Little Italian immigration to Roman Balkans

Despite Rome’s cultural dominance in the Danube, very few individuals of Italian descent actually lived there.

Researchers have analyzed the ancient DNA from 136 Roman era individuals from the Balkan Peninsula (present day Serbia and Croatia). They showed little contribution from the Italian peninsula.

Rather than wide scale migration from the Italian peninsula, the DNA studies show that half of the Roman inhabitants were of Balkan Iron Age ancestry, as well as a third were from Western Anatolia.

Several individuals from this period have North or Eastern African ancestry.
 

One individual of East African ancestry was buried with an oil lamp depicting Jupiter-related Eagle iconography. Isotopic analysis of his teeth suggest dietary habits from a distant region.

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To provide cultural and historical context for the genetic data, the team collaborated with local archeologists and historians. For each grave, they documented burial type, as well as any objects buried alongside the individuals, such as coins, jewelry, pottery, tools, and weapons. The researchers also used radiocarbon dating to verify the age of 38 of the ancient individuals, which generated isotopic data that provide a window into those individuals' diets.

The researchers were surprised to find no evidence of Italian Iron Age ancestry in the Balkan populations during the height of the Roman Empire. Instead, they showed that there was an influx of people from Western Anatolia, another part of the Roman Empire, during that period. They also found evidence of individual migrations into the Balkans from both within and outside the Roman Empire. Notably, a 16-year-old male who was excavated from a necropolis in a large Roman city was of 100% East African ancestry. The individual was buried with an oil lamp depicting Jupiter-related eagle iconography, but isotopic analysis of his teeth indicated that he had consumed marine protein sources during his childhood and therefore had likely grown up in a distant location.

 

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During the late Imperial period, between 250 and 550 CE, the researchers detected migrants with mixed ancestry from Northern Europe and the Pontic-Kazakh steppe. "We found that those two ancestries -- central/northern European and Sarmatian-Scythian -- tended to come together, which suggests that these are likely to have been multi-ethnic confederations of moving people," says senior author and population geneticist David Reich of Harvard University.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/civilisations/surprise-discovery-about-roman-empire-found-in-ancient-dna/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/12/231207161343.htm

The articles don;t state how many individuals were analyzed. Sampling probems can lead us to false conclusions-- although I wouldn't be surprised at all if their conclusions are in fact correct. The Romans didn't maintain control over their vast empire by sending Italian born legions to maintain order. Roman colonists probably were a small portion of the total population in the provinces.....Pagan Romans cremated their dead, so not too many left to do DNA analysis on. How many Romans were Christians at that point in history?

The 16 y/o's skull depicted, BTW, shows a large hole obviously caused by a blow. No healing of the edges obvious, so it was caused either at the time of death ,  or after death. If after death, probably decomposition hadn't occurred yet to any great extent-- A blow to a bare skull at that point would have caused the bones to separate along the suture lines-- lines of least rsistance--  not as a punched out hole including parts of the three bones coming together at that point....Time for a Cold Case  murder investigation?