• Some of the victims of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. from Pompeii were cast in plaster to preserve the scene.

• New DNA studies of those victims tell a different story than what experts had previously speculated.

• Common interpretations of three well-known relationships have been proven false by scientific study.

The Mount Vesuvius the eruption of AD 79 covered Pompeii in destruction. To preserve the historical nature of the event and help tell the story of the townspeople, some of the victims who had been buried by the ash and debris from the volcano were eventually cast in plaster. Apparently the stories of some of these individuals were not enough as truthful as I previously thought.

A new study –published in Current Biology by a team of researchers from Harvard University and the Pompeii Archaeological Park in Naples, Italy – states that the ancient DNA taken from some of the challenges of the victims long-told stories about these certain citizens of Pompeii.

“The findings demonstrate the importance of integrating genetic analysis with archaeological and historical information to enrich or correct narratives built on a limited basis. EVIDENCE,” study co-author Alissa Mittnik said in a statement.

For decades, many of the stories told about the relationships and connections between the individuals discovered in the Archaeological Park of Pompeii were based simply on the physical appearance of the victims and their proximity to each other. In one situation, for example, the painting of an adult with a gold bracelet holding a child in their lap she was interpreted as a mother holding her offspring. This recent DNA analysis, however, shows that there was no maternal presence or any family relationship involved in the scene. Instead, the adult in the scene wearing the jewelry was a man who had no biological connection to the child.

A second scene features four casualty close together, often considered to be a family. But when the research team analyzed DNA from three of the victims, they found no genetic link between them.

In a third situation, two individuals are seen lying in what is believed to be an embrace. Some hypothesized both people they could be sisters, a mother holding a daughter or even lovers. The DNA shows that at least one of the two people was male, eliminating two of the three common interpretations.

The ancient eruption buried several Roman cities, killing inhabitants and depositing ash deposits in cities that preserved everything from buildings to sculptures and mosaics to human victims. Shortly after eruptionthe rain helped functionally cement the bodies in the ashes. When excavators descended on the area centuries later, the outlines of about 1,000 victims remained, and in more than 100 cases, the cavities were filled with plaster to preserve their positioning.

While this DNA analysis dispels some of the Pompeii myths, the goal of the team behind this work was not necessarily to uncover any definitive history. And DNA alone would not be enough to know the stories of these victims. First, some of the remains may have been moved from their original positions, and the casts may have been “creatively restored” in the past, the study authors wrote. The team also cautioned that using so few clues, such as jewelry, to spin a full story proved risky, especially in an area rich in different CROP.

The team’s intention was never to get these stories right once and for all – rather, they wanted to make sure the stories were simply less wrong. “Instead of establishing new narratives that could misrepresent these people’s experiences,” David Reich, co-senior author of the study, said in a statement, ” genetic the results encourage reflection on the dangers of inventing stories about gender and family relationships in past societies based on current expectations.”

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