Greek Y-DNA in Italians

As the title suggests what is the Greek influence on Italian Y-dna, as known Italians and Greeks have a long shared relationship, as they set up many colonies in the South and formed what was known as Magna Graecia.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia

But it is not excluded to only Southern Italians, as Greeks set up a colony in Ancona, and had a presence in Liguria, plus there was a Greek quarter in Ancient Rome, with additional Byzantine history in Italy.

What were the main lineages brought from the Greeks to the Italians? Certain haplogroups such as E-V13, J2a-M319, J2b-Z638, and R1b-Z2103 to me show the Greek legacy. What other haplogroups/subclades could or potentially be Greek?

R1a and G2a3a maybe?

Yetos said:

R1a and G2a3a maybe?

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Good call on the G2a3a (M406), seems like a very good candidate for a Greek Y legacy on Italians, I would say yes for this. R1a not sure, R1a is rare in Italy could be, maybe someone could answer that?

Azzurro said:

Good call on the G2a3a (M406), seems like a very good candidate for a Greek Y legacy on Italians, I would say yes for this. R1a not sure, R1a is rare in Italy could be, maybe someone could answer that?

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NE-Italy has the most R1a in Italy ...........most likely either coming with the Ostrogoths ( they absorbed the sarmatians into gothic society ) who stayed there for over 2 centuries ...or.....much later slavic migration

Sile said:

NE-Italy has the most R1a in Italy ...........most likely either coming with the Ostrogoths ( they absorbed the sarmatians into gothic society ) who stayed there for over 2 centuries ...or.....much later slavic migration

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That was more or less what I was thinking, I never really came across R1a in any of my searches, thanks!

I red that Polada had Central European influences. Also from North Alps came the Celts of Golasecca. All them could be also responsable to carry R1a.

berun said:

I red that Polada had Central European influences. Also from North Alps came the Celts of Golasecca. All them could be also responsable to carry R1a.

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And then came Este

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Este_culture

Este culture existed, next to the Villanovan Culture in the Bologna area and the Golasecca culture in the West of the Po Valley, influenced by the urnfield culture parallel to the Hallstatt period

Azzurro said:

That was more or less what I was thinking, I never really came across R1a in any of my searches, thanks!

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IIRC ,......they are mostly R1a-Z280 and Z93

Z93 is from kazakstan .................I do not think that is slavic

In my opinion, there is little doubt that E-M84, J2a-M319 and R1b-Z2103 came to Italy from Greece. In fact most J2 subclades would have come to Italy via Greece, except perhaps (but not sure) J2a1-L70 and J2b2 which might have come with the Italic tribes from Central Europe across the Alps. Some T1a could also have come via Greece.

But as far as E-V13 is concerned, there is absolutely no evidence that it is native to Greece or the Balkans. In fact, I have made a new phylogenetic tree of E-V13 a few days ago and the variety found in the Balkans fall within the S2979 branch, which has no less than 8 sister clades at the same level. The other branches are found mainly in northeast, central and northwest Europe. All of the branches at that level date from approximately 4000 years ago, when the Bronze Age was spreading from central Europe to western and northern Europe. This was before the Mycenaeans arrived in Greece and the Italics reached Italy. E-V13 itself has a TMRCA of 5400 ybp according to Yfull. That's when the Steppe PIE started invading the Balkans.



I therefore have to reconsider the history of E-V13. Seven years ago everybody thought it came with Neolithic farmers from the Levant. One E-V13 was found in Neolithic Catalonia but nowhere else. That's when I proposed that E-V13 was actually native to southern Europe, a descendant of a group of E-M78 that had crossed directly from North Africa to Spain or southern Italy. This might still be correct as E-V13 was indeed present in southern Europe but was apparently not part of any Near Eastern or Balkanic Neolithic cultures. What differs now is that E-V13 wouldn't have spread all over southern Europe during the Mesolithic and Neolithic, but only during the Bronze Age. The only way they could have done that was by 'hitchhiking' their way with the Indo-European migrations. The reason why E-V13 became so much more common in the Balkans than elsewhere would just be by chance, either genetic drift or a founder effect in some dominant and particularly prolific paternal lineage.

Unfortunately I have very little information about the deep E-V13 subclades in Italy itself, but in all logic there should be more variety in the north as V13 would have come from central Europe with the Italics and even later with various people assimilated by the Goths in central and southeast Europe before they reached Italy. In the south, E-V13 should indeed be the same variety as in Greece.

The most northern colony was Adria but together with Ancona was a sub-colony of Siracusa (the city founded other colonies like Spalato and Porto Vecchio of Corsica etc) and not a colony of Greece. We know that in Magna Grecia and Sicily the Greek colonizers intermarried with local Italic tribes. Difficult to say, I guess some J2b, some E-V13 too and probably some R1b-L23, R1a etc, but hard to determine. We should investigate of Roman Y-DNA in Greece as well.

