Douglas Boin, Ph.D., a professor of history at Saint Louis University, made a major announcement at the annual meeting of the Archeological Institute of America, revealing he and his team discovered an ancient Roman temple that adds significant insights into the social change from pagan gods to Christianity within the Roman Empire.
“We found three walls of a monumental structure that evidence suggests belonged to a Roman temple that dates to Constantine's period,” Boin said. “It dates to the fourth century AD and it would be a remarkable addition to the landscape of this corner of Italy. It will significantly aid in the understanding of the ancient town, the ancient townscape and city society in the later Roman Empire because it shows the continuities between the classical pagan world and early Christian Roman world that often get blurred out or written out of the sweeping historical narratives.”
Boin and his excavation team made the monumental discovery over the summer. Boin, an expert in ancient Roman and its religious transitions, had been digging in the town of Spello, the famous medieval hilltop city about 20 minutes from Assisi and 2.5 hours north of Rome. Boin selected the town based on a rescript of a 4th century letter from Emperor Constantine to the townspeople regarding a religious holiday.
This rescript, which was discovered in the 18th century, allowed the people of Spello to celebrate a religious festival in their hometown rather than travel a great distance to another festival. However, in order to do so, the town was told it must erect a temple to Constantine’s divine ancestors, the Flavian family, and worship them, showcasing how multicultural Roman society was at the time.
“There was a remarkable religious continuity between the Roman world and the early Christian world,” Boin said. “Things didn't change overnight. Before our find, we never had a sense that there were actual physical, religious sites associated with this late ‘imperial cult practice.’ But because of the inscription and its reference to a temple, Spello offered a very tantalizing potential for a major discovery of an Imperial cult underneath a Christian ruler.”
Boin traveled to Spello and oversaw underground imaging to determine if there were any potential ruins below the surface that needed to be uncovered. After many weeks, and almost by chance, Boin finally received promising images underneath a parking lot where the temple was suspected to be.
Very carefully, the team dug into the ground until they found two adjoining walls. More digging unearthed what Boin believes to be the inside walls of the temple. This temple immediately became what Boin calls the largest evidence ever of the Imperial Cult in both fourth-century Italy and the late Roman Empire..
“There's evidence from other places throughout the Roman world that Christian rulers supported imperial cult practices,” Boin said. “We've known that pagans worshiped at their temples in the fourth century, but those findings have all been small and inconsequential. And we've known that Christians supported the imperial cult, and we’ve known that without any sense of where it would have happened. This temple bridges those two landmarks, and in that respect, it is unlike any temple that I know about from the Mediterranean world of the fourth century Roman Empire. Any study of the imperial cult in the fourth century Roman Empire is now going to have to take account of this temple, which is an incredible discovery to make.”
With the discovery, Boin now can show how the societal changes of the time moved very slowly. Though Constantine was the first Roman emperor to famously convert to Christianity, it would take almost 70 years for Christianity to become the official religion of the Roman Empire, under the Emperor Theodosius. During that time it still took many convincing and gradual shifts for those who worshiped pagan gods to convert to Christianity.
“This changes everything about how we perceive the pace of social change and our impression of the impact of social and cultural change,” Boin said. “This building, in a very radical way on its own, shows us the staying power of the pagan traditions that had been on the ground for centuries prior to the rise of Christianity, and it shows us how the Roman emperors continued to negotiate their own values, their own hopes and dreams for the future of the emperor and the Empire without knocking down or burying the past.”
Boin and his team will return to Spello next summer to completely excavate the area to examine the full temple, where he hopes to make even more significant discoveries.
“We are on the cusp of giving people a very visible piece of evidence that really upends the neat and tidy ways people think about big moments of cultural change,” Boin said “Cultural changes are never as big as we think they are when living through them, and there’s a lot of gray area in between people’s customs and the broader society and culture. And a lot of those can be left out of the story. So to have this temple potentially be a temple dedicated to Constantice’s divine ancestors as a way to worship the emperor in an increasingly Christian world at the time, it’s so weird and I love that we can bring it to light.”
