Pompeii and DNA

By Dr. Kim Laing 

The liberal arts are CORE at Harding not just in that they are taken by all students, but in the very fact that they all inform each other. Recently, an article was published revealing that new DNA evidence has changed traditional interpretations of the bodies discovered at Pompeii. Fortuitously, the city of Memphis, Tennessee, is also hosting an exhibition of artifacts from Pompeii this spring. On Feb. 8, thanks to the Clifton L. Ganus Jr. Endowed Chair for History and Political Science, students from the history and political science and biology departments traveled together to hear talks about the confluence of history and biology and see those links featured in the exhibit. Students experienced in a very tangible way the interdependence of diverse fields of study and the way each area of the CORE can benefit from a greater understanding of the others.

“The experience was extremely eye opening. Seeing the plaster casts in front of me truly made me pause and consider that these were real people, just like any of us. We heard a lecture from one of our biology professors on how DNA was extracted from the victims, and that too brought some semblance of life back into these hollow casts. Overall, the trip lifted the tragic stories of these victims off the page and into reality for me.”  — Brantley Anderson, history major  

"The intersection of genetics and history at Pompeii has certainly opened new doors of thought and research in both fields. I did not think it would be possible to obtain DNA from ancient samples, let alone enough to be of any use. However, the new techniques applied here show it is possible to obtain and sequence DNA from these people and learn a bit more about them. It's amazing how just one or two new pieces of information can completely change how we see these people." — Katie Yurcho, molecular and cellular biology major