An Archaeogenetic Approach to Studying the Demographic History of Rome

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From shipwrecks to monuments, coins to mosaics, the Aeneid to the Satyricon, classicists, archeologists, and historians draw on a range of media to study ancient Rome. As a new media to study the past, ancient genomes provide direct insight into the demographic histories of Rome’s inhabitants. This talk highlights our team’s interdisciplinary approach to analyzing new genomic evidence in dialogue with existing archaeological and historical narratives of ancient Rome. We discuss cases in which ancient sources, such as contemporary histories, monumental inscriptions, and ancient Mediterranean trade routes, have been instrumental in understanding the genetic structure of the Roman population in our study. In collaboration with geneticists and archaeologists, we have worked to add a genetic dimension to this well-studied time period and region. As archaeogenetic approaches become increasingly common across disciplines, we present an integrative project that we hope will be a useful framework for studying demographic changes in historical populations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26121