The role of emerging elites in the formation and development of communities after the fall of the Roman Empire

Abstract

Elites played a pivotal role in the formation of post-Roman Europe on both macro- and microlevels during the Early Medieval period. Our approach combines history and archaeology with paleogenomic and isotopic data to explore the role of elite groups in the development of a 6 to 8th-century community at Collegno, Italy. Analyzing 28 new genomes with 24 previous ones revealed that the site was formed around biologically and socially connected high-ranking groups. The community also integrated newcomers and embraced individuals with diverse genetic ancestries. This study highlights how power shifts and migration after the fall of the Roman Empire influenced community formation in the rural areas in one of the core territories of the former Western Roman Empire.