The Genomic Legacy of the Picenes: Unraveling Italy’s Forgotten Civilization

Ancient DNA Sheds Light on the Mysterious People of Pre-Roman Italy

The Italian Peninsula before the rise of Rome was a tapestry of diverse ethnic groups, each with unique languages, customs, and material cultures. Among them, the Picenes, who thrived along the Middle Adriatic coast from the 9th to 3rd centuries BCE, have remained an enigmatic presence in the historical record. A recent study, The Genomic Portrait of th…