Phd in GENETICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Thesis title: Archaeogenetics of the Middle Adriatic culture and the legacy of the Roman expansion in Central Italy

Prior to the unification under the Roman rule, the Italian peninsula was composed of several regional groups with distinct cultural identities and languages. From an archaeological perspective, Italy presents an extremely complex picture, exhibiting different facies that range from the homogeneity of the Neolithic to a strong regional diversification in the early Iron Age. Indeed, during the Late Bronze Age, the Italic populations emerged, followed by the appearance of the first communities with well-defined cultural and linguistic identities that have been consolidated during the Iron Age, such as the Picenes, the Etruscans, the Latins and others. These populations were deeply connected to each other, being in close commercial and cultural contact. Moreover, the presence of non-autochthonous goods in the Italic Iron Age archaeological sites suggest that these populations were part of an extensive trade network, connecting the Italian Peninsula with Europe and the entire Mediterranean basin. Despite the extensive archaeological and historical studies conducted, the genetic ancestries and potential admixture events among these populations are still not completely understood. The population dynamics that contributed to the formation of the ancient and modern Italian gene pool remain largely unknown, and only a limited number of studies have investigated the genetic variability of Iron Age Italic populations. Moreover, we still lack a micro-regional characterization of the evolution of the gene pool in the Iron Age compared to earlier and later periods, which could be highly variable given the great cultural diversity in this period. One of the areas that remain understudied is the Adriatic side of Central Italy, nowadays the Marche and Northern Abruzzo regions. In this area, between the 9th and the 3rd century BCE one of the most important pre-roman civilizations was established: the Picene, also archaeologically identified as Middle Adriatic culture. In the early decades of the 3rd century BCE the Picenes culture started to fade, because the region underwent the Roman expansion. The Romans have indeed deeply influenced ancient Italian societies by contributing to different socio-cultural aspects and, possibly, to demography and genetics. It has been shown that the rise of a multicultural Roman Empire starting from the 1st millennium CE changed the genetic landscape of the city of Rome, bringing a strong genetic influence from the Near East that also lasted throughout the subsequent Late Antiquity period. To fill the gap in the knowledge of the Italic Iron Age genetic landscape and to better understand the evolution of the Picenes and the legacy of the Roman expansion in the Middle Adriatic region of Italy, we performed shotgun sequencing of 102 ancient individuals buried in three different necropolises located in the same area, two belonging to the Picene culture (9th-7th century BCE) and one from the Late Antiquity period (5th-6th century CE). In addition, we analyzed 10 individuals belonging to an Etruscan Iron Age necropolis for comparisons. Overall, we performed a comprehensive micro-regional archaeogenetic study covering a time span of more than 1,000 years of history. We identified a common genetic origin for all the Italian Iron Age ethnicities analyzed until now that can be traced back to the arrival of the Steppe-related (also known as Yamnaya) ancestry starting from the Bronze Age. We highlighted the genetic similarities of the Italian and Balkan peninsulas during these ages, indicating common histories and/or frequent contacts across the Adriatic Sea. Our study provides for the first time a window on the genetic make-up of pre-Roman Middle Adriatic culture. In this light, the genetic profile of Picenes may be compatible with at least partial autochthonous origin, with plausible contribution from the Balkan peninsula. Moreover, our results show the presence of several genetic outliers among the Picenes, as also shown for other Iron Age groups, indicating a multicultural and connected society. With the onset of the Roman Empire in the area and in the subsequent Late Antiquity period, we observed a shift in the genetic landscape towards the Near East, because of the attractive power of the capital of the Empire and its surroundings for the people coming from those areas of the Mediterranean Sea.