DNA" [14].
What to watch
- Whether other colonial Quebec burial grounds, especially graves inside churches, are sequenced and show the same pattern.
- Whether the 45 genomes are compared directly with present-day French Canadians, since the link to modern populations rests on earlier studies.
- Whether the paper's full burial count appears, which would show what share of the cemetery's dead the 45 represent.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence50
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
The study of ancient DNA from skeletons in a historic Quebec cemetery was published Oct. 5 in the journal PNAS.
- [2]
Notre-Dame Cemetery was established in Montreal in 1683 and used for Catholic burials until 1796.
- [3]
Based on previous studies of the skeletons in the cemetery, experts disagreed on whether people of Indigenous, European, African or mixed ancestry were buried there.
- [4]
Martin-Moya and colleagues sequenced DNA from 45 people buried in the cemetery and compared it with the genomes of people from Europe, West Africa and Indigenous groups in the Americas.
- [5]
"The ancient DNA showed that all 45 individuals we analyzed had French European ancestry, with no sign of recent Indigenous or African admixture," Martin-Moya said.
- [6]
Martin-Moya told Live Science that "Family stories of an Indigenous ancestor are very common" in Quebec, and that "commercial genealogy and DNA tests have amplified this."
- [7]
Martin-Moya said distant or claimed Indigenous identities can undermine the rights, resources and recognition of Indigenous nations.
- [8]
"Our sample is small and comes from a single cemetery, so this does not show that such unions never happened," Martin-Moya cautioned.
- [9]
"Those buried inside the church, mostly clergy and wealthier residents, were more likely to be exhumed and moved," Martin-Moya explained.
- [10]
The city's poorer residents were buried outside the church and further buried beneath the expanding city, so the skeletons in the study may have been the remains of lower-class French colonists.
- [11]
Changes in the use of the cemetery over time may have influenced the findings, as reburials and later urban development disturbed or destroyed earlier graves.
- [12]
The DNA helped researchers find several genetic lineages spanning multiple generations, but the graves were scattered across multiple areas of the cemetery, suggesting burials were not organized into family plots.
- [13]
Raquel Fleskes, a molecular anthropologist at Dartmouth College who was not involved in the research, said the lack of mixing "provides a perspective on population relationships during the colonial period, one where perhaps nongenetic interactions were present but no biological relationships were found."
- [14]
Martin-Moya added that "biological ancestry cannot by itself establish Indigenous belonging," as it "is rooted in kinship, community and relationships with land, not in blood or DNA."
- [15]
Martin-Moya is a biological anthropologist at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres in Canada; she conducted the research while at the University of Montreal.
- [16]
The cemetery was in use for 113 years (1683 to 1796).
- [17]
Martin-Moya said the result "is, however, consistent with genealogical and genetic studies suggesting that Indigenous ancestry among present-day French Canadians is very limited."
- [18]
"Not identifying recent Indigenous or African admixture in this sample does not imply that Indigenous or African-descended people were absent from the city," Martin-Moya said.
- [19]
Archival records show that some Indigenous people were buried in Catholic cemeteries in Montreal as early as the 17th century.
- [20]
Martin-Moya said the findings suggest that people descended from Indigenous and African populations may have been marginalized in early Montreal, challenging the popular narrative of cooperation and intermarriage.
- [21]
Live Science wrote that, contrary to popular belief, there may be little truth to stories of intermarriage between Indigenous and French people during the early days of colonization.
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Topics
- Colonial North AmericaFollow
- Ancient DNAFollow
- ArchaeologyFollow
Entities
- Diane Martin-MoyaFollow
- Raquel FleskesFollow
- Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesFollow
- Live ScienceFollow
- Notre-Dame Cemetery (Montreal)Follow