For the first time in history, a team of researchers has managed to sequence the genome of a man who lived in the once-thriving and sophisticated Roman city of Pompeii and died with the rest of the city 2,000 years ago after the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, according to a fresh study.
For the first time, a team of researchers managed to sequence the genome of a man who died 2,000 years ago in Pompeii, according to a fresh study.
In a study published on Thursday, scientists from the University of Copenhagen analyzed two Pompeians – a man and a woman – found inside a building in the ancient town that was destroyed and buried under ash after the eruption of the nearby Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
The team said the man was between 35 and 40 years old and stood about 164 centimeters (5 feet 4 inches) tall, with his DNA pointing to shared heritage with people living today in central Italy, as well as the Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
The work also suggests that the man's lineage likely arrived on the Italian peninsula through Anatolia during the Neolithic era and that he may have been suffering tuberculosis at the time of his death.
Another set of remains they found belonged to a woman over 50 years old and stood about 153 centimeters tall.
Underlining that the findings provide a foundation to promote further study of "well-preserved Pompeian individuals," the team said that it demonstrated "the power of a combined approach to investigate ancient humans and confirms the possibility to retrieve ancient DNA from Pompeii human remains."
