First Glimpse into the Genomic Characterization of People from the Imperial Roman Community of Casal Bertone (Rome, First-Third Centuries AD).

Flavio De Angelis,Olga Rickards,Paola Catalano,Cristina Martínez-Labarga,Valentina Gazzaniga,Virginia Veltre,Marco Romboni

doi:10.3390/genes13010136

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a first glimpse into the genomic characterization of individuals buried in Casal Bertone (Rome, first–third centuries AD) to gain preliminary insight into the genetic makeup of people who lived near a tannery workshop, fullonica. Therefore, we explored the genetic characteristics of individuals who were putatively recruited as fuller workers outside the Roman population. Moreover, we identified the microbial communities associated with humans to detect microbes associated with the unhealthy environment supposed for such a workshop. We examined five individuals from Casal Bertone for ancient DNA analysis through whole-genome sequencing via a shotgun approach. We conducted multiple investigations to unveil the genetic components featured in the samples studied and their associated microbial communities. We generated reliable whole-genome data for three samples surviving the quality controls. The individuals were descendants of people from North African and the Near East, two of the main foci for tannery and dyeing activity in the past. Our evaluation of the microbes associated with the skeletal samples showed microbes growing in soils with waste products used in the tannery process, indicating that people lived, died, and were buried around places where they worked. In that perspective, the results represent the first genomic characterization of fullers from the past. This analysis broadens our knowledge about the presence of multiple ancestries in Imperial Rome, marking a starting point for future data integration as part of interdisciplinary research on human mobility and the bio-cultural characteristics of people employed in dedicated workshops.

Highlights

IntroductionThe history of Roman fashion ran parallel with that of the arts and architecture: they inherited ideas from the Greeks, but the assimilation of people of different customs led to a change in the original style, which became complex and richly colored
Despite recent efforts to characterize the genomic makeup of ancient Romans [9,10], there is still a paucity of information about the genetic characteristics of a multifaceted environment such as that of the capital of the Roman Empire
We generated reliable whole-genome data for three individuals buried in Casal Bertone, pointing out their North African genomic makeup

Summary

Introduction

The history of Roman fashion ran parallel with that of the arts and architecture: they inherited ideas from the Greeks, but the assimilation of people of different customs led to a change in the original style, which became complex and richly colored. Various treatments were developed to create attire that represented the wearer’s social position in a society where self-presentation mattered [4]. These procedures were progressively tuned in dedicated workshops such as fullonicae—ancient tanneries. Fullonicae were multifunctional facilities for textile processing. They were populated by fullers, whose guilds were funded by Numa Pompilio in the seventh century BCE, as noted in multiple epigraphic records throughout the Roman Empire

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