The first DNA analyzes of Pompeii Leichenamen reveal identity of the victims
The first DNA analyzes of Pompeii Leichenamen reveal identity of the victims
Note from the editor: This article contains a photo of a plaster print of a person who died at the outbreak of Pompeii.
pieces of human bones, which were found in pompeji , Italy, DNA of people who died during the outbreak of the Vesuvius. The genetic data question old assumptions about the identity and relationships of the victims.
The researchers received the bone fragments from the plaster prints of people who died in the outbreak by ad 79. The DNA is the first to be obtained from these prints and provides information about gender, descent and family connections from five individuals.
A narrative refuted by the genetic data, which was published today in the journal Current Biology, concerns a victim who has long been seen as a mother who died as she held her child. A detailed golden bracelet on one of her arms had contributed to the assumption that it was a female person. However, the DNA analysis showed that this person was male and had no family connection to the child.
The U-turn shows that DNA can "rewrite history or the stories of a certain group of individuals," said co-author David Caramelli, anthropologist at the University of Florence in Italy.
"You have shown really well that these stories were strongly biased and that these reviews were made without scientific data," says anthropologist John Lindo, who examined Antiquity 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 prints of the corpses have been created by pouring liquid plaster into the cavities that were created by the destruction of their soft tissue. Many of these prints still contain fragments of the victims.
The researchers had the opportunity to collect some of these fragments during the restoration work on 86 out of 104 plaster prints. Samples of five individuals deliver complete or partially genomes. "The researchers were very lucky," says Lindo. "The heat alone would have destroyed many of the DNA, and the later mixing with the plaster would also have complicated the situation."
According to the 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 golden bracelet and the child who wore this person were discovered together with two other individuals. So far it has been assumed that the people in this group were part of the same family, but the DNA analysis did not show any biological connection between them. The results emphasize how unreliable such conventional interpretations, often based on limited evidence, are, say the authors.
Another interpretation challenged by the new data affects two individuals who have been found in an apparent hug. They were previously regarded either as sisters or as a mother and daughter, but the genetic analysis now suggests that at least one of them was male.
"What this study reminds us is that there are actually myths that have to be refuted," says Steven Ellis, archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, who has led excavations in Pompeii. He notes that most of the stories about the plasterprints are simplified interpretations that aim to increase the public interest. The current research on Pompeii does not necessarily accept earlier interpretations of the prints, but "the plaster prints are an extraordinary symbol of the tragedy that is the story of Pompeii, and they have always caused a sensation," he says.
The DNA analysis also confirmed that the population of Pompeii was genetically diverse: the analyzed individuals were descendants of immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean. "We knew about the jewelry they were wearing, the cults they followed, the decorations that decorated the houses," says Ellis. "But we didn't really know about the plaster prints. Now we know it, and that's pretty important information."
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