A study of the complete genome of individuals belonging to the Longobardic barbarian populations was carried out for the first time.
The analysis on the DNA of the ancient Lombards was conducted on 63 samples from two cemeteries of the sixth century AD - in Szólád, Hungary and Collegno (Torino), Italy - by an international team led by researchers from the Department of Biology of the University of Florence, the Max Planck Institute in Jena, the Stony Brook University of New York and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (New Jersey).
The study, which involved anthropologists, geneticists, historians and archaeologists in an interdisciplinary perspective and has been published in Nature Communications ("Understanding 6th-century barbarian social organization and migration through paleogenomics" DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06024-4), sheds new light on the barbarian invasions, a key moment in European history which is still little known also because of the multiple interpretations of written sources. This study contributes to the historical reconstruction of the life of the Lombard communities and their interaction with local populations.
