Pompei, capsula del tempo dell'Impero Romano: analisi paleogenomica dei resti umani rinvenuti nell'antica città

[peloponnesian]

Tom Roswell and his online Nazi loser friends, after realising their dreams of "Nordic" ancient Greeks and Romans have been irrevocably turned to dust thanks to ancient DNA, are now settling for vague, nonsensical analytical categories such as "more European" and "less European". Hahahahaha

 

[Vitruvius]

People are entitled to their opinion but we will need more samples to end this discussion.

My belief is that those samples represent Magna Grecian just fine but we need to wait.



Where is that 1/2 Greek Y-Dna in Toscana, Marche and Umbria? Ancient Greeks were enriched with J2a, G and T. The later ones were also found in Italics.

Using a distance source like pure Anatolians and Levantines matches with J1, J2a, E (non-E-V13), J2b (non West Balkanic ones) in central Italy, which is around 15%, autosomally Tuscan Italians come up as 20% MENA.

Y-Dna of Tuscans (add or take 5% in some parts):
~10% North European (5-7% Germanic)
~75% West Mediterranean (65% Italo-Etruscans)
~15% East Mediterranean and MENA

Yes, people also believed that Lazaridis' MBA greeks represented BA greeks just fine and now we are finding out otherwise.

I haven't looked into the Y-Dna closely as I don't think hyperfocusing on less than 1% of human genetic makeup is particularly valuable. You can most certainly have a ~50/50 split of Aegean/North Italic ancestry without having a ~50/50 split of Y haplogroups and many haplogroups associated with Greece are still well represented in Central Italians, regardless. This dated mentality that haplogroup frequencies are anything close to reasonable proxies for quantifying ancestral origins is erroneous and needs to be abandoned wholesale. You need to realize that there are an estimated 20,000-25,000 genes on all human chromosomes which code for proteins and only between 70 and 200 of these are found on the Y chromosome. You are argueing that 0.2%-1% of the central italian genetic informational makeup in your view could be potentially estimated to have 15% "MENA" dna based off of frequency association alone in a time period for which we have no iron age Greek population averages to draw from Greece proper. You've also lumped Anatolian Y dna into "MENA" to contrast it with Greek Y dna which is a loaded comparison from my perspective. We all know and agree that ancient greeks share large sums of bronze age and neolithic anatolian ancestry to begin with so by extention nobody is denying bronze age anatolian genetic input.

When looking at the Y dna of Tuscans nothing particularly middle eastern jumps out at me. I see instead haplogroups which are largely associated Anatolian, Caucasian, Greek and Italic and to a lesser extent some northern european and balkan populations.

According to Maciamo (https://www.eupedia.com/genetics/regional_italian_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml) Tuscans derive their haplogroups makeup in said proportions:

56.5% from R1a&R1b
4% from I2b
4% from I1
9% from G2a
11.5% from J2
2% from J1
9% from E1b1
2% from T
0.5% from L

L is the only really exotic one here and only two people out of 380 had it. E1b1 and J1 depend entirely on subclade as they have varying distributions. G2/J2/T are fairly broadly Greek as you said. I1 is associated with Northern Europe and I2b the Balkans. R1b/a are broadly found in europeans of all types. I don't see a particularly strong case for Levantine influence here.

 

[Francesco]

People are entitled to their opinion but we will need more samples to end this discussion.

My belief is that those samples represent Magna Grecian just fine but we need to wait.



Where is that 1/2 Greek Y-Dna in Toscana, Marche and Umbria? Ancient Greeks were enriched with J2a, G and T. The later ones were also found in Italics.

Using a distance source like pure Anatolians and Levantines matches with J1, J2a, E (non-E-V13), J2b (non West Balkanic ones) in central Italy, which is around 15%, autosomally Tuscan Italians come up as 20% MENA.

Y-Dna of Tuscans (add or take 5% in some parts):
~10% North European (5-7% Germanic)
~75% West Mediterranean (65% Italo-Etruscans)
~15% East Mediterranean and MENA

It's funny because we keep arguing with each other but overall we don't have much different visions.
For Tuscany I think that the east med ancestry might be a bit higher than 20%, but linked primarily to greeks. Let's say a 20/30% greek admixture, on top of which you could add some more distant levantine augmentation (not more than 10%). The rest being italo-etruscan with a very low germanic input.

For southern Italy of course the importance of the Greek input must have been much higher.

 

[Vitruvius]

This is my breakdown of the Pompeii PCA and what I see. Personally, even with all this diversity which isn't reflected in other Imperial sites, I still see a notable lack of levantine individuals with maybe only one looking definitively so and 5 or 6 samples looking to come from somewhere around the anatolian/levantine border regions.

