Publications by authors named "Letizia Silvestri"
Even though agriculture already spread into Eurasia during the Neolithic, the transition between the Copper Age and the Bronze Age was the time where Italian communities tuned horticultural techniques to foster the soil productivity. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analyses could be leveraged to identify some of those practices, such as manuring and irrigation. The former could spike the nitrogen values of plants, while water availability affects the carbon values.
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- Scientists studied ancient DNA from people in Italy who lived between 3200 and 1500 BCE to understand their ancestry.
- They found that a new type of ancestry from the Steppe region started appearing in Central Italy around 1600 BCE and increased over time.
- Their research showed that while there were changes in population and family ties, the arrival of Steppe ancestry didn't change many physical traits, which were affected more by events that happened after the Roman Empire.