The restoration project that provided the opportunity for this study covered 86 of the 104 known casts. The remaining casts, and the ongoing excavations that continue to produce new finds at Pompeii — the site has not been fully excavated after nearly three centuries of work — provide a continuing source of material for future studies. New extraction and sequencing techniques are improving the recovery of ancient DNA from challenging contexts, and the sensitivity of kinship analysis continues to increase as computational methods develop.
Future work could address the specific limitations of the 2024 study: the small sample size relative to the total number of victims; the inability to sex the second individual in the embracing pair; the limited characterization of specific ancestry components; the unanswered questions about the individuals in the Villa of the Mysteries and other locations. It could also extend genetic analysis to the skeletons found outside casts — the remains of individuals who were not cast in plaster but whose bones have been recovered from the volcanic deposits.
The integration of ancient DNA with other lines of evidence — isotopic analysis, osteological study, analysis of associated objects, documentary evidence from the abundant inscriptions and graffiti preserved at Pompeii — represents the most complete approach available. No single method is sufficient; each addresses questions that the others cannot. The gold bracelet adult can now be said to be genetically male and not closely related to the child they held. The question of who they were in every other sense of the word requires every other line of evidence that can be brought to bear.