How
dare you?!
The first time the reconstruction was posted, before any of the genetic analysis was released, I said that he looked like an old northern Italian/perhaps Appennine peasant who had seen better days. I was booed down, figuratively, of course. Then, he turned out to be
very close to
Sardinians.
your are not to far from truth as I'm concerned
I already said he seems not too 'mediterranean' and I think he has some 'cromagnoid' and 'alpine' increments (but 'alpine' seems a kind of 'cromagnoid' brachycephajlized in a reduced or "foetusized" way when my 'borreby' 1 seems the result of a same process but in a more robust direction - his global 'sardinian' autosomals affiliation doesn't contradict that because external phenotypical aspect can be disrupted from total autosomals mean -
by the way today Sardinians show more than a 'mediterranean' type and also a so called 'archaic mediterranean' type (more in mountainous center of the island) where 'cromagnoid' traits could be traced back - Bulgaria also is considered as showing old 'mediterranean' autosomals, if in smaller percentgaes and shows too some persistant 'cromagnoid' traits along with very typical 'mediterranean' (often 'atlanto-med') and other influences.
Well, that means something coming from you.
I've mentioned before, and I think that the pictures I posted on the Eastern Ligurian/NW Tuscan thread show that there's a lot of this "Cro-Magnon"? that survived in mountainous areas, not just the Alps, but also the Appennines, and appears to varying degrees in the people there.
As to phenotype versus genotype, I think the correlation depends on the area. In some places, people look pretty homogenous, and so they could be led to believe that the two perfectly correlate. That's not true in Italy, at least. I think the thread I mentioned shows a variety of "looks", but on a genetic test like 23andme, the people are almost identical, as they are in admixture analyses like Dodecad.
As for Otzi, according to recent genetic tests, he's about 25%WHG, with the rest being Ancient Near Eastern Farmer. Even that 75% is not totally Basal Eurasian, however. Looked at another way, he's probably around 44% Basal Eurasian, like the Stuttgart woman. Still, a lot of EEF people probably looked like him.
By the way, since she's the modal for EEF, did you ever draw any conclusions from Stuttgart's skull?
In terms of Sardinia, a paper that will be coming out this week maintains that certain villages in Ogliastra are the most distinctly "Sardinian" part of Sardinia.
See:
The population structure and demographic history of Sardinia in relationship to neighboring populations. J. Novembre, C. Chiang, J. Marcus, C. Sidore, M. Zoledziewska, M. Steri, H. Al-asadi, G. Abecasis, D. Schlessinger, F. Cucca.
Numerous studies have made clear that Sardinian populations are relatively isolated genetically from other populations of the Mediterranean, and more recently, intriguing connections between Sardinian ancestry and early Neolithic ancient DNA samples have been made. In this study, we analyze a whole-genome low-coverage sequencing dataset from 2120 Sardinians to more fully characterize patterns of genetic diversity in Sardinia. The study contains one subsample that contains individuals from across Sardinia and a second subsample that samples 4 villages from the more isolated Ogliastra region. We also merge the data with published reference data from Europe and North Africa. Overall Fst values of Sardinia to other European populations are low (less than 0.015); however using a novel method for visualizing genetic differentiation on a geographic map, we formally show how Sardinia is more differentiated than would be expected given its geographic distance from the mainland, consistent with periods of isolation. Applications of the software Admixture show how Sardinia populations differ in the levels of recent admixture with mainland European populations and that there are only minor contributions from North African populations to Sardinian ancestry. Notably the Sardinians from Ogliastra contain a distinct genetic cluster with minimal evidence of recent admixture with mainland Europe.
Here is what those people look like:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/2375026490_b87e84b8a3_m.jpg
http://www.lorenzobellu.com/sito/gallerie/eventi/2010 - Cagliari, Sant'Efisio/slides/_PLB3394.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/28vyfxw.jpg
http://www.lorenzobellu.com/sito/gallerie/eventi/2010 - Sassari, Cavalcata Sarda/slides/_PLB5152.jpg
http://www.sardegnaturismo.it/sites/default/files/1_101_20071116110717.jpg?u=%2Fit%2Fpunto-di-interesse%2Fvillagrande-strisaili
Anyone can find the pictures by going to google.it and searching for folk costumes-Ogliastra
When the paper comes out and I know the specific villages, I'll see if I can find anything.