Editor’s note: This article contains a cast photo of a person who died in Pompeii.

Pieces of human bone were seized PompeiiItaly surrendered DNA from people who died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius – and genetic data challenges old assumptions about victims’ identities and relationships¹.

Researchers obtained bone fragments from the casts of people who died in the explosion. buried the city under ash and pumice advert 79. The DNA, the first DNA recovered from casts, reveals details about the gender, origin and family ties of the five individuals.

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A narrative debunked by genetic data published today Current BiologyIt focuses on a victim long thought to be a mother who died while holding her child. An intricate gold bracelet on one of her arms contributed to the attribution of the female gender to the individual. DNA analysis showed that the individual was male and had no family ties to the child.

The reversal shows that DNA “can rewrite history or the stories of a particular group of individuals,” says David Caramelli, an anthropologist at the University of Florence in Italy.

“They’ve done a really good job of pointing out that these narratives are extremely biased and these decisions were made without any scientific data,” says John Lindo, an anthropologist who studies ancient DNA at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

moment of death

Since excavations of the Pompeii ruins began in the 1700s, plaster casts of more than 100 victims’ bodies have been made by pouring liquid plaster into the gaps created by the destruction of the victims’ soft tissues. Many of these casts still contain bone fragments from the victims.

Researchers had the opportunity to collect some of these pieces during the restoration work of 86 of the 104 casts. Samples from five individuals yielded complete or partial genomes. Lindo says the researchers were very lucky. “Even exposure to that kind of heat would have destroyed most of the DNA, and subsequent environmental leaching into the plaster could have further complicated the situation.”

According to DNA analysis, all five people were men. The analysis also revealed details of their relationships with each other. For example, the remains of the person wearing the gold bracelet and the child she was carrying were discovered along with two other people. Until now, it was thought that the people in the group belonged to the same family, but DNA analysis revealed that there was no biological connection between them. The findings highlight how unreliable such traditional interpretations, often based on limited evidence, can be, the authors say.

Another interpretation, at odds with the new data, involves two people seemingly embracing. They were previously thought to be sisters or mother and daughter, but genetic analysis now shows that at least one of them is male.

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“What this study does is remind us that there are indeed myths that need to be debunked,” says Steven Ellis, an archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio who led excavations at Pompeii. He notes that many of the narratives created around plaster casts are simplified interpretations designed to increase public interest. Current research on Pompeii doesn’t necessarily accept past interpretations of the casts, but says “plaster casts are an extraordinary symbol of the tragedy that is the story of Pompeii, and they have always created a splash.”

DNA analysis also confirmed that the population of Pompeii was genetically diverse: The individuals analyzed were descendants of immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean. “We know this from the jewelry they wear, the cults they follow, the decorations that adorn their homes,” says Ellis. “But we didn’t really know that from the body casts. “We’re doing this now, and it’s pretty important information.”