Who Went With Columbus? Dental Studies Give Clues.

"They look a little like Africans, but we can't say for sure they're not Spanish yet because we don't have a full range of understanding what is the cut-off in isotopic ranges for people from Spain and for local people," he said. For comparison, the team is analyzing bones, nails and, when possible, teeth from Spain and Hispaniola.

DNA analysis is also being done on the skeletons. But after excavation and years of storage and research, the samples could be heavily contaminated with DNA from other sources.

By cross-referencing their skeletal findings with ships' logs, the scientists ultimately hope to determine the region of Spain individual crew members came from.

The researchers note that bones, teeth and DNA yield no clues as to whether someone was a slave or not. Columbus was known to travel with a slave, but it is also possible that the crews included free Africans picked up in the Canary Islands or African migrants to Spain.

"The people on that expedition were reasonably well known by Spanish historians; there were [African] servants of households, but they didn't bring African slaves," said Kathleen A. Deagan, a University of Florida historical archaeologist and author of two books on La Isabela. "There were African sailors on those early expeditions, foot soldiers -- that kind of thing."

Richard Lee Turits, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Michigan, said historians have long figured there were Africans in the New World before 1500 but have little hard evidence.

"This presence is not surprising, given the substantial number of enslaved and free people of African descent in Spain and Portugal in the late 1400s," he said. "Though not surprising, the Isabela findings represent important new evidence that could give us new details about the earliest individuals of African descent in the Americas."

The La Isabela skeletons were buried in egalitarian fashion in keeping with Christian tradition -- their hands extended toward the church. Taino people indigenous to the area were also buried there, including a woman and an infant, who Tiesler said could be the island's first mestizo (born of indigenous and Spanish parents). There may have also been an African woman.

"Americans envision drawings of Columbus jumping out in the New World with this stigma of domination and exploitation," Burton said. "But that version could be affected if you have the white male stepping out to dominate the New World, and you have an African woman stepping out with him."