Is the yDna "E" found during the transition from the mid-to-late Neolithic a precursor then, or just a related branch? Unless we find "E" in earlier Neolithic contexts, the arrival of ydna "E" and "J2" could still herald the arrival of a new group, an arrival that we already saw in the mtDna, yes?
If the former, then I think we could still speculate that the specific E-V13 mutation perhaps took place in Europe. If the latter, perhaps there's another possibility, i.e. that a brother clade made its first entrance during the Bronze Age?
Expansion dates would be something different again.
@LeBrok
I'm not sure how to interpret that data from the Bean Project. They give some information about LP and skin color for these Bronze Age villages, but they don't tell us the corresponding information about the Neolithic villages to which they were compared. They do say, however, that the fst between the mid-to-late Neolithic villagers and the Bronze Age villagers is low, although we have to keep in mind that this is based only on mtDna.
@Yetos,
No one is denying that there were extensive contacts between Italy and the broader Aegean area, some entering via Sardinia. We discussed it extensively in a number of threads. The question is whether this entailed a broad folk movement or even a substantial movement of elites.
The reason it's a difficult question to answer without ancient dna is that there is no sign of destruction of settlements, etc., and there is evidence for a great deal of continuity from Villanova. On the other hand, we do see the building of different kinds of hilltop settlements. You can find Italian researchers taking various positions, and some even started out supporting the idea of an intrusion and then changed their minds. This was the case in terms of the analysis of ancient mtDna from the Etruscans. Some of the researchers found a link between the mtDna in a few Tuscan villages and some found in Turkey. Subsequent research showed that the lineages were so old that they could have entered Italy in the Neolithic. Of course, this was not based on complete sequencing of the mtDna, so the conclusion could change again. What the research did show was that generally, based on the mtDna of these elite Etruscans, there wasn't a lot of continuity from the ancient
elite Etruscans to modern Tuscans, although there is continuity between medieval Tuscans and modern Tuscans. Now, I find that disappointing, since having ancestry from an area that abuts the Etruscan areas, and being a bit obsessed with their culture, I've always hoped I'd be a bit related to them. We'll see what more modern analyses show.
Ydna would give us more information. Again, though, we'd need a very complete analysis down to subclade levels, good dating, and a comparison to other, older samples in Italy. Let's say, for example, that it turns out they carried J2. It's possible. However, we have J2 already in Europe in the mid-to-late Neolithic. Was it also in Italy? Even if it was, was it the same kind? Could it be J2a which came via Crete? Could it be some form of R1b L23? We just don't know yet.
Autosomally, all we have is that PCA posted upthread by Pax Augusta. The authors never posted the data, just the PCA. It was from a poster. This is a link to the Dienekes' post where he discussed it.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2015/05/2500-year-old-etruscans.html
I agree with the conclusion that they basically look like modern Southern Europeans. I don't know how we can say definitively much more than that. One clusters with Spaniards, one right near modern Tuscans but a little north and east, and one more north and east again? Perhaps Bulgarian? Or could it be between Bulgarian and North Italian? I don't think that sample can be plotting with mainland Greeks, because in every plot I've seen they plot slightly south of Tuscans, but who knows what more samples will show. Also, it has to be kept in mind that these are elite people. What was the mass of the population like? Were they more or less EEF like? Also to be kept in mind is that roughly speaking we have a Neolithic sample from Spain that was described as modern "Tuscan" like.
The bottom line is that this, like a lot of other things, is going to have to wait for ancient dna.
See the following thread for the most recent discussion of the genetics of the Etruscans.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...nia-and-Mainland-Italy?highlight=Etruscan+dna
Etruscan culture:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/31242-Etruscan-culture?highlight=Etruscans
These are nice, fresh, uncontaminated Etruscan remains. We wouldn't get a ydna, but we might get a good autosomal analysis.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...irl-discovered-near-Vulci?highlight=Etruscans