Drawing on multiple studies demonstrating that it is possible to retrieve DNA from both human and animal remains in Pompeii, they managed to extract genetic information from some of those plaster casts containing highly fragmented skeletal remains,

The findings, which used DNA from the plaster casts of people who died in the Mt. Vesuvius eruption two millennia ago, challenge the traditional gender and familial assumptions about the Pompeiians.

Plaster casts of calcified Pompeii residents have long been used by archaeologists to tell the stories of the last, desperate moments of ancient Romans before they were buried and preserved in pyroclastic ash from Mount Vesuvius in A.