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. 2021 Apr 25;12(5):636.
doi: 10.3390/genes12050636.

First Bronze Age Human Mitogenomes from Calabria (Grotta Della Monaca, Southern Italy)

Francesco Fontani  1 , Elisabetta Cilli  1 , Fabiola Arena  2   3 , Stefania Sarno  4 , Alessandra Modi  5 , Sara De Fanti  4   6 , Adam Jon Andrews  1   4 , Adriana Latorre  1 , Paolo Abondio  4 , Felice Larocca  3   7 , Martina Lari  5 , David Caramelli  5 , Emanuela Gualdi-Russo  2 , Donata Luiselli  1
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First Bronze Age Human Mitogenomes from Calabria (Grotta Della Monaca, Southern Italy)

Francesco Fontani et al. Genes (Basel). .

Abstract

The Italian peninsula was host to a strong history of migration processes that shaped its genomic variability since prehistoric times. During the Metal Age, Sicily and Southern Italy were the protagonists of intense trade networks and settlements along the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, ancient DNA studies in Southern Italy are, at present, still limited to prehistoric and Roman Apulia. Here, we present the first mitogenomes from a Middle Bronze Age cave burial in Calabria to address this knowledge gap. We adopted a hybridization capture approach, which enabled the recovery of one complete and one partial mitochondrial genome. Phylogenetic analysis assigned these two individuals to the H1e and H5 subhaplogroups, respectively. This preliminary phylogenetic analysis supports affinities with coeval Sicilian populations, along with Linearbandkeramik and Bell Beaker cultures maternal lineages from Central Europe and Iberia. Our work represents a starting point which contributes to the comprehension of migrations and population dynamics in Southern Italy, and highlights this knowledge gap yet to be filled by genomic studies.

Keywords: Bronze Age; Italy; ancient DNA; archaeology; human; mitochondrial DNA; paleogenomics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Location of Grotta della Monaca. The entrance of the cave is marked by a yellow circle on the bottom right image. The scheme of the cave with the m5v area is represented at the top right.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Median Joining Network based on the complete GdM24 mitogenome (shown in red) compared to a dataset of ancient reference (in white), H1 (grey) and H1e (black) mitogenomes (see Table S4 for dataset).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phylogenetic tree reconstructed with BEAST using dated ancient reference samples as calibration points (Tables S4 and S5).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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