Posted on 02/01/2010 2:28:11 PM PST by decimon
HAMILTON, ON, February 1, 2010–Researchers excavating an ancient Roman cemetery made a surprising discovery when they extracted ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from one of the skeletons buried at the site: the 2,000-year-old bones revealed a maternal East Asian ancestry.
The results will be presented at the Roman Archeology Conference at Oxford, England, in March, and published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
According to Tracy Prowse, assistant professor of Anthropology, and the lead author on the study, the isotopic evidence indicates that about 20% of the sample analyzed to-date was not born in the area around Vagnari. The mtDNA is another line of evidence that indicates at least one individual was of East Asian descent.
"These preliminary isotopic and mtDNA data provide tantalizing evidence that some of the people who lived and died at Vagnari were foreigners, and that they may have come to Vagnari from beyond the borders of the Roman Empire," says Prowse. "This research addresses broader issues relating to globalization, human mobility, identity, and diversity in Roman Italy."
Based on her work in the region, she thinks the East Asian man, who lived sometime between the first to second centuries AD—the early Roman Empire—was a slave or worker on the site. His surviving grave goods consist of a single pot (which archaeologists used to date the burial). What's more, his burial was disturbed in antiquity and someone was buried on top of him.
Prowse's team cannot say how recently he, or his ancestors, left East Asia: he could have made the journey alone, or his East Asian genes might have come from a distant maternal ancestor. However, the oxygen isotope evidence indicates that he was definitely not born in Italy and likely came here from elsewhere in the Roman Empire.
During this era, Vagnari was an Imperial estate owned by the emperor in Rome and controlled by a local administrator. Workers were employed in industrial activities on the site, including iron smelting and tile production. These tiles were used for roofing buildings on the site and were also used as grave covers for the people buried in the cemetery. Fragmentary tiles found in and around Vagnari are marked "Gratus Caesaris", which translates into "slave of the emperor."
In addition to the mystery the find uncovers, Prowse sees the broader scientific impact for archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and classicists: The grave goods from this individual's burial gave no indication that he was foreign-born or of East Asian descent.
"This multi-faceted research demonstrates that human skeletal remains can provide another layer of evidence in conjunction with archaeological and historical information," says Prowse.
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For the last seven years, Prowse has been digging the cemetery at the site of Vagnari, just west of the city of Bari in southern Italy. The cemetery was first discovered in 2002 by her colleague, Alastair Small (University of Edinburgh), who directs the excavations at Vagnari and continues to excavate other areas of the site. Prowse's research focuses on the bioarchaeological analysis of the people buried in the cemetery, including isotopic, palaeopathological, and aDNA analysis. The ancient DNA analyses were conducted by her coauthors on the paper, Jodi Barta and Tanya vonHunnius, at McMaster University.
The research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
McMaster University, one of four Canadian universities listed among the Top 100 universities in the world, is renowned for its innovation in both learning and discovery. It has a student population of 23,000, and more than 140,000 alumni in 128 countries.
Golden hoard ping.
Betcha their football team sucks.
It’s not out of the question since we know that Hellenistic Europe had contact with East Asia/China and this contact probably preceded the Hellenistic period. Silk was a known but rare commodity at the time so while it’s good to see evidence, it’s not something that should be a surprise.
East Asian -- now that's so very informative. Are the discoverers of this find trying to tell us that the remains are of a person from the Orient, as in Chinese or Japanese or maybe Korean? It seems that these days the term "Asian" is being applied very loosely to anybody, to people from India to people from central Asia and the Orient to people from Siberia. All of these experts are always tiptoeing on eggshells if they have to make a definitive statement on the racial identification of human remains.
Its possible this guy ran the local dim sum outlet in Vagnari.
McMaster University is in Hamilton, Ontario. It’s not far from one of the War of 1812 battlefields (Battle of Stoney Creek, June 6, 1813, a British victory). The battle was supposedly over in 45 minutes—less time than a football game.
When speaking of the Indian Subcontinent they use the term South Asian.
UKian people are prone to refer to Indians, Pakistanis, Bengla Deshies and others from that immediate area as "Asian", but only when making police reports or in newspapers.
What does “East Asian ancestry” mean? The Roman Empire traded with India by sea through Egypt, but the hostile Parthian Empire blocked overland access to China and points east.
The Silk Road predates the Greek Dark Ages ~ so, yeah, trade in females was known ~ and the Romans knew all about Central Asia as well.
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Thanks decimon. |
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Vague. I don’t think human DNA analysis can determine origins yet. I doubt they’ve found a relative somewhere to get a genetic match.
I didn't read the whole "abstract." If that's an abstract, then I'm as big as King Kong.
War Bride ping
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