First DNA analyzes of Pompeii corpses reveal identities of victims

First DNA analyzes of Pompeii corpses reveal identities of victims

Editor's Note: This article contains a photo of a plaster cast of a person who died in the Pompeii eruption.

Pieces of human bone that are in Pompeii, Italy, were found DNA of people who died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The genetic data challenges old assumptions about the victims' identities and relationships.

The researchers obtained the bone fragments from the plaster casts of people killed in the eruptionad79 died. The DNA is the first to be recovered from these prints and provides information about the gender, ancestry and family connections of five individuals.

A narrative refuted by the genetic data, published today in the journal Current Biology, involves a victim long thought to be a mother who died while holding her child. A detailed gold bracelet on one of her arms had contributed to the assumption that she was female. However, DNA analysis revealed that this person was male and had no family connection to the child.

The about-face shows that DNA can "rewrite history or the stories of a particular group of individuals," said co-author David Caramelli, an anthropologist at the University of Florence in Italy.

“They did a really good job of showing that these narratives were heavily biased and that these assessments were made without scientific data,” says anthropologist John Lindo, who studies ancient DNA at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

moment of death

Since the excavations of the ruins of Pompeii in the 18th century, more than 100 plaster casts of the corpses have been created by pouring liquid plaster into the cavities created by the destruction of their soft tissues. Many of these prints still contain fragments of the victims.

Researchers had the opportunity to collect some of these fragments during restoration work on 86 of 104 plaster casts. Samples from five individuals yielded complete or partial genomes. “The researchers were very lucky,” says Lindo. “The heat alone would have destroyed much of the DNA, and mixing it later with the plaster would also have complicated the situation.”

According to DNA analysis, all five people were male. The analysis also revealed details of their relationships with each other. The remains of the person with the gold bracelet and the child that person was carrying were discovered along with two other individuals. Previously, the people in this group were thought to belong to the same family, but DNA analysis showed no biological connection between them. The results highlight how unreliable such conventional interpretations, often based on limited evidence, can be, the authors say.

Another interpretation challenged by the new data involves two individuals found in what appeared to be an embrace. They were previously considered either sisters or mother and daughter, but genetic analysis now suggests that at least one of them was male.

“What this study reminds us is that there are actually myths that need to be debunked,” says Steven Ellis, an archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, who has led excavations at Pompeii. He notes that most of the narratives surrounding the plaster casts are simplified interpretations aimed at increasing public interest. Current research on Pompeii does not necessarily accept previous interpretations of the casts, but "the plaster casts are an extraordinary symbol of the tragedy that is the history of Pompeii, and they have always caused a stir," he says.

DNA analysis also confirmed that Pompeii's population was genetically diverse: the individuals analyzed were descendants of immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean. “We knew it from the jewelry they wore, the cults they followed, the decorations that adorned the houses,” Ellis says. "But we didn't really know from the plaster casts themselves. Now we do, and that's pretty important information."

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