The arrival of the Near Eastern ancestry in Central Italy predates the onset of the Roman Empire

Abstract Italian genetic history was profoundly shaped by Romans. While the Iron Age was comparable to contemporary European regions, the gene pool of Central Italy underwent significant influence from Near Eastern ancestry during the Imperial age. To explain this shift, it has been proposed that during this period people from Eastern Mediterranean regions of the Empire migrated towards its political center. In this study, by analyzing a new individual (1.25x) and published Republican samples, we propose a novel perspective for the presence of Near Eastern ancestry in the Imperial gene pool. In our scenario, the spread of this genetic ancestry took place during the late Republican period, predating the onset of the Empire by ∼200 years. The diffusion of this ancestry may have occurred due to early East-to-West movements, since Eastern Mediterranean regions were already under Roman political influence during the Republic, or even as a result of migration from Southern Italy where Greeks and Phoenicians settled.