Was Henry VIII's Britain more diverse than we thought? Year-long DNA probe find that there was an African crewman aboard the Mary Rose ship

Henry VIII’s England has long been seen as an exclusively white society.

But analysis of skeletons recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose has revealed that the Tudor kingdom might have been much more multicultural than experts have previously believed.

Scientific tests on eight crew members’ remains found that two of them almost certainly had North African heritage, while two others were of Mediterranean origin.

The year-long investigation commissioned by the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth involved advanced DNA genetic tests which can establish eye, hair and skin colour, and isotope analysis, which can reveal where someone was born and raised by analysing chemical elements within their bones.

The ship sank in 1545 in the Solent while leading an attack on a French invasion fleet. Its remains were recovered in 1982 and are now housed in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. The complete skeleton of a crew member, nicknamed ‘Henry’ by the divers who found it, was among those to be analysed.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6806255/Was-Henry-VIIIs-Britain-diverse-thought.html