(ORDO NEWS) — Italian scientists examined the remains discovered during the excavations of the ancient necropolis of Contrada Diana, which is located on the island of Lipari.
High-coverage paleogeneticists sequenced DNA from two approximately 2,000-year-old samples, both of which belonged to maternal relatives or the same individual.
Judging by the mitochondrial DNA, these individuals (individual) originated from Africa. This is reported in an article published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
In the southern part of the Tyrrhenian Sea, not far from the island of Sicily, are the Aeolian (Lipari) Islands, the largest of which is the volcanic island of Lipari.
Archaeological research, which began in the middle of the last century, showed that the first settlements on this island, associated with the carriers of the Stentinello culture, arose in the Neolithic era (about 5000 BC).
During the Late Bronze Age (circa 1300-900 BC), the Ausonian culture spread here.
At the end of the 7th or at the beginning of the 6th century, Greek colonists arrived on the island of Lipari, and during the First Punic War, the Romans captured it.
Around 4000 BC, the settlement of Contrada Diana arose on Lipari, which existed until the era of Antiquity and is the most important ancient monument on this island.
To this day, in particular, the remains of the city walls have been preserved. Next to the fortifications, archaeologists discovered a large necropolis, in which burials were made for many centuries.
During the excavations of this burial complex, researchers discovered more than 2,700 burials, the earliest of which date back to the Bronze Age, and the latest to the Roman period.
In a new work, Giulio Catalano (Giulio Catalano) from the University of Palermo, together with colleagues from Italy, examined the remains of people found in the Contrada Diana necropolis.
They were interested in two samples recovered from the stratigraphic trench (code names TR-L1 and TR-L2), and the remains of two people from burials No. 2736 (DT-2736) and 2696 (DT-2696).
So, object No. 2696 was a jug burial, which contained the remains of a small child, and object No. 2736 was the burial of an adult man according to the rite of inhumation.
Radiocarbon analysis of the remains of TR-L1 showed that this person died between 160 BC and 115 AD. Further examination of the TR-L1 and TR-L2 samples showed good preservation of the ancient DNA.
So, scientists managed to read their complete mitochondrial genomes with an average coverage of 366 and 141 times. Moreover, scientists determined that both of them belonged to men.
Both people turned out to be carriers of the mitochondrial haplogroup L3e, or rather, the L3e5a subclade. According to paleogenetics, the men were maternal relatives, or the samples belonged to the same person.
According to scientists, the L3 mitochondrial lineage originated in East Africa approximately 75–60 thousand years ago, and now it is widespread throughout the continent.
Approximately 45 thousand years ago, in Central Africa or Sudan, the haplogroup L3e stood out from it.
According to the researchers, only one individual belonging to the L3e5 lineage was found in Europe, and not in the south, as one might expect, but in the central regions.
The line L3e4a was not found at all earlier in ancient samples.
Past paleogenetic studies have shown that there were genetic links between Sicily and Africa dating back to at least the Bronze Age.
Scientists have noted that Africans could have ended up on the island of Lipari as a result of the slave trade, although other factors cannot be ruled out.
Earlier on N + 1, it was reported that paleogenetics for the first time managed to read the genome of a 35–40-year-old man who died in Pompeii almost two thousand years ago.
Although its mitochondrial and Y-chromosome haplogroups had not previously been found in Roman-era Italy, principal component analysis pointed to its local origin.
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