Philippa Kaur

Many ancient Romans died when the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by hot volcanic ash, but the high temperatures didn’t destroy proteins in their skeletons

Humans

27 May 2022

By Colin Barras
The Archaeological Park of Herculaneum in Pompei, ItalyIvan Romano/Getty Images
Baked human bones recovered from an ancient volcanic disaster still contain traces of their original proteins. The discovery could point the way to new forensic tools for analysing bodies recovered after fires or similar incidents.
In AD 79, the ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum in what is now Italy were entombed in hot ash when Mount Vesuvius, a nearby volcano, erupted.
The ash is thought to have been particularly hot at Herculaneum. Estimates suggest it baked the town at temperatures of 500°C and killed some residents instantly, before vaporising their flesh in a matter of tens of minutes. The ash at Pompeii is thought to have been cooler, at around 250°C.Advertisement
Pier Paolo Petrone at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, and his colleagues extracted small samples of bone from seven human skeletons recovered from Pompeii and five recovered from Herculaneum. They found that they could isolate traces of ancient protein from all of the samples.
“This is the first work aimed at the detection of [proteins] in people exposed to high temperatures,” says Petrone.

Surprisingly, he says, bones from Herculaneum contained a greater diversity of proteins than those from Pompeii, even though they endured higher temperatures.
This may be because the bones at the two sites have experienced a different fate since the disaster. The volcanic ash at Herculaneum is thought to have remained waterlogged for most of the last 2000 years, which might have limited the breakdown of proteins in the bones by microbes. Fluctuations in the local water table mean the ash at Pompeii periodically dried out, says Petrone, probably allowing for more microbial-driven decomposition.
The fact that proteins in human bone can survive high temperatures could inspire further investigation, the researchers say. For instance, it may lead to research exploring which of the 1000 or so proteins generally found in human bone degrade at particular temperatures.
This could allow forensic scientists to establish the typical “proteome” of bone exposed to various temperatures, says Petrone. Forensic investigators could use such a dataset to estimate the temperature of a fire based on the recovered human remains.
For now, though, Petrone says the work shows there are still new discoveries to be made among the “priceless heritage of archaeological treasures” at Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-12042-6
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The ancient town of Pompeii was buried under hot volcanic ash in AD 79, but DNA still survives in the bones of the people who died in the disaster

Humans

26 May 2022

By Colin Barras
The two individuals found in the Casa del Fabbro in PompeiiNotizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1934, p. 286, fig. 10
The hot volcanic ash that buried the ancient Roman town of Pompeii killed many of the town’s inhabitants – but it didn’t destroy their DNA. The first complete genome from Pompeii reveals genetic markers that haven’t been seen before in ancient Roman DNA.
Mount Vesuvius in southern Italy is the only active volcano in mainland Europe. It erupted to devastating effect in AD 79, burying several Roman settlements including Herculaneum to the west of Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii to the southeast.
The volcanic ash that covered Pompeii is estimated to have been at least 250°C – hot enough to kill people instantly and, presumably, cause significant damage to their internal tissues and DNA.Advertisement
“There was the expectation that the high temperatures would make our effort in DNA sequencing in Pompeii fruitless,” says Gabriele Scorrano at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. “Cremated bodies, for example, show no sign of DNA preservation according to multiple studies.”
But Scorrano and his colleagues decided to look for ancient DNA anyway. They focused on the skeletal remains of two people discovered in a building called the Casa del Fabbro, which translates to House of the Craftsman. The pair – a man in his 30s and a woman who was at least 50 years old – seem to have been lying on a low couch in what may have been a dining room at the moment they died.

The researchers managed to obtain genetic material from both skeletons, although only the man’s bones yielded enough DNA to piece together a full genome. Scorrano and his colleagues then compared the man’s genome with those from 1030 ancient people who lived during the last 5000 years or so and 471 present-day people from western Eurasia. This revealed the man from Pompeii had DNA comparable to that recovered from the skeletons of people who lived in Italy at the height of the Roman Empire.
There were also differences. In particular, groups of genes on the man’s Y chromosome and in his mitochondrial DNA were unlike those seen in earlier studies of ancient Romans but similar to sequences carried by some people living today on the Italian island of Sardinia.
“Undoubtedly, there is still a lot to study about genetics of the past peoples in the Italian peninsula,” says Scorrano.
It is only because of improvements in analytical techniques that we can now extract DNA from the skeletons preserved at Pompeii, says Pier Paolo Petrone at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. He says the work shows there are “always new discoveries” to be made even at such world-famous sites.
There were also hints of bacterial DNA in the bone sample collected from the ancient man. These are consistent with existing evidence from the state of his skeleton that he had spinal tuberculosis.
“This pathology causes severe pain, such as lumbago and sciatica,” says Scorrano. This might explain why the man didn’t flee when the eruption began, as many Pompeiians did. Instead, he remained in the town – which proved to be a fateful choice.
Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-10899-1
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Humans

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Humans

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Humans

25 May 2022

By Clare Wilson
mblickwinkel / Alamy Stock Photo
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Humans

23 May 2022

By Carissa Wong
Ancient footprints in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park.GBH/NOVA/WGBH
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