Ancient genomes from a rural site in Imperial Rome (1^st–3^rd 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.

Keywords:

• Ancient Romans
• genomics
• ancient DNA

Acknowledgements

Authors would acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions aiming to improve the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). This research is part of the VV's PhD thesis in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology. Authors declare that they have no significant competing financial, professional, or personal interests that might have influenced the performance or presentation of the work described in this manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) through PRIN 2015 action (Diseases, health and lifestyles in Rome: from the Empire to the Early Middle Age, GrantID: [2015PJ7H3K]) allotted to CML and PRIN 2017 action (1000 Ancient Italian Genomes: Evidence from ancient biomolecules for unravelling past human population Dynamics, GrantID: [20177PJ9XF] allotted to OR; and Project N: [85–2017-15143] “Genomica e dieta: evoluzione e obiettivi della valutazione nutrizionale (GEDEON)” funded by Regione Lazio - Bando regione Lazio progetti di gruppi di ricerca allotted to OR.