Genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily

Angela

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[h=2]The Greeks in the West: genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily, Tofanelli et al[/h]http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ejhg2015124a.html

I would have been very grateful for this once, but all the ancient dna has spoiled me. Also, it's only uniparental markers. Still...

"Greek colonisation of South Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia) was a defining event in European cultural history, although the demographic processes and genetic impacts involved have not been systematically investigated. Here, we combine high-resolution surveys of the variability at the uni-parentally inherited Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA in selected samples of putative source and recipient populations with forward-in-time simulations of alternative demographic models to detect signatures of that impact. Using a subset of haplotypes chosen to represent historical sources, we recover a clear signature of Greek ancestry in East Sicily compatible with the settlement from Euboea during the Archaic Period (eighth to fifth century BCE). We inferred moderate sex-bias in the numbers of individuals involved in the colonisation: a few thousand breeding men and a few hundred breeding women were the estimated number of migrants. Last, we demonstrate that studies aimed at quantifying Hellenic genetic flow by the proportion of specific lineages surviving in present-day populations may be misleading."

Hopefully, the full paper will be released soon, but until then, the Supplementary Info is here:
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/...g/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ejhg2015124a.html
 
Aren't there already y-dna frequency table available?
 

Similar YDNA results to what we've seen before but the R1b seems much lower in Albania and Turkey from previous results I have seen.

Some takeaways:

-Northern Greece seems heavily Slavic in the modern era. This is seen with high rates of I2-M423 and R1a1a which are at extremely low frequency in the Greek colony regions of Italy. (as well as an earlier study in former Greek territories in Turkey)
-Sicily yields a substantial amount of R1b overall. Impressive is the P312* (DF27?) in Eastern Sicily.
-E-V13 was no doubt involved in the spread of classical Greeks but it's unlikely to be the origin of the IE language itself. Having an origin in the northern Levant or possibly western Turkey, it just wouldn't make a whole lot of sense all other things considered.

I still suspect a mixed bag of R1b, leaning towards the earlier xL51 type brought the IE Greek language to the territory.
 
R1b P312 in Eastern Sicily was imported by mainlander Italians repopulation in the middle ages who replaced the muslims.
 
It's interesting to see the contrast in R1a/M423/R1b levels in Sicily versus Corinthia and Euboea. I just did this in my head, so it may not be exact...

Euboea 11/4/9=24

Corinthia 17/12/10=39*

West Sicily l/1/33=35

East Sicily 3/2/34=39* 9
(If the four samples of R1(xM17, xM269 are added, R1b is 35%)

I'm not sure all that R1a1 is necessarily "Slavic", although it's possible. That would make both the Mycenaeans and the Dorians R1b, I suppose, or could the Dorians at least have been R1a1? Those R1b levels are really low to have brought all that language change.

*Original percentages were incorrect.
 
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We can say that Sicily has a western european input and Greece an eastern euro.
Because it seems that M423 have similar percentages.
 
It's interesting to see the contrast in R1a/M423/R1b levels in Sicily versus Corinthia and Euboea. I just did this in my head, so it may not be exact...

Euboea 11/4/9=24

Corinthia 17/1/11=29

Very interesting. Either original Slavs were very high in R1a and low on M423, meaning I2 Dinaric was already in Balkans, or R1a already existed in Greece pre Slavic expansion, possibly IE Greek brought it, as you suggested. If the later is right, that could mean that either Greeks didn't do much of genetic impact on Italy, or they were all from south Greece with low R1a.
We should know in few years.
 
I think you guys copied those numbers down incorrectly

Corinthia

I2-M423 = 13/104
R1a1 = 18/104

Euboea

I2-M423= 4/93
R1a1= 10/93

Croatia
I2-423 = 46/93
R1a1= 24/93

Ionian Italy as compare:

I2-423 = 3/125
R1a1= 5/125
 
R1b P312 in Eastern Sicily was imported by mainlander Italians repopulation in the middle ages who replaced the muslims.

There is plenty of L2, L20 to account for that in these results. S116* is more in line with western French YDNA rather than Italian, although there is definitely overlap here.
 
We can say that Sicily has a western european input and Greece an eastern euro.
Because it seems that M423 have similar percentages.

I agree with that. However, I think that perhaps the up-stream R1b clade, which is about 6-7% of the total, may also have come from the east as part of the original Indo-European migrations from the steppe, perhaps with steppe groups coming down the west side of the Black Sea and then into Greece, and from there into Italy, or perhaps into Italy from the western Balkans.

The upstream clades might have gone into Italy from central Europe and Gaul, and then from there into Sicily, with a good chunk of it coming in the Middle Ages, as you suggested.

Unfortunately, the R1a1 wasn't differentiated, so we don't know if a similar dynamic was at work in Greece.
 
