After the Norman conquest, the population of the Maltese islands kept growing mainly through immigration from the north (Sicily and Italy), with the exile to Malta of the entire male population of the town of Celano (Italy) in 1223 (though most of them returned home few years later), the stationing of a Norman (Swabian) and Sicilian garrison on Malta in 1240, the arrival of several thousands Aragonese soldiers in 1283 to 1425, and the settlement in Malta of noble families from Sicily and the Crown of Aragon between 1372 and 1450. As a consequence of this, Capelli "et al." found in 2005 that "the contemporary males of Malta most likely originated from Southern Italy, including Sicily and up to Calabria."