Revisiting ancient mtDNA equid sequences from Pompeii

✍ Scribed by Susan M.R. Gurney

• Book ID: 102304612
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 306 KB
• Volume: 111
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0730-2312
• DOI: 10.1002/jcb.22914

✦ Synopsis

I n an mtDNA study on equids recovered from the ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum (covered in ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79), Di Bernardo et al. [2004a,b] presented six equid mtDNA sequences, which they labeled as CAV1-5 and CAVH, respectively. The Pompeii equid skeletons had been excavated from the stables (Fig. 1) at the house of the Casti Amanti (chaste lovers), so called because of frescoes depicting a romantic scene. The owner of this house was probably Caius Iulius Polybius, a wealthy politician and baker in ancient Pompeii, as shown by the fact that the house contains an open oven and four wheat grindstones [Genovese and Cocca, 2000].

The authors convincingly identified mtDNA types retrieved from skeletons CAV1 to CAV4 and CAVH as being of horse origin, while CAV5 presented a puzzle. They stated that ''Our findings provide evidence that the remains analyzed are those of horse and mules and do not include either donkeys or hinnies'' [Di Bernardo et al., 2004a]