Jewish Catacombs Built First

A paper in this week's Nature discusses the dating of some Jewish catacombs in Rome. The authors obtained organic matter, used in the construction of the catacombs, and performed [14]C radiocarbon dating. It appears that the Jewish catacombs were built at least 100 years before the Christian ones. The last paragraph of the article:

This evidence indicates that the Villa Torlonia catacomb came into use in the second century AD, a century before the building of the earliest Christian catacombs started. Given that Roman Christianity evolved from Judaism, and Jews and Christians continued to interact until well into Late Antiquity, it is possible that Christian funerary practices were influenced by Jewish ones. This could explain the similarity between the oldest of the early Christian underground cemeteries and the Jewish Villa Torlonia catacomb, particularly considering that Callixtus, the deacon in charge of developing the Christian catacombs, came from the Jewish quarter. However, confirmation awaits radiocarbon dating of the Christian catacombs.

I don't pretend to know the significance of this, I just thought it was interesting. Maybe someone out there can elaborate.

(Radiocarbon dating: Jewish inspiration of Christian catacombs A Jewish cemetery in ancient Rome harbours a secret that bears on the history of early Christianity. Leonard V. Rutgers, Klaas van der Borg, Arie F. M. de Jong and Imogen Poole)