The new study scientifically corroborates an event described in the Second Book of Kings – the conquest of the Philistine city of Gath by Hazael King of Aram.
The method is based on measuring the magnetic field recorded in burnt bricks. The researchers: "Our findings are important for determining the intensity of the fire and the scope of destruction in Gath – the largest and most powerful city in the land at the time, and also for understanding construction practices in the region."
A breakthrough achieved by researchers from four Israeli universities – Tel Aviv University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University and Ariel University– will enable archaeologists to identify burnt materials discovered in excavations and estimate their firing temperatures. Applying their method to findings from ancient Gath (Tell es-Safi in central Israel), the researchers validated the Biblical account: "About this time Hazael King of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem" (2 Kings 12, 18). They explain that unlike previous methods, the new technique can determine whether a certain item (such as a mud brick) underwent a firing event even at relatively low temperatures, from 200°C and up. This information can be crucial for correctly interpreting the findings.
The multidisciplinary study was led by Dr. Yoav Vaknin from the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Entin Faculty of Humanities, at Tel Aviv University, and the Palaeomagnetic Laboratory at The Hebrew University. Other contributors included: Prof. Ron Shaar from the Institute of Earth Sciences at The Hebrew University, Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef and Prof. Oded Lipschits from the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Aren Maeir from the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University and Dr. Adi Eliyahu Beharfrom the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and the Department of Chemical Sciences at Ariel University. The paper has been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
Prof. Lipschits: "Throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages the main building material in most parts of the Land of Israel was mud bricks. This cheap and readily available material was used to build walls in most buildings, sometimes on top of stone foundations. That's why it's so important to understand the technology used in making these bricks."
Dr. Vaknin adds: "During the same era dwellers of other lands, such as Mesopotamia where stone was hard to come by, would fire mud bricks in kilns to increase their strength and durability. This technique is mentioned in the story of the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis: "They said one to another, Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly. So they used brick for stone"(Genesis 11, 3). Most researchers, however, believe that this technology did not reach the Land of Israel until much later, with the Roman conquest. Until that time the inhabitants used sun-dried mud bricks. Thus, when bricks are found in an archaeological excavation, several questions must be asked: First, have the bricks been fired, and if so, were they fired in a kiln prior to construction or in situ, in a destructive conflagration event? Our method can provide conclusive answers."
The new method relies on measuring the magnetic field recorded and 'locked' in the brick as it burned and cooled down. Dr. Vaknin: "The clay from which the bricks were made contains millions of ferromagnetic particles – minerals with magnetic properties that behave like so many tiny 'compasses' or magnets. In a sun-dried mud brick the orientation of these magnets is almost random, so that they cancel out one another. Therefore, the overall magnetic signal of the brick is weak and not uniform. Heating to 200°C or more, as happens in a fire, releases the magnetic signals of these magnetic particles and, statistically, they tend to align with the earth's magnetic field at that specific time and place. When the brick cools down, these magnetic signals remain locked in their new position and the brick attains a strong and uniformly oriented magnetic field, which can be measured with a magnetometer. This is a clear indication that the brick has, in fact, been fired.
In the second stage of the procedure, the researchers gradually 'erase' the brick's magnetic field, using a process called thermal demagnetization. This involves heating the brick in a special oven in a palaeomagnetic laboratory that neutralizes the earth's magnetic field. The heat releases the magnetic signals, which once again arrange themselves randomly, canceling each other out, and the total magnetic signal becomes weak and loses its orientation.
Dr. Vaknin: "We conduct the process gradually. At first, we heat the sample to a temperature of 100°C, which releases the signals of only a small percentage of the magnetic minerals. We then cool it down and measure the remaining magnetic signal. We then repeat the procedure at temperatures of 150°C, 200°C, and so on, proceeding in small steps, up to 700°C. In this way the brick's magnetic field is gradually erased. The temperature at which the signal of each mineral is 'unlocked' is approximately the same as the temperature at which it was initially 'locked', and ultimately, the temperature at which the magnetic field is fully erased was reached during the original fire."
