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DNA from Pompeii Victims Reveals Surprising Relationships Amidst the Chaos
Analysis of ancient DNA from the ashen casts of Pompeii victims changes presumed relationships between them, and reveals the port city's socioeconomic and geographic diversity.
“We show that the large genetic diversity with significant influences from the Eastern Mediterranean was not only a phenomenon in the metropolis of Rome during Imperial times but extends to the much smaller city of Pompeii, which underscores the cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic nature of Roman society,” said Alissa Mittnik, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Harvard University, and co-author of the study, in an email to Gizmodo. When integrated with bioarchaeological records, it can offer a more nuanced understanding of Pompeii’s victims,” said Gabriele Scorrano, a geneticist at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and a researcher involved in the 2022 paper, in an email to Gizmodo. The genomes don’t lie, so they give modern experts an opportunity to correct narratives that may be borne out of previous attempts to dramatize the final moments of Pompeii residents in specific ways.
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