With The Rise of Skywalker, a troubled chapter of Star Wars closed with a whimper. Palpatine somehow returned, Rey adopted the Skywalker name, and the sequel trilogy came to a merciful conclusion. The franchise quickly moved on: The Mandalorian started a new era for Star Wars weeks before Rise of Skywalker even hit theaters.

The franchise has struggled to re-enter the movie space ever since. Projects involving Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige have all fallen apart. But there are still several movies in development... and now a fourth trilogy, helmed by a franchise veteran, will be joining them.

In the wake of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, some two thousand people were smothered in ash, leaving behind still images of their final moments. Historians and archaeologists extrapolated stories and identities from these stills, describing a mother and child in an embrace or two sisters clutching each other. But a new genetic analysis shows how wrong we’ve been about some of these identities.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, authors from the United States, Italy, and Germany describe what DNA evidence from 14 Pompeii victims tells us about their actual identity, from sex to ancestry. This study underscores that the narratives we derive from history aren’t necessarily true, and the science may reveal quite a different story.