Pompeii's genomic cosmopolitanism

Ancient DNA from Pompeii's plaster‑cast victims shows a surprisingly mixed set of ancestries, indicating the city (and by inference many imperial urban centers) hosted residents and seasonal workers from across the Mediterranean and beyond. This undermines simplistic ideas of a homogeneous Roman populace and provides concrete genetic evidence of long‑distance mobility in antiquity. — If imperial cities were genetically diverse, modern claims that migration is historically unprecedented or anomalous are weakened; the finding reframes political and cultural debates about belonging, citizenship, and urban identity with long‑run empirical backing.