This article was originally published on July 7, 2022.
The morning of August 24 could have started off like any other for the 30-something man. Of Mediterranean origin, he likely had a sore back, something that probably didn't help him much in the blacksmith house where he may have worked. But around noon that day in the year A.D. 79, everything changed when Mount Vesuvius began to erupt in the region of Pompeii.
The man was encased in ash for nearly two millennia, alongside an older female with a bag of money. The two were first found by archaeologists in the early 20th century. But it wasn’t until recently that DNA preserved in the man’s bones was successfully extracted and sequenced, helping inform scientists about his origins and genetic relationship with modern-day Mediterranean people.
The recent discovery also marks the first time that scientists have been able to fully sequence ...
