Roman DNA project gives voice to the silent majority

Past Horizons ^ | Thursday, November 17, 2011 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

A new project to carry out DNA analysis on a group of skeletons who were immigrants to Rome, has been created by Kristina Killgrove, a biological anthropologist from Vanderbilt University...

This project will be the first to study the DNA of immigrants to Rome and will help rewrite the history of everyday life there.

At the simplest level, each skeleton reveals key information about the person -- male or female, height, age of death, and long-term diseases, and these can all be found through observation of the bones.

Bones and teeth hold additional information about diet and place of origin and this has to be obtained through chemical analysis of isotopes and DNA. Each one of our physical bodies is formed by the food we consume, the activities we engage in, the geographies we have passed through, and the important milestones in our lives...

Up until now, most information known about the Romans comes from studying the lives of the wealthy upper classes -- the small minority of the population that controlled the Empire. However, Kristina wants to know more about the silent majority -- the lower classes and slaves who lived at subsistence level. She wants to change our approach to Roman history and by using skeletal data concerning age, sex, height, disease and diet, added to the study of historical records, art, and artefacts it will help to build up a better picture of the ordinary people of Rome.

[SunkenCiv]

Kristina Killgrove

[SunkenCiv]

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[martin_fierro]

A new project to carry out DNA analysis on a group of skeletons who were immigrants to Rome,

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DNA Analysis Has Cleared Up The Origins of the Etruscans (Turkey)

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...no wonder Rome fell....