The researchers tested the technique in the laboratory: they fired mud bricks under controlled conditions of temperature and magnetic field, measured each brick's acquired magnetic field, then gradually erased it. They found that the bricks were completely demagnetized at the temperature at which they had been burned – proving that the method works.
Dr. Vaknin: "Our approach enables identifying burning which occurred at much lower temperatures than any other method. Most techniques used for identifying burnt bricks are based on actual changes in the minerals, which usually occur at temperatures higher than 500°C – when some minerals are converted into others."
Dr. Eliyahu Behar: "One of the common methods for identifying mineralogical changes in clay (the main component of mud bricks) due to exposure to high temperatures is based on changes in the absorption of infrared radiation by the various minerals. In this study we used this method as an additional tool to verify the results of the magnetic method." Dr. Vaknin: "Our method is much more sensitive than others because it targets changes in the intensity and orientation of the magnetic signal, which occur at much lower temperatures. We can begin to detect changes in the magnetic signal at temperatures as low as 100°C, and from 200°C and up the findings are conclusive."
In addition, the method can determine the orientation in which the bricks cooled down. Dr. Vaknin: "When a brick is fired in a kiln before construction, it records the direction of the earth's magnetic field at that specific time and place. In Israel this means north and downward. But when builders take bricks from a kiln and build a wall, they lay them in random orientations, thus randomizing the recorded signals. On the other hand, when a wall is burned in-situ, as might happen when it is destroyed by an enemy, the magnetic fields of all bricks are locked in the same orientation."
After proving the method's validity, the researchers applied it to a specific archaeological dispute: was a specific brick structure discovered at Tell es-Safi - identified as the Philistine city of Gath, home of Goliath - built of pre-fired bricks or burned on location? The prevalent hypothesis, based on the Old Testament, historical sources, and Carbon-14 dating attributes the destruction of the structure to the devastation of Gath by Hazael, King of Aram Damascus, around 830 BCE. However, a previous paper by researchers including Prof. Maeir, head of the Tell es-Safi excavations, proposed that the building had not burned down, but rather collapsed over decades, and that the fired bricks found in the structure had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. If this hypothesis were correct, this would be the earliest instance of brick-firing technology discovered in the Land of Israel.
To settle the dispute, the current research team applied the new method to samples from the wall at Tell es-Safi and the collapsed debris found beside it. The findings were conclusive: the magnetic fields of all bricks and collapsed debris displayed the same orientation – north and downwards. Dr. Vaknin: "Our findings signify that the bricks burned and cooled down in-situ, right where they were found, namely in a conflagration in the structure itself, which collapsed within a few hours. Had the bricks been fired in a kiln and then laid in the wall, their magnetic orientations would have been random. Moreover, had the structure collapsed over time, not in a single fire event, the collapsed debris would have displayed random magnetic orientations. We believe that the main reason for our colleagues' mistaken interpretation was their inability to identify burning at temperatures below 500°C. Since heat rises, materials at the bottom of the building burned at relatively low temperatures, below 400°C, and consequently the former study did not identify them as burnt – leading to the conclusion that the building had not been destroyed by fire. At the same time, bricks in upper parts of the wall, where temperatures were much higher, underwent mineralogical changes and were therefore identified as burnt - leading the researchers to conclude that they had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. Our method allowed us to determine that all bricks in both the wall and debris had burned during the conflagration: those at the bottom burned at relatively low temperatures, and those that were found in higher layers or had fallen from the top –at temperatures higher than 600°C."
Prof. Maeir: "Our findings are very important for deciphering the intensity of the fire and scope of destruction at Gath, the largest and most powerful city in the Land of Israel at the time, as well as understanding the building methods prevailing in that era. It's important to review conclusions from previous studies, and sometimes even refute former interpretations, even if they came from your own school." Prof. Ben-Yosef adds: "Beyond their historical and archaeological significance, ancient building methods also had substantial ecological implications. The brick firing technology requires vast quantities of combustive materials, and in ancient times this might have led to vast deforestation and even loss of tree species in the area. For example, certain species of trees and shrubs exploited by the ancient copper industry in the Timna Valley have not recovered to this day and the industry itself ultimately collapsed once it had used up its natural fuels. Our findings indicate that the brick firing technology was probably not practiced in the Land of Israel in the times of the Kings of Judah and Israel."
