Ancient DNA reveals just how dramatically Rome's population changed during the rise and fall of the Empire.

A Science study sequenced 127 ancient genomes from 29 sites around Rome and central Italy, spanning roughly 12,000 years.

Before the Empire, 8 of 11 Iron Age and Republican samples belonged to a genetic cluster relatively shifted toward European populations. But during Imperial Rome, only 2 of 48 fell in that same cluster.

Instead, Imperial Rome shifted dramatically eastward. About 40% of the sampled individuals belonged to an Eastern Mediterranean genetic cluster and 28% to a Near Eastern cluster, with another 24% in a broader Mediterranean cluster.

This does not mean those percentages were literal ancestry components. They represent the share of individuals assigned to each genetic cluster.

The shift likely reflected the extraordinary movement of people through an empire connecting Rome with Greece, Anatolia, Cyprus, the Levant, Egypt and beyond.

At Isola Sacra, the cemetery serving Rome's main port, eight of nine people belonged to Eastern Mediterranean or Near Eastern clusters. Yet all nine had isotope values compatible with having grown up locally, suggesting these diverse communities had become established around Rome over generations.

After 300 CE, the pattern reversed. Near Eastern affinity declined while ancestry shifted back toward central and northern Europe. By the Medieval period, Rome's sampled population clustered close to modern central Italians.

Rome really was a genetic crossroads whose population changed with the political geography of the city itself.

📚 Source: Antonio et al. (2019), Science
Ancient Rome: A genetic crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean

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