Maciamo said:

But as far as E-V13 is concerned, there is absolutely no evidence that it is native to Greece or the Balkans. In fact, I have made a new phylogenetic tree of E-V13 a few days ago and the variety found in the Balkans fall within the S2979 branch, which has no less than 8 sister clades at the same level. The other branches are found mainly in northeast, central and northwest Europe. All of the branches at that level date from approximately 4000 years ago, when the Bronze Age was spreading from central Europe to western and northern Europe. This was before the Mycenaeans arrived in Greece and the Italics reached Italy. E-V13 itself has a TMRCA of 5400 ybp according to Yfull. That's when the Steppe PIE started invading the Balkans.

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so there would be a 2-stage expansion of E-V13
first an expansion into several far-away parts of Europe by CTS1273 ca 4.1 ka
and a subsequent expansion of S2979 in the Balkans

How do these ancient samples from the Middle East fit into this picture?

(These are all from the Lazaridis paper.)

I0861 E1b1b1b2(xE1b1b1b2a,E1b1b1b2b) Israel_Natufian I1069
I1072 E1b1b1b2(xE1b1b1b2a,E1b1b1b2b)

There's a lot of other "E" as well.

See:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v536/n7617/extref/nature19310-s4.pdf

Have other "E" ancient samples been found since then?

The Druze are 10% E-V13. How does their clade factor in?

Azzurro said:

Good call on the G2a3a (M406), seems like a very good candidate for a Greek Y legacy on Italians, I would say yes for this. R1a not sure, R1a is rare in Italy could be, maybe someone could answer that?

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I am talking about R1a at Locri, Sarento etc,
in some spoted 'closed' areas is above 8% for sure,
but do not know which subclade,
also I do not know if it is connected with Normands (Roger 2nd) , but I doupt,

Angela said:

How do these ancient samples from the Middle East fit into this picture?

(These are all from the Lazaridis paper.)

I0861 E1b1b1b2(xE1b1b1b2a,E1b1b1b2b) Israel_Natufian I1069
I1072 E1b1b1b2(xE1b1b1b2a,E1b1b1b2b)

There's a lot of other "E" as well.

See:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v536/n7617/extref/nature19310-s4.pdf

Have other "E" ancient samples been found since then?

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There is no doubt that E-M84 is Middle Eastern in origin. Some E-M78 subclades might have reached Europe via the Middle East too, such as V12, V22 and V65, which are all present in Egypt and the Levant.

The Druze are 10% E-V13. How does their clade factor in?

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I checked the Druze Project at FTDNA. Among the 53 members 15 belonged to haplogroup E but only 2 to E-V13. Both belong to the BY5021 clade, commonly found in Northwest Europe (England, Belgium). We could imagine that these are descendants of the crusaders or of a much earlier Indo-European migration during the Bronze Age (the Druzes have both R1a-Z282 and R1b-Z2103).

For R1a I do not know enough to give back a detailed response, I do know a little bit about R-Z93, my impression that this is a Middle Eastern and Iranian line, It is found in high numbers in Iranians and Levites. I don't know if it has been found in papers in Italian studies, if you look at ftdna projects, I only saw 2, I don't think it is a major line that came to Italy, not sure about the R1a that Sile mentioned, also for Z93 is it even found in Greece?

For Roman influence on Greece, there's my Greek buddy that I have known literally my entire life and we always joke around ( he says I'm Greek and I say he's Roman) said that Thebes and Corinth were replaced by Romans or Roman citizens? Is this true? In terms of DNA not sure for now I would stick with what Marciamo says about Roman Italic lines so R1b-U152, G-L140, and J2a-L70. J2a-L70 is found in Greece it is very possible that the Romans could have brought it to Greece, even more specifically the PF5456.

For E-V13 that is a very good explanation, what is it's frequency in Italy? I still think some E-V13 in Italy had to have been brought by the Greeks. Natufians are E-M123 more specifically E-Z830 which is frequent in the area that they were from today. I believe majority if not all E-V13 in the Middle East Levant is L241 which might have been back migration, or maybe they were the Philistines? Could be a plausible explanation according to Yfull it formed 4000 ybp, and most people with it have a TMRCA of 2700. Which M84 is found in Italians and Greeks, there needs to be more research done on E and its frequency, E-M84 looks to be Middle Eastern, but there must be a European branch.

