The making of Italy: Archaeogenetic insights from the post-Roman period

At the end of the Western Roman Empire, Italy underwent profound political, social, and economic transformations, further intensified by the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the Justinianic plague. In this context, Central Italy acted as a hinge between the northern regions, which increasingly gravitated toward continental Europe, and the southern regions, whose centre of gravity was located within the Mediterranean world, becoming a crossroads of encounters, conflicts, and exchanges between two spheres that were politically, culturally, religiously, and genetically distinct. This project investigates the role of Central Italy in the social and demographic dynamics of the period through an archaeogenetic approach, analysing a dataset of over 100 individuals from sites with distinct political and economic contexts: Pesaro and Senigallia (6th–7th cc.), two cosmopolitan Byzantine urban centres; Castel Trosino (6th–8th cc.), a Longobard cemetery at the Byzantine frontier; Fossombrone (5th–7th cc.), a stronghold contested by Romans, Goths, Byzantines, and Longobards; and La Selvicciola and Fara Sabina (4th–8th cc.), rural settlements between Longobard and Papal territories. The genetic analyses of these sites - soon expanded with additional contexts and samples - will provide unprecedented insights into the mobility, kinship networks, ancestry and health of people who made the modern Italian population.