New study sheds light on the previously overlooked Mongolian Arc—a monumental wall system in eastern Mongolia spanning 405 kilometers. This discovery not only reveals the significance of this ancient architectural marvel but also prompts crucial questions about the motives, functionality, and broader implications of such colossal constructions. Their findings contribute to a larger multidisciplinary project exploring historical wall systems and their socio-political, economic, and environmental impacts, marking a pivotal milestone in understanding ancient civilizations and their enduring legacies.
[Jerusalem, Israel] Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi from Hebrew University and Prof. Amartuvshin Chunag from the National University of Mongolia, and their team unveil a new discovery in their latest research published in the Journal of Field Archaeology. Their paper, "Unraveling the Mongolian Arc: a Field Survey and Spatial Investigation of a Previously Unexplored Wall System in Eastern Mongolia," sheds light on a monumental wall system that has remained largely overlooked in existing academic discourse.
The "Mongolian Arc," spanning 405 kilometers in eastern Mongolia, comprises an earthen wall, a trench, and 34 accompanying structures. Constructed between the 11th and 13th centuries a.d., this intricate system has emerged as a pivotal yet understudied facet of historical architectural marvels.
The research, conducted through a collaborative effort, involved a comprehensive approach combining remote sensing data collection, archaeological field surveys, and analysis through geographic information systems (GIS). Professors Shelach-Lavi and Amartuvshin's team also delved into ancient written sources to offer a preliminary interpretation of the design and potential functions of the Mongolian Arc.
"Understanding the significance of the Mongolian Arc unlocks profound insights into medieval wall systems, raising pertinent questions about the motives, functionality, and enduring consequences of such colossal constructions," remarked Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi.
This study is part of a larger multidisciplinary project, funded by a generous research fund from the European Research Council (ERC) addressing the construction of extensive walls and structures in northern China and eastern Mongolia during the 11th–13th centuries a.d. The findings not only contribute to unraveling historical mysteries but also offer a framework for exploring the broader socio-political, economic, and environmental impacts of such endeavors.
The published paper marks a pivotal milestone in the ongoing investigation, sparking renewed interest and further inquiry into ancient architectural wonders and their societal implications.
When did archery arise in the Americas? And what were the effects of this technology on society?
These questions have long been debated among anthropologists and archaeologists. But a study led by a University of California, Davis, anthropologist, is shining light on this mystery.
Focusing on the Lake Titicaca Basin in the Andes mountains, anthropologists found through analysis of 1,179 projectile points that the rise of archery technology dates to around 5,000 years ago. Previous research held that archery in the Andes emerged around 3,000 years ago.
The new research indicates that the adoption of bow-and-arrow technology coincided with both the expansion of exchange networks and the growing tendency for people to reside in villages.
“We think our paper is groundbreaking because it gives us a chance to see how society changed throughout the Andes throughout ancient times by presenting a huge number of artifacts from a vast area of South America,” said Luis Flores-Blanco, an anthropology doctoral student and corresponding author of the paper. “This is among the first instances in which Andean archaeologists have investigated social complexity through the quantitative analysis of stone tools.”
The study was published online in November in Quaternary International.
Researchers said increasing social complexity in the region is usually investigated through analysis of monumental architecture and ceramics rather than projectile points, which are historically linked to foraging communities.
Pooling from 10,000 years of history
For the study, the team examined more than a thousand projectile points created over 10,000 years. Each projectile point originated in the Lake Titicaca Basin, specifically the Ilave and Ramis valleys, which are located southwest and northwest of the basin, respectively.
Flores-Blanco said it’s among the highest plateau lands explored and conquered by humans, with Lake Titicaca sitting at an elevation of 12,500 feet.
“At Titicaca, Andeans accomplished the remarkable achievement of domesticating plants like the potato, leaving behind a nutritious legacy that is still appreciated today,” he said. “On top of that, the Tiwanaku were one of the major Andean civilizations that built their vast territory here. Even the Inca Empire claimed this territory was their mythical place of origin. Our study digs even deeper and goes to the roots of this Andean civilization.”
