Some even came from north-eastern Europe or the Caucasus: Around 2,500 years ago, in a battle against the Carthaginians in Sicily, the Greeks used mercenaries who had traveled a long way, according to genetic analyzes of fallen soldiers. These study results shed light on the far-reaching connections in antiquity and the apparently significant influence of warfare on contacts between distant cultures, say the scientists.
The first millennium BC was an age of expansion: trade and culture flourished in the Mediterranean region and ancient great powers spread. This was particularly true of the Greeks and the Phoenicians, who originally came from the Levant: both peoples founded numerous coastal trading posts and colonies in the western Mediterranean area. Many of the Greek settlements there developed into important city-states and, in the case of the Phoenicians, a new capital emerged: Carthage. It is hardly surprising that the two powers eventually began to vie for economic and territorial dominance in the Mediterranean. In the 5th century B.C. This led to military conflicts over the strategically important island of Sicily.
Two battles in sight
Ancient historians report two important battles around the Greek city of Himera on the north coast of the island. With the military support of the other two Greek cities of Syracuse and Agrigento, the forces of Himera were able to defeat an invading Carthaginian army in 480 BC. beat devastatingly. This ignominious defeat then kept the invaders out of Sicily for decades, allowing the Greek colonies to flourish. But in 409 B.C. Then the brutal revenge followed: When the Carthaginians attacked again, there was no support from Greek allies and so Himera could not defend himself for long. The city was eventually completely destroyed and never rebuilt.
Archaeologists have been excavating the remains of Himera for some time. They uncovered several mass graves containing skeletons of young men with battle injuries, who were interpreted as fallen soldiers in battles of the 5th century. Certain mass graves with strikingly ordered structures are considered to be the resting places of those who died in the victorious battle of 480 BC. A larger mass grave with the dead crowded together is dedicated to the victims of the battle of 409 BC. Attributed to B.C., which had been hastily buried before the city's defeat. In the current study, the team led by Laurie Reitsema from the University of Georgia in Athens extracted and analyzed DNA from the bones of some of the dead from the mass graves. They were then able to compare the genetic signatures with those of other ancient inhabitants of Himera and all of Sicily, as well as with genetic data from other population groups in Europe.
Amazingly well-travelled mercenaries
The team reports that the people of Himera already had comparatively diverse roots: while the rest of the Sicilians of this period largely descended from the local population from the Bronze Age, the people of Himera had Sicilian, Aegean and other regional ancestors. But the genetic diversity of the soldiers far exceeded that of the civilian population, the researchers found. "We were amazed to see among the soldiers of the battle of 480 B.C. to find many individuals descended from far outside the Mediterranean region, such as the Caucasus, northeastern Europe and the Eurasian steppe, a region known in ancient times as Scythia,” says co-author David Reich of Harvard University.
According to the researchers, there is historical evidence that this diversity was probably due to mercenaries in the Syracuse auxiliaries. In contrast to the findings in the fallen of 480 B.C. The results of the dead in the mass grave of the lost battle of 409 B.C. BC indicates no foreign origin of the fallen. This confirms that it was probably only defenders from Himera.
As the team further reports, in the case of the battle won, a particularly clear picture emerged when the genetic data was combined with earlier results from isotope analyses: Many of the soldiers from 480 BC possessed isotopic signatures that indicated a long-standing diet outside of Sicily, suggesting that they only traveled there as adults. "Now when we compared the isotopic results with the genetic results, we found a striking correlation: All soldiers with genetic origins outside the Mediterranean Sea were also clearly isotopically non-native. With the genetic data, we now know where they were likely born,” says Reitsema.
In conclusion, Reich explains the significance of the study results: "They make it clear that Greek colonization in classical antiquity not only led to the spread of the Aegean peoples throughout the Mediterranean region, but also enabled broader cosmopolitanism". Co-author Ron Pinhasi from the University of Vienna continues: "This case study sheds light on warfare as a mechanism for cultural contact and positions soldiers, particularly mercenaries, as long-distance carriers of ideas, technologies, languages and genes."
Source: University of Vienna, specialist article: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2205272119