The cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius obliterated Pompeii in 79 CE, but the Roman city didn’t remain a lifeless disaster zone for long. According to new research published in the E-Journal of the Excavations of Pompeii, a handful of survivors, destitute wanderers, and treasure hunters continued to call the ruins home for decades. Given the level of destruction, Pompeii’s few post-eruption inhabitants would have made their homes amid upper floor ruins of any buildings that endured the devastation. “The epochal event of the city’s destruction in 79 CE has monopolized memory,” explained Zuchtriegel. Possibly yet another volcanic event at Mount Vesuvius known as the Pollena eruption of 472 CE.