In their analysis, Flores-Blanco and his colleagues considered each projectile’s date of origin and then measured its length, width, thickness and weight. They noticed that older projectile points — from the Early Archaic through the Late Archaic — were larger. A significant decrease in size occurred during the Terminal Archaic period, around 5,000 years ago. The team hypothesized that this size shift indicates a change in preference from spear-throwing technology to bow-and-arrow technology, but without abandoning the old technologies.
In addition, the team compared their projectile data to archaeological data from the region concerning settlement sizes, raw material availability and cranial trauma data. During the Terminal Archaic period, settlement sizes increased but the total number of settlement sites decreased, researchers said. Not only that, but the inhabitants lacked signs of social violence, even though they had access to exotic raw materials.
“Based on our discovery, we can suggest that bow-and-arrow technology could have maintained and ensured adherence to emerging social norms that were crucial, such as those observed in the development of new social institutions, like obsidian exchange hubs or among individuals establishing residence in expanding villages,” Flores-Blanco said.
Flores-Blanco co-authored the study with Lucero Cuellar, National University of San Marcos; Mark Aldenderfer, UC Merced; Charles Stanish, University of South Florida; and Randall Haas, University of Wyoming and formerly of UC Davis.
Human activities such as intentional burning, agriculture, pastoralism, and metallurgy can affect the frequency of fire in an ecosystem. Guanghui Dong, Aifeng Zhou and colleagues investigated whether another typical human activity has influenced fire history in the areas along the Silk Road: war. Fire was a commonly used weapon in ancient Chinese warfare. In the 5th-century BCE, military strategist Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, advised the use of fire against enemy troops and supplies. The authors measured black carbon, soot, and char in sediments from a core of Tianchi Lake, which represent 6,000 years of sediment deposition. The authors calculated the spatial range of land that would have contributed fire-related particulate to the sediment using the potential source contribution function analysis, a method typically used to determine the source areas for contemporary pollution. Fire was infrequent in the middle Holocene, but became more frequent in the late Holocene, as the climate became drier and flammable herbaceous vegetation spread. Then, 2,000 years ago, the fire frequency became decoupled from climate or vegetation. On centennial timescales, fires during this period are synchronous with warfare, as recorded in the List of Wars in Historical China. From 2,000–400 years ago, warfare between different political powers may have been the dominant contributor to high-intensity fires in the area, according to the authors.
DURING LOWER SEA LEVELS A VAST ARCHIPELAGO FORMED ON THE AUSTRALIAN NORTHWEST CONTINENTAL SHELF (TOP). A MODERN-DAY EXAMPLE OF AN ARCHIPELAGO ON A SUBMERGED CONTINENTAL SHELF IS THE ÅLAND ISLANDS NEAR FINLAND (BOTTOM).
CREDIT: US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA
New research conducted by a team of archaeologists and earth scientists has shed light on the ancient landscapes of Sahul, the Pleistocene (Ice Age) landmass comprising Australia and New Guinea.
The findings, published this week in Quaternary Science Reviews, offer a fascinating glimpse into a previously unrecognised chapter of human history.
For the majority of the last 65,000 years of human history in Australia, lower sea levels revealed a vast expanse of dry land in the northwest of the continent, connecting the Kimberley and Arnhem Land into a contiguous area.
Through meticulous analysis of high-resolution bathymetric data (ocean floor topography), it has been unveiled that this region, now submerged, existed as an extensive archipelago during Marine Isotope Stage 4 (71,000-59,000 years ago), which remained stable for ~9000 years
This transformed into a fully exposed shelf in Marine Isotope Stage 2 (29,000–14,000 years ago), featuring an inland sea adjacent to a sizable freshwater lake, encircled by high escarpments cut by deep gorges.
The team's demographic modelling indicates that this now-submerged shelf experienced fluctuating potential carrying capacities through Marine Isotope Stages 4–2, potentially supporting populations ranging from 50,000 to 500,000 people at various times.