I think you guys copied those numbers down incorrectly

Corinthia

I2-M423 = 13/104
R1a1 = 18/104

Euboea

I2-M423= 4/93
R1a1= 10/93

Croatia
I2-423 = 46/93
R1a1= 24/93

Ionian Italy as compare:

I2-423 = 3/125
R1a1= 5/125

There was a typo in the I2-M423 percentage for Corinthia where I typed 1 instead of 12. I've corrected it in the original post.
 
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by Hauteville
We can say that Sicily has a western european input and Greece an eastern euro.
Because it seems that M423 have similar percentages.

Angela;462567]I agree with that. However, I think that perhaps the up-stream R1b clade, which is about 6-7% of the total, may also have come from the east as part of the original Indo-European migrations from the steppe, perhaps with steppe groups coming down the west side of the Black Sea and then into Greece, and from there into Italy, or perhaps into Italy from the western Balkans.

The upstream clades might have gone into Italy from central Europe and Gaul, and then from there into Sicily, with a good chunk of it coming in the Middle Ages, as you suggested.

Unfortunately, the R1a1 wasn't differentiated, so we don't know if a similar dynamic was at work in Greece
.

@Hauteville, I misled you about M423 because the percentage for Corinthia was incorrect. Hopefully this is now correct. :)

R1a/M423/R1b

Euboea 11/4/9=24

Corinthia 17/12/10=39

West Sicily l/1/33=35

East Sicily 3/2/34=39

I'm still not sure what to make of I2-M423. Is it "Slavic" or is it Neolithicized WHG?

Look at Croatia:

R1a1- 26%
I2-M423- 49%
R1b 5%
J2 3%
E-V13 5%
No G

EEF/WHG/ANE
56/29/14
 
There is plenty of L2, L20 to account for that in these results. S116* is more in line with western French YDNA rather than Italian, although there is definitely overlap here.



Also Franks, Bretons and Normans moved to Sicily and South Italy of course.
 
.

@Hauteville, I misled you about M423 because the percentage for Corinthia was incorrect. Hopefully this is now correct. :)

R1a/M423/R1b

Euboea 11/4/9=24

Corinthia 17/12/10=39

West Sicily l/1/33=35

East Sicily 3/2/34=39

I'm still not sure what to make of I2-M423. Is it "Slavic" or is it Neolithicized WHG?

Look at Croatia:

R1a1- 26%
I2-M423- 49%
R1b 5%
J2 3%
E-V13 5%
No G

EEF/WHG/ANE
56/29/14


Western Sicily has 1.5% of R1a which is lower than other studies, if my table is correct.
 
I2-M423 is probably neolithicized WHG, but arriving from around Belarus with Slavic speakers to places like Czech Rep/Croatia in west and as far south as Macedonia with South Slavic speakers.
I made a mistake in my earlier post, none of the sampled Greek regions are in the north, they all appear south. It would be interesting to see the levels of the same haplogroups in the northern regions.

Other studies have found a large chunk of the R1a in Greece as M458 which appears common in Poland/Belarus area.
 
There is undoubtedly a balkanic and east european input in Greece and an italic and west euro in Sicily and South Italy like I said above.
I always think that honestly.
 
Angela was all the combined R1b in eastern Sicily 36%?
About I, the combined I in West Sicily is around 18-19% right?I'm without pc in this moment so I don't remember very well the right percentages.
 
Angela was all the combined R1b in eastern Sicily 36%?
About I, the combined I in West Sicily is around 18-19% right?I'm without pc in this moment so I don't remember very well the right percentages.

There are 246 total samples from eastern Sicily. This is the breakdown for R1b:

M269* (18)
M269 (1
S116* (26)
S127* (2)
S139* (13)
S144* (1)
S145* (1)
S167* (2)
S21* (3)
S28* (13)
SRL2627 (3)

I didn't include the four samples of R1(xR1a1,R1b3) or the three P(xR1).

As for the "I":
M223 (6)
M253 (4)
M26 (6)
M423 (4)
M438 (3)
I don't see how you would get 18%.

For completeness, there are also 8 samples of R1a1 so 3%.
 
For I i said for west Sicily.
 
Angela is there any special in Dorian colonizations?

Corinth was pelasgian,
Euvoea was 50-50,
Anyway R1a has high peek in Greece in North/Central,
land of Makedonia Epirus Thessaly, the homeland of Dorians, and drops as moving southern, but exists in every known Dorian colonisation, and is almost missing in Pelasgian and Ionian lands

anyway I am interesting in
Epizephyreian Locroi
Agrigento
Crotone
lipari
Iblea
Taranto
Selinunta
Gela
ancona

I had wrote about that, before years but everybody laughed,
time for some to recognise the possible
 

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