Genetic study Ancient genomes from a rural site in Imperial Rome (1st–3rd cent. CE): a genetic jun

kingjohn

kingjohn

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another interesting paper:cool-v:

Ancient genomes from a rural site in Imperial Rome (1st–3rd cent. CE): a genetic junction in the Roman Empire

Abstract

Background

Rome became the prosperous Capital of the Roman Empire through the political and military conquests of neighbouring areas. People were able to move Romeward modifying the Rome area’s demographic structure. However, the genomic evidence for the population of one of the broadest Empires in antiquity has been sparse until recently.



Aim

The genomic analysis of people buried in Quarto Cappello del Prete (QCP) necropolis was carried out to help elucidate the genomic structure of Imperial Rome inhabitants.



Subjects and methods

We recruited twenty-five individuals from QCP for ancient DNA analysis through whole-genome sequencing. Multiple investigations were carried out to unveil the genetic components featuring in the studied samples and the community’s putative demographic structure.



Results

We generated reliable whole-genome data for 7 samples surviving quality controls. The distribution of Imperial Romans from QCP partly overlaps with present-day Southern Mediterranean and Southern-Near Eastern populations.



Conclusion

The genomic legacy with the south-eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Central and Western Northern-African coast funerary influence pave the way for considering people buried in QCP as resembling a Punic-derived human group.


https://i.imgur.com/Dt57VS1.png


zzzzzSW.png










source:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03014460.2021.1944313



p.s
from what i understand from anthrogenica
they are in bad coverage but still the fact that some of them cluster
with north africans and jordanians is pretty cool
they might have been traders of punic ancestery:)
 
Anyone have access to the actual paper? He's been researching sites in these suburbs of Rome for a long time, back to 2015 and before. He's never called it a rural community before, so that's a first. In his prior papers he's called that entire area a suburb of Rome.

Some of the sites are noted for their quarries and tanneries, and the burials associated with them likely being those of workers in those industries. Imo, that would signal slaves, Other burials seem to belong to people of more means. At Casal Bertone, for example, the remains are divided into two groups, with a few members of the leadership, based on their diet, buried with the workers. Since many denizens of the city itself were buried outside Rome, we would need more information on some of these sites in order to put the samples into context.

As to the site in question, this is what he has to say about it.

Food at the heart of the Empire: dietary reconstruction for Imperial Rome inhabitants | SpringerLink

" More than 70% of the buried people were infants and juveniles; 50% of them were in the 0–6 years age range, and more than half of them seem to have suffered from dysmorphic alterations (De Angelis et al. 2015)."

"The Tukey HSD test (Maxwell and Delaney 2003; Dubitzky et al. 2013) was performed to determine which cemetery pairs underpin the differences in δ15N, accounting for multiple comparisons and maintaining experiment-wise alpha at 0.05 (Yuan and Maxwell 2005). The significant differences were found between Quarto Cappello del Prete and all the other cemeteries (Table 8). This result supports the peculiar status of the cultual site of Quarto Cappello del Prete respect to the other cemeteries in Imperial Rome that were instead related to low-social strata and working communities. Remarkably, Quarto Cappello del Prete isotopic values are not consistent with those obtained for the roughly coeval Gabines (Killgrove and Tykot 2018), the people inhabiting the ancient city of Gabii, a formerly independent city tackling a population contraction in Imperial age, just a few kilometers far from Quarto Cappello del Prete. The differences (δ13C F: 5.08, p = 0.03; δ15N F: 13.81, p < 0.01 that shift to δ13C F:4.05, p = 0.05; δ15N F: 14.63, p < 0.01 by excluding one outlier and three putatively breastfed children, according to Killgrove and Tykot 2018) seem to confirm that Quarto Cappello del Prete related to a site where shortlisted individuals rather than a living community were buried (De Angelis et al. 2015)."

So, was this the burial site for some specific group? Why so many children?

I'm eager to read the new paper and hopefully get a better understanding of the context.
 
Angela said:
Anyone have access to the actual paper? He's been researching sites in these suburbs of Rome for a long time, back to 2015 and before. He's never called it a rural community before, so that's a first. In his prior papers he's called that entire area a suburb of Rome.

Some of the sites are noted for their quarries and tanneries, and the burials associated with them likely being those of workers in those industries. Imo, that would signal slaves, Other burials seem to belong to people of more means. At Casal Bertone, for example, the remains are divided into two groups, with a few members of the leadership, based on their diet, buried with the workers. Since many denizens of the city itself were buried outside Rome, we would need more information on some of these sites in order to put the samples into context.

As to the site in question, this is what he has to say about it.

Food at the heart of the Empire: dietary reconstruction for Imperial Rome inhabitants | SpringerLink

" More than 70% of the buried people were infants and juveniles; 50% of them were in the 0–6 years age range, and more than half of them seem to have suffered from dysmorphic alterations (De Angelis et al. 2015)."

"The Tukey HSD test (Maxwell and Delaney 2003; Dubitzky et al. 2013) was performed to determine which cemetery pairs underpin the differences in δ15N, accounting for multiple comparisons and maintaining experiment-wise alpha at 0.05 (Yuan and Maxwell 2005). The significant differences were found between Quarto Cappello del Prete and all the other cemeteries (Table 8). This result supports the peculiar status of the cultual site of Quarto Cappello del Prete respect to the other cemeteries in Imperial Rome that were instead related to low-social strata and working communities. Remarkably, Quarto Cappello del Prete isotopic values are not consistent with those obtained for the roughly coeval Gabines (Killgrove and Tykot 2018), the people inhabiting the ancient city of Gabii, a formerly independent city tackling a population contraction in Imperial age, just a few kilometers far from Quarto Cappello del Prete. The differences (δ13C F: 5.08, p = 0.03; δ15N F: 13.81, p < 0.01 that shift to δ13C F:4.05, p = 0.05; δ15N F: 14.63, p < 0.01 by excluding one outlier and three putatively breastfed children, according to Killgrove and Tykot 2018) seem to confirm that Quarto Cappello del Prete related to a site where shortlisted individuals rather than a living community were buried (De Angelis et al. 2015)."

So, was this the burial site for some specific group? Why so many children?

I'm eager to read the new paper and hopefully get a better understanding of the context.
Click to expand...


access is cost money USD 57.00 which is a bummer :disappointed:
if i am not wrong
the punic use to sacrifise children:sad-2: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children
who knows maybe they were punic slaves ( that would be inline with low status)
who unfortuantley
continue to practice it even in there new home:unsure:
 
I'm not clear on whether these "dysmorphic alterations" in these children were congenital or were the result of some procedure after birth.

Is there something in the tanning of skins which might lead to birth defects (such as alum and/or alkaline lime, or could it be because of incest?

I'm very familiar with child sacrifice to Moloch in the ancient Canaanite religion, which was transferred to the Carthaginians. However, while the Canaanite gods bred with their sisters, as did the Egyptian gods, I don't know whether incest between parent/child or siblings was widespread generally or just for the royal rulers.

Any of this would explain the findings in the burials.
 
Angela: Thanks, found the forum!
 
hmm ..........only 1 x ydna found out ................maybe their level to find ydna is too high

from paper
We leveraged Y chromosome reads to identify the Y-Chr haplogroup for the males. However, we were able to type only one sample proficiently. QCP42 presents variants leading to the T1a (TM70) haplogroup. The mitochondrial DNA haplogroups were also determined for all the samples with mtDNA coverage > 1×.



but easy to find mtDna


SampleID Haplogroup
QCP2 U5a’b
QCP11 T2
QCP14 H84
QCP17 NA
QCP19 H1u
QCP23 HV
QCP26 NA
QCP27 H1h1
QCP28 J2b1
QCP29 H1u
QCP30 NA
QCP32 H
QCP33 NA
QCP37 H1ap1
QCP38 NA
QCP39 H1u
QCP40 H4a1
QCP42 U3b1
QCP43 I5
 
They got one Y Haplogroup, … QCP42 as T-M70 (T1a)

… for perspective: Latin R850 and Roman 1543 are T1a1… - Roman R120 is T1a2…

… we were able to type only one sample proficiently. QCP42 presents variants leading to the T1a (TM70) haplogroup. The mitochondrial DNA haplogroups were also determined for all the samples with mtDNA coverage > 1× …
 
Salento said:
They got one Y Haplogroup, … QCP42 as T-M70 (T1a)
… for perspective: Latin R850 is T1a1… - Romans R120 and is T1a2…
… we were able to type only one sample proficiently. QCP42 presents variants leading to the T1a (TM70) haplogroup. The mitochondrial DNA haplogroups were also determined for all the samples with mtDNA coverage > 1× …
Click to expand...


The paper places QCP42 as "tunisian" ...........maybe a Carthage prisoner or numidian cavalry which fought for rome at the end of the punic wars
 
torzio said:
The paper places QCP42 as "tunisian" ...........maybe a Carthage prisoner or numidian cavalry which fought for rome at the end of the punic wars
Click to expand...

maybe, though I’m just glad we are making a Y presence because we didn’t show up in the last 2 studies at all (Etruscans and Daunians).

…. I know, … QCP42 is T1a, we’re T1a2, … far and different y T branch.
 
Salento said:
maybe, though I’m just glad we are making a Y presence because we didn’t show up in the last 2 studies at all (Etruscans and Daunians).

…. I know, QCP42 is T1a, we’re T1a2, … different y T branch.
Click to expand...


You also got another T dude in the last serbian roman paper

Roman age:
I15532 Viminacium, Pecine Necropolis T-L206,T-M70,T-L131 J2b1c
 
kingjohn said:
You also got another T dude in the last serbian roman paper
Roman age:
I15532 Viminacium, Pecine Necropolis T-L206,T-M70,T-L131 J2b1c
Click to expand...

Thanks, … I was referring to samples found in Italy :)
 
kingjohn said:
No e-m81 bummer... ( maybe they were but low coverage)
But happy for you T guys :)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03014460.2021.1944313
They say in the pdf that 4 of them cluster with
North african ( tunisians):cool-v:
Maybe they were mumidian soldiers descendents...:unsure:
Click to expand...

today we don’t necessarily associate Haplogroups with someone’s ethnicity, … It was probably the same around Rome, Italy and so on at the height of the Roman Empire.

… finding ancient y T is a big deal for us, we’re ridiculously under represented :)
 
page 5 from pdf above:unsure:

To compare individuals of Imperial Rome to contemporary and modern populations, we performed principal component analysis (PCA). The samples from QCP and 141 roughly coevr al samples from topographically scattered areas were projected onto the genetic variation of 535 present-day individuals from North Africa and Eurasia (Figure 2 andSupplementary Figure 1). Only the samples sharing more than 5,000 variants across the dataset were plotted(Supplementary Table 2) and were used for further analyses after checking the contamination rate (Table 3).Even though only seven samples survived the considered threshold, the distribution of samples from QCP appears to be slightly different from that described by Antonio and colleagues (2019), as reported in the PCA plot.Imperial Rome individuals from QCP suggest a certain degree of similarity with North African and Middle Eastern individuals. Specifically, QCP43 is placed among present-day Israelis and Jordanians, while QCP29, QCP39, QCP40, and QCP42 fall in the North African cluster. QCP27 and QCP37 lie in an intermediate position between the North Africans and the Eastern Mediterranean people (Supplementary Figure 1):)

https://i.imgur.com/TTaQiGU.jpg
 
… unlike this study, Antonio released the samples to the public, they did Not.
(I trust Antonio)

I’m starting to suspect that studies that don’t release their sample’s bam don’t blindly trust the DNA results (contamination, poor sample quality)

… another example is the Daunians paper, … it says that the samples are on ENA, though the link is blank, … and I cant locate it.

Edit:

and how about the 82 “Etruscans” samples, … the opposite situation, we have the bams without the paper / study, … we assume they’re real, but are they really?
 
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Salento said:
maybe, though I’m just glad we are making a Y presence because we didn’t show up in the last 2 studies at all (Etruscans and Daunians).

…. I know, … QCP42 is T1a, we’re T1a2, … far and different y T branch.
Click to expand...


our T is found in the mongol paper ...........sample 100718

Whole-genome sequencing of 175 Mongolians uncovers population-specific genetic architecture and gene flow throughout North and East Asia

Abaga

1/15 T-M70 > T-L131(xCTS3767) This Abaga individual's Y-DNA forms a clade with members of T-L131 > T-CTS3767 (NA20758_TSI, HG01530_IBS, HG01051_PUR) vis-à-vis members of T-CTS11451 (NA20520_TSI, HG01190_PUR, NA19655_MXL, HG01133_CLM, NA20527_TSI). However, his Y-DNA is quite distinct from the Y-DNA of members of T-CTS3767. He most likely should belong to T-L131* like YF15081 from Armenia or to the T-Y13244 clade (Arabs, Turkey, Jew, England, etc.).
 
So, a bunch of tanners and quarry workers in a suburb of Spain were North African or Israelite like...

What are we to glean from that?

If they were indeed 1st century Jews, they could have been captives from the various Jewish Rebellions against Rome, poor souls.

How long a life span do you think these poor slaves had, especially the ones in the quarries? How much breeding do you think they did?
 
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