However, rapid global sea level rises between 14,500 – 14,100 years ago (during Meltwater Pulse 1A) and between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago resulted in the rapid inundation of approximately 50% of the Northwest Shelf, causing profound changes in the space of human life spans.
These events likely triggered the retreat of human populations ahead of the encroaching coastline, evident in peaks of occupational intensity at archaeological sites across the Kimberley and Arnhem, and the sudden appearance of distinctive new rock art styles in both regions.
Lead researcher Kasih Norman said: “The presence of this extensive archipelago likely facilitated the successful dispersal of the first maritime explorers from Wallacea – the region of modern-day Indonesia - providing a familiar environment for their adaptation to the vast continent of Sahul.”
Furthermore, the study emphasised the critical role that the now-submerged continental margins played in early human expansions.
“The temptation to overlook the continental shelf margins of Late Pleistocene Sahul in discussions of early peopling and expansion risks oversimplification and misunderstanding of this pivotal period in history," added Norman.
The implications of these findings underscored the need to reevaluate the narrative of early human migration and the impact of climate change on ancient populations.
Norman said: “Our demographic modelling showed a peak in population size at the height of the last ice age ~20,000 years ago, when the entire extent of the Northwest Shelf was dry land. This finding has now been supported by new genetic research showing very large populations for the Tiwi Islanders – located just to the east of the study region – at the height of the last glacial period.”
As submerged landscapes continued to yield invaluable archaeological insights, the rise of undersea archaeology in Australia contributed to a global understanding of human migration during the Late Pleistocene.
This research marked a significant milestone in understanding the complex interplay between ancient landscapes, human populations and environmental change. Dr Norman said as exploration and analysis of underwater sites expanded, it promised to unravel more secrets of our shared human history.
The study ‘Sea level rise drowned a vast habitable area of north-western Australia driving long-term cultural change’ has been published in Quaternary Science Reviews.
Iñigo Olalde, Ikerbasque Research Fellow at the UPV/EHU and Ramón y Cajal Researcher has, together with the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF) and Harvard University, led a study in which they have, for the first time, reconstructed the genomic history of the first millennium of the Balkan Peninsula. To do so, the team recovered and analysed the ancient genome of 146 individuals who inhabited present-day Croatia and Serbia during that period. The work, published in the prestigious journal Cell, depicts the Balkans as a global, cosmopolitan frontier of the Roman Empire and reconstructs the arrival of Slavic peoples in this region.
For the first time, the team has identified three individuals of African origin who lived in the Balkans under Rome's imperial rule. Furthermore, the research establishes that the migration of Slavic peoples from the 6th century onwards represented one of the biggest permanent demographic changes in the whole of Europe, the cultural influence of which continues to this day.
The Roman Empire transformed the Balkans into a global region
First the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire incorporated the Balkans and turned this border region into a crossroads of communications and a melting pot of cultures. This is confirmed by the study which reveals that immigrants from far away were attracted to the region by the economic vitality of the empire.
Through the analysis of ancient DNA, the team was able to identify that, during Roman rule in the region, there was a large demographic influx from the Anatolian Peninsula (located in modern-day Turkey) that left a genetic imprint on the Balkan populations. Yet no trace of Italic ancestry has been observed in the genomes analysed. “These populations that had come from the East were fully integrated into the local Balkan society. At Viminacium, for example (one of the main cities of the Romans, located in present-day Serbia), we found an exceptionally rich sarcophagus in which a man of local descent and a woman of Anatolian descent had been buried,” said the lead author of the article Íñigo Olalde, Ikerbasque Research Fellow in the BIOMICs group at the UPV/EHU and research associate at Harvard University (he had previously been a "La Caixa Junior Leader" researcher in the IBE's Palaeogenomics group).
The team also revealed the sporadic long-distance mobility of three individuals of African descent to the Balkan Peninsula while under imperial rule. One of them was a teenager, whose genetic origins are to be found in the region of present-day Sudan, beyond the boundaries of the ancient Empire. “The isotopic analysis of the roots of his teeth revealed that in his childhood he had a seafood diet very different from that of the rest of the individuals analysed,” said Carles Lalueza-Fox, senior researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) and director of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona (MCNB).
