| Title: | Low Genetic Impact of the Roman Occupation of Britain in Rural Communities |
| Journal: | Molecular Biology and Evolution |
| Published: | 4 Sep 2024 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39268685/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msae168 |
Publication 13525
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Abstract
The Roman period saw the empire expand across Europe and the Mediterranean, including much of what is today Great Britain. While there is written evidence of high mobility into and out of Britain for administrators, traders, and the military, the impact of imperialism on local, rural population structure, kinship, and mobility is invisible in the textual record. The extent of genetic change that occurred in Britain during the Roman military occupation remains underexplored. Here, using genome-wide data from 52 ancient individuals from eight sites in Cambridgeshire covering the period of Roman occupation, we show low levels of genetic ancestry differentiation between Romano-British sites and indications of larger populations than in the Bronze Age and Neolithic. We find no evidence of long-distance migration from elsewhere in the Empire, though we do find one case of possible temporary mobility within a family unit during the Late Romano-British period. We also show that the present-day patterns of genetic ancestry composition in Britain emerged after the Roman period.</p>
7 Keywords
- DNA, Ancient
- Genetics, Population
- History, Ancient
- Human Migration
- Humans
- Rural Population
- United Kingdom
23 Authors
- Christiana L Scheib
- Ruoyun Hui
- Alice K Rose
- Eugenia D'Atanasio
- Sarah A Inskip
- Jenna Dittmar
- Craig Cessford
- Samuel J Griffith
- Anu Solnik
- Rob Wiseman
- Benjamin Neil
- Trish Biers
- Sarah-Jane Harknett
- Stefania Sasso
- Simone A Biagini
- Göran Runfeldt
- Corinne Duhig
- Christopher Evans
- Mait Metspalu
- Martin J Millett
- Tamsin C O'Connell
- John E Robb
- Toomas Kivisild
1 Application
| Application ID | Title |
|---|---|
| 54698 | After the plague: genetic history of medieval Cambridge population in relation to present-day population of Britain |
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health