Re: Pompeii and Circumstantial Evidence

But it goes both ways. To a point.

But they aren't the only source. While it is a softer science, one could still deduce the existence of a Latin-speaking ancient population from a study of the existing descendent languages.

Linguistics also helped us erase the notion that "Gypsies" were Egyptian and revealed that they were from India nearly 200 years before a study of Haplotypes gave further evidence to this.

The survival of the Hebrew language (and Jewish religion) among a separate minority that called itself "Jews" was also instrumental to their organized discrimination in three continents, and ultimately, to the scientific-racist theories which were devised to support their organized extermination during the Third Reich. Despite little real evidence of, barring the Kohanim, huge genetic distances between Jews and non-Jews in Europe, Africa, and Asia beyond the Middle East. In this case the non-physical evidence is being given too much importance.