What is more, he had been buried with an oil lamp representing an iconography of the eagle, which is related to Jupiter, one of the most important gods for the Romans. Lalueza-Fox pointed out that “archaeological analysis of his grave reveals that he may have been part of the Roman military forces, so we would be talking about an immigrant who had travelled from a long way away to the Balkans in the 2nd century CE”. “This indicates to us a diverse, cosmopolitan Roman Empire, which embraced populations from far beyond the European continent.”
The Roman Empire welcomed barbarian populations long before its fall
The study identified a number of individuals of northern European and steppe ancestry who inhabited the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century at the height of the Roman occupation. Anthropological analysis of their skulls reveals that some of them were artificially deformed, a custom peculiar to certain populations of the steppes and the Huns, often referred to as “barbarians”.
These findings support historical and archaeological research and point to the presence of individuals from outside the borders of the Empire, beyond the Danube, long before the fall of the Western Empire. “The borders of the Empire were much more diffuse than the borders of today's nation states. The Danube served as a geographical boundary of the Empire but acted as a communication route and was highly permeable to the movement of people,” said Pablo Carrión, IBE researcher and co-lead author of the study.
Slavic populations altered the demographics of the Balkan region
Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and in particular from the 6th century onwards, the study reveals the large-scale arrival in the Balkans of individuals genetically similar to the modern Slavic-speaking populations of Eastern Europe. Their genetic footprint represents between 30% and 60% of the ancestry of today's Balkan peoples, which constitutes one of the largest permanent demographic shifts anywhere in Europe during the period of the Great Migrations.
Although the study detects the sporadic arrival of individuals from Eastern Europe during earlier periods, it is from the 6th century onwards that a strong migratory surge can be observed. “According to our ancient DNA analysis, this arrival of Slavic-speaking populations in the Balkans took place across several generations and involved entire family groups including both men and women,” explained Carrión.
The study also identifies that the establishment of Slavic populations in the Balkans was bigger in the north, with a genetic contribution of 50-60% in present-day Serbia, and gradually smaller towards the south, with a genetic representation of 30-40% in mainland Greece and up to 20% in the Aegean islands. “Their genetic legacy is visible not only in today's Balkan Slavic-speaking populations, but also in other groups that include regions where Slavic languages are not currently spoken, such as Romania and Greece,” said David Reich, a researcher at Harvard University in whose lab the recovery and sequencing of the ancient DNA was carried out.
Coordination and cooperation to rewrite Balkan history
The 1991 war in Yugoslavia led to the separation of the Balkan peoples into the various countries that currently make up the region, and its consequences persist to this day. However, researchers from across the region have collaborated on the study. “Croatian and Serbian researchers have been collaborating on the study. This is a great example of cooperation, given the recent history of the Balkan Peninsula. At the same time, this type of work is an example of how objective genomic data can contribute towards leaving behind social and political problems linked to collective identities that have been based on epic narratives of the past,” said Lalueza-Fox.
The team developed a de novo genetic database of the Serbian population in order to reconstruct the history of the Balkans. “We were faced with the situation in which there was no genomic database of the current Serbian population. In order to construct it and use it as a comparative reference in this study, we had to look for people who called themselves Serbs on the basis of certain shared cultural traits, even if they lived in other countries such as Montenegro or North Macedonia,” said Miodrag Grbic, lecturer at the University of Western Ontario and visiting lecturer at the University of La Rioja.
Despite the question of identity, marked by the more recent history of the Balkans, the genomes of the Croatians and Serbians analysed speak of a heritage shared in equal measure between Slavic and Mediterranean populations.
As Lalueza-Fox pointed out, “we believe that, together with archaeological data and historical records, the analysis of ancient DNA can contribute towards the reconstruction of the history of the Balkan peoples and the formation of the so-called Slavic peoples of southern Europe.”
“The image that emerges is not one of division, but of a shared history. The Iron Age people inhabiting the Balkan region were similarly affected by migrations during the time of the Roman Empire and by Slavic migrations later on. Together, these influences gave rise to the genetic profile of the modern Balkans, regardless of national borders,” concluded Grbic.