For J2's it is more tricky because certain subclades were brought in with the Greeks, some is very likely Italic (Z435), just a quick comment on J2b2 (M241) more specifically Z638 and it's downclades match the Ionic Greeks, maybe a branch of this J2b2 clade was brought in by the Greeks. For other J2a's I'll specifically talk about Z467 because I know this one the most as I am a downstream of it, this line was not likely diffused by Greeks up to date it has not be found on mainland Greeks only in Cypriots and Asia Minor Greeks, there seems to be a Bulgarian and possibly a Alpine line there is BigY's on the way to solve this, there is also an Armenian line and Iranian line in this Z467, this is for L210's. Also there is a major Jewish line that came out of it and there is Lebanese and Syrians who belong to this line as well, a branch went into the Levant.

Maciamo said:

There is no doubt that E-M84 is Middle Eastern in origin. Some E-M78 subclades might have reached Europe via the Middle East too, such as V12, V22 and V65, which are all present in Egypt and the Levant.



I checked the Druze Project at FTDNA. Among the 53 members 15 belonged to haplogroup E but only 2 to E-V13. Both belong to the BY5021 clade, commonly found in Northwest Europe (England, Belgium). We could imagine that these are descendants of the crusaders or of a much earlier Indo-European migration during the Bronze Age (the Druzes have both R1a-Z282 and R1b-Z2103).

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I should have said: the 10% figure comes from Fulvio Cruciani et al 2007:

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/6/1300.full.pdf+html

I just found this in the Wiki article on E-V13. I don't know if it's accurate or not.

"The STR DNA signature of some of the E-V13 men amongst them was actually originally classified in the delta cluster in Cruciani et al. (2004). This means that Druze E-V13 clustered together with most E-V12 and E-V22, and not with European E-V13, which was mostly in the alpha cluster. This can be summarized in a table format..."


See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E-V68#E-V13_and_ancient_migrations

Azzurro said:

What were the main lineages brought from the Greeks to the Italians? Certain haplogroups such as E-V13, J2a-M319, J2b-Z638, and R1b-Z2103 to me show the Greek legacy. What other haplogroups/subclades could or potentially be Greek?

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Except some deep subclades most of those haplogroups are not exclusively Greek, especially E-V13.

This is the Cruciani graphic for: Fig. 5.—Mean variance spatial distribution of the Y-chromosomehaplogroup E-V13 after pooling data from locations with ,3 observations(see Subjects and Methods).

Pax Augusta said:

Except some deep subclades most of those haplogroups are not exclusively Greek, especially E-V13.

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Yeah I don't doubt it, they could have been in Greece around the Bronze Age and been part of the Dark Ages Greece which rose in Euboea and the Pelopponese, for E-V13 maybe some specific clades came in through Greek colonizers? Is there a specific E-V13 downstream which is common amongst Italians and Greeks? J-M319 I know also has a non european distribution but they must of split from each other some time, J-M319 does rise in areas where there was a Greek prescence along with R1b-Z2103 which maybe there is specific downstreams which was brought in from Greeks, R1b-Z2103 also has an non European distribution, it is the most common haplogroup amongst Armenians.

Angela said:

I should have said: the 10% figure comes from Fulvio Cruciani et al 2007:

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/6/1300.full.pdf+html

I just found this in the Wiki article on E-V13. I don't know if it's accurate or not.

"The STR DNA signature of some of the E-V13 men amongst them was actually originally classified in the delta cluster in Cruciani et al. (2004). This means that Druze E-V13 clustered together with most E-V12 and E-V22, and not with European E-V13, which was mostly in the alpha cluster. This can be summarized in a table format..."

haplotype	description	YCAIIa	YCAIIb	DYS413a	DYS413b	DYS19	DYS391	DYS393	DYS439	DYS460	DYS461	A10
All E-V13	modal	19	21	23	24	13	10	13	12	9	10	13
Druze V13	1	19	21	23	23	13	10	13	13	11	9	12
Druze V13	2	19	21	23	23	13	10	13	13	11	9	13
All E-V22	modal	19	22	22	23	14	10	13	12	11	10	12
All E-V12*	modal	19	22	22	22	13	10	13	11	11	9	13

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E-V68#E-V13_and_ancient_migrations

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I don't think it's a good idea to rely on STR data from 2007 to determine the origins of E-V13. Look where it has led us so far. Who could have predicted that E-V13 expanded from central Europe from 2000 BCE and that Balkanic V13 is only a very recent deep clade that mostly expanded during the Iron Age (from 1200 BCE).

In any case, the Druze sample size in Cruciani is only 28, only half of FTDNA. 10% out of 28 samples is meaningless. I have warned since I started the genetics section on this forum not to take into account modern frequencies based on sample sizes of less than 100, and that even sample sizes under 500 were probably not very accurate, except in very homogeneous populations.