EXPLORING THE GENETIC DIVERSITY OF MAGNA GRAECIA – THE CASE OF CAMPANIA
Starting in the 8th century BCE, coastal Campania in Southern Italy became a melting
pot of various cultures and peoples when Etruscan and Greek colonizers joined local Italic
tribes. By establishing cities and trade posts, the contact networks of Campania were
further expanded across the Mediterranean and inland.
We generated ancient genomes from Campania, spanning the 8th to 3rd century BCE,
i.e. the Orientalizing, Archaic and Hellenistic-Roman period in this region. While most
individuals can be attributed to a genetic ancestry that arose on the Italian mainland, we
also discover descendants of migrants from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.
Most notably, an individual dated to the 8th century at the first Greek settlement,
Pithekoussai, a site that also yielded the earliest example of writing in the Euboean
alphabet, was genetically of Aegean origin, and we find that this type of ancestry
persisted at the site for several centuries. We compare the genetic composition of these
descendants of Greek settlers to the local Campanians represented by individuals from
the site San Marzano and Etruscan immigrants from Pontecagnano.
We integrate a thorough analysis of the associated material culture and, where available,
strontium isotopes to establish temporal and cultural patterns of mobility, ancestry and
admixture that shaped the genetic landscape of Campanian Magna Graecia.
https://submissions.e-a-a.org/eaa20...itory_pdf.php?abstract=3776&source=repository