I see maybe 4 or 5 Punics which seem to reflect a cline of slight increasing Iberomaurusian ancestry found in western Sicilian Punic sites. These types are still vastly majority S. European related, but their placement is distinct enough to recognize them.

The majority of the samples definitely seem to be occupied by Imperial C. Italic like and IA Anatolian populations. These types show heavy aegean ancestry and make up ~55-60% of the victims of Pompeii.

Others can variously fit IA Central/North Italic, Illyrian IA, Caucasian IA, and Gallic IA contexts and represent small clusters.

 

[TaktikatEMalet]

So J2a was already a big percentage in early Roman empire, looks like Romans were more ancient Greek than Greeks today. The levantine input that came later would have brought other J2a lines, J1, j2b m205, T etc but didn't make as big a difference as the early Greek input

 

[ihype02]

I haven't looked into the Y-Dna closely as I don't think hyperfocusing on less than 1% of human genetic makeup is particularly valuable. You can most certainly have a ~50/50 split of Aegean/North Italic ancestry without having a ~50/50 split of Y haplogroups and many haplogroups associated with Greece are still well represented in Central Italians, regardless. This dated mentality that haplogroup frequencies are anything close to reasonable proxies for quantifying ancestral origins is erroneous and needs to be abandoned wholesale. You need to realize that there are an estimated 20,000-25,000 genes on all human chromosomes which code for proteins and only between 70 and 200 of these are found on the Y chromosome. You are argueing that 0.2%-1% of the central italian genetic informational makeup in your view could be potentially estimated to have 15% "MENA" dna based off of frequency association alone in a time period for which we have no iron age Greek population averages to draw from Greece proper. You've also lumped Anatolian Y dna into "MENA" to contrast it with Greek Y dna which is a loaded comparison from my perspective. We all know and agree that ancient greeks share large sums of bronze age and neolithic anatolian ancestry to begin with so by extention nobody is denying bronze age anatolian genetic input.

When looking at the Y dna of Tuscans nothing particularly middle eastern jumps out at me. I see instead haplogroups which are largely associated Anatolian, Caucasian, Greek and Italic and to a lesser extent some northern european and balkan populations.

According to Maciamo (https://www.eupedia.com/genetics/regional_italian_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml) Tuscans derive their haplogroups makeup in said proportions:

56.5% from R1a&R1b
4% from I2b
4% from I1
9% from G2a
11.5% from J2
2% from J1
9% from E1b1
2% from T
0.5% from L

L is the only really exotic one here and only two people out of 380 had it. E1b1 and J1 depend entirely on subclade as they have varying distributions. G2/J2/T are fairly broadly Greek as you said. I1 is associated with Northern Europe and I2b the Balkans. R1b/a are broadly found in europeans of all types. I don't see a particularly strong case for Levantine influence here.

J2a can be Greek, Anatolian and Levantine it is as diverse as R1b. The fact there is minimal J2a and the bulk of G and T is also of Italic subtract shows huge disproportionality between that 50% Aegean Autosomal DNA and Y-DNA. And nowhere did I say all the migrants or even the bulk came from Levant.

For southern Italy of course the importance of the Greek input must have been much higher.

Well if you want to attribute most of the shift to the Greeks for Southern Italians you reach a ~80% replacement and for Central Italians you reach a 50-60% replacement just like Vitruvius suggested. There is no contradiction in the truth. If you think those percentages are not accurate then maybe your hypothesis is wrong. You cannot cherry pick the percentages to make your theory more convincing.

Augustus carried out an administrative reorganisation of the empire as a whole and of the province of Sicily in particular. A number of coloniae were established by Augustus for his veterans on Sicily, but the exact chronology is unclear. We know for certain that the first measures were taken in 36 BC, when Tauromenium was made into a colonia.[55] Subsequently, Augustus visited Sicily in 22 or 21 BC, the first stop on a journey through the empire, and other reforms were carried out. At the end of the process, six Sicilian cities had become coloniae: Syracuse, Tauromenium, Panormus, Catania, Tyndaris, and Thermae Himerenses. The influx of population represented by these foundations may have been intended to compensate for a demographic slump resulting from the war with Sextus Pompey, or from Augustus' excoriation of the island after his victory.[56] It is not clear what happened to the existing Greek inhabitants of these cities as normally the citizens of coloniae had Roman citizenship and could therefore participate in the highest levels of the Roman state. It may be that these privileges were restricted to the aristocracy.[57] In any case, the influx of Italian veterans played a decisive role in the diffusion of Latin language in Sicