also not far from pompeii geographically speaking
likely another future dna paper
HERCULANEUM, 79 CE: ARCHAEOGENETIC INSIGHTS INTO ROMAN SOCIETY FROM A CATASTROPHIC DEATH ASSEMBLAGE
Pier Paolo Petrone1, Alissa Mittnik2,3,4, Johannes Krause2, David Reich2,3,4,5,6
1 Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Unit of forensic Medicine, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
2 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
3 Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge (MA), USA
4 Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston (MA), USA
5 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
6 Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE captured a unique snapshot of Roman Imperial society, burying nearby settlements along with their architecture, writing, art, household objects and thousands of lives lost in the catastrophe.
Our genetic study focused on the remains of 94 of the volcano’s victims excavated at Herculaneum, 80 of whom perished in the boat chambers on the shore while awaiting rescue—a group that encapsulates a frozen cross-section of Roman society. We identified 13 families through genetic relationships, predominantly consisting of mothers and their young children, but also adult men and their elderly parents.
The group displayed remarkable genetic heterogeneity, even within families, with ancestral roots extending across the Central and Eastern Mediterranean, Central Europe, and North Africa, and indications of immediate Levantine origins for some. This finding underscores the diversity and mobility within the Roman Empire, also described for the population of the city of Rome—a phenomenon intricately woven into territorial expansion, trade, slavery, and cultural exchange. By integrating the genetic insights with a comprehensive reassessment of the archaeological and anthropological evidence we examine the individuals’ demographics, pathologies, and personal items associated with their socio-economic status to illuminate the diverse background of Herculaneum's inhabitants, unraveling their identities, social roles and behaviors amidst the catastrophic eruption.
