A01_P06

A Multidisciplinary approach to the comprehension of the peopling of Portus Romae Antemurale area

Rossi P³, De Angelis F², Rickards O², Di Cicco M¹, Mantile N¹, Altieri S¹, Vetromile C¹, Spagnuolo A¹, Cocozza C¹, Vaccaro S³, Lubritto C¹

¹Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" - Dipartimento DiSTABiF - iCONa LAb & MAReA centre, Caserta, Italy, ²Centre of Molecular Anthropology for Ancient DNA studies, Department of Biology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy, ³Servizio di Antropologia, Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica, Ministero della Cultura, Roma, Italy

The Antemurale area of Portus Romae (Rome, Italy) returned several burials from the Late Antiquity/ early Medieval period. The site was ever investigated until the nineteenth century. In this paper a multidisciplinary approach, involving archaeological, bioanthropological, isotopic, and molecular analyses has been used to study people buried in that area. Radiocarbon dating, stable isotopes analysis, anthropological and DNA studies, has been performed on the 14 individuals from this area, and this sample represent now the first nucleus of investigation of a much broader research that aims to reconstruct the peopling and the change of human life style through the time in the ancient town so called Portus Romae.

Moreover, an explorative sample of 4 individuals was submitted to genomic analyses through a Whole Genome Sequencing to dissect their genetic ancestry to broaden our knowledge of the biological characteristics of people living in the area. Even though the DNA preservation was mined by chemical-physical diagenesis, we could detect reliable information about the European ancestry in Portus Romae, by comparing the data with roughly coeval and diachronic samples. Furthermore, we determined the genetic sex in children by mapping the reads to the sex chromosomes, starting to contribute to the demographic analysis of the area.