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Excavation (2008-2014) carried out under the Uffizi Gallery (Florence, Italy) led to the discovery of 75 individuals, mostly buried in multiple graves. Based on Roman minted coins, the graves were preliminarily dated between the second half of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th centuries CE. Taphonomy showed that this was an emergency burial site associated with a catastrophic event, possibly an epidemic of unknown etiology with high mortality rates. In this perspective, paleoparasitological investigations were performed on 18 individuals exhumed from 9 multiple graves to assess the burden of gastrointestinal parasitism. Five out of eighteen individuals (27.7%) tested positive for ascarid-type remains; these are considered as "decorticated" Ascaris eggs, which have lost their outer mammillated coat. Roundworms (genus Ascaris) commonly infest human populations under dire sanitary conditions. Archaeological and historical evidence indicates that Florentia suffered a period of economic crisis between the end of 4th and the beginning of the 5th centuries CE, and that the aqueduct was severely damaged at the beginning of the 4th century CE, possibly during the siege of the Goths (406 CE). It is more than plausible that the epidemic, possibly coupled with the disruption of the aqueduct, deeply affected the living conditions of these individuals. A 27.7% frequency suggests that ascariasis was widespread in this population. This investigation exemplifies how paleoparasitological information can be retrieved from the analysis of sediments sampled in cemeteries, thus allowing a better assessment of the varying frequency of parasitic infections among ancient populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Stable isotope analysis in the reconstruction of human palaeodiets can yield clues to early human subsistence strategies, origins and history of farming and pastoralist societies, and intra- and intergroup social differentiation. In the last 10 years, the method has been extended to the pathological investigation. Stable isotope analysis to better understand a diet-related disease: celiac disease in ancient human bones was carried out. To do this, we analyzed the nitrogen and carbon isotopic composition of human ( n = 37) and faunal ( n = 8) bone remains from the archaeological site of Cosa at Ansedonia, on the Tyrrhenian coast near Orbetello (Tuscany), including the skeletal remains of a young woman (late 1st century-early 2nd century Common Era [CE]) with morphological and genetic features suggestive of celiac disease. We compared the young woman's isotopic data with those of other individuals recovered at the same site but from two later time periods (6th century CE; 11-12th century CE) and with literature data from other Italian archaeological sites dating to the same period. Her collagen δ13C and δ15N values differed from those of the samples at the same site, and from most but not all of the contemporary sites. Although the woman's diet appears distinct, chronic malnutrition resulting from severe malabsorption of essential nutrients due to celiac disease may have affected the isotopic composition of her bone collagen. Am J Phys Anthropol 154:349-356, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the age of occurrence of enamel hypoplasia in a representative sample population of middle 19th century in Florence, Italy. Weaning habits of 19th century Italians; Enamel defects as stress indicators; Gradual introduction of dietary supplements.

The Monti 'e Prama site, made famous by the discovery of numerous large stone statues "The Monti 'e Prama giants", is a necropolis located in Sardinia, dated to the X - IX BC. The statues, all depicting men: archers, boxers and fencers, were found collapsed and fragmented, in the immediate vicinity of the burials. The sample of inhumated skeletons consists of 41 individuals, almost all males, who died when adolescents, young adults or, more rarely, mature. Neither children nor elders were present. An interesting question is whether the statues depicted the deceased or could have come from a temple located elsewhere. In this regard, the diagnosis of the age at death is an element of considerable importance, but the skeletal age is difficult to determine in this sample because of the bad state of preservation of the bones, while the teeth are well preserved and have allowed us to reconstruct a seriation in order to seniority on the basis of wear. Since tooth wear is a weak indicator of age, we also used a method based on the deposition of secondary dentine, by the pulp area/tooth area ratio calculation, which gets a greater precision. It was found that the correlation between the degree of wear and pulp area/tooth area ratio is somewhat low, indicating that the two processes, although both age-dependent, do not have a very similar trend. It was also noted that the method of pulp area / tooth area ratio tends to "make the individuals grow old" in cases of discrepancy, but in general confirms the young age of many adults and the absence of the elderly. In this sense, it confirms even the possibility of an association between the deceased and the statues of young athletes or warriors. The results of pulp area/tooth area ratio method, by moving the sample as a whole to ages slightly more advanced than those suggested by wear, offers the hypothesis that the community was characterized by alimentary habits involving a little wearing mastication activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origin, development, and legacy of the enigmatic Etruscan civilization from the central region of the Italian peninsula known as Etruria have been debated for centuries. Here we report a genomic time transect of 82 individuals spanning almost two millennia (800 BCE to 1000 CE) across Etruria and southern Italy. During the Iron Age, we detect a component of Indo-European–associated steppe ancestry and the lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture among the putative non–Indo-European–speaking Etruscans. Despite comprising diverse individuals of central European, northern African, and Near Eastern ancestry, the local gene pool is largely maintained across the first millennium BCE. This drastically changes during the Roman Imperial period where we report an abrupt population-wide shift to ~50% admixture with eastern Mediterranean ancestry. Last, we identify northern European components appearing in central Italy during the Early Middle Ages, which thus formed the genetic landscape of present-day Italian populations.

We recently presented the case of a first century AD young woman, found in the archaeological site of Cosa, showing clinical signs of malnutrition, such as short height, osteoporosis, dental enamel hypoplasia and cribra orbitalia, indirect sign of anemia, all strongly suggestive for celiac disease (CD). However, whether these findings were actually associated to CD was not shown based on genetic parameters. To investigate her human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II polymorphism, we extracted DNA from a bone sample and a tooth and genotyped HLA using three HLA-tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms for DQ8, DQ2.2 and DQ2.5, specifically associated to CD. She displayed HLA DQ 2.5, the haplotype associated to the highest risk of CD. This is the first report showing the presence of a HLA haplotype compatible for CD in archaeological specimens.