NEW YORK – Using ancient DNA, a team from the US, Austria, Italy, and other parts of Europe has retraced the genetic ancestry of individuals who have moved and migrated through Rome since the Mesolithic period.

"It was surprising to us how rapidly the population ancestry shifted, over timescales of just a few centuries, reflecting Rome's shifting political alliances over time," co-senior author Jonathan Pritchard, a genetics researcher at Stanford University, said in a statement, noting that "[e]ven in antiquity, Rome was a melting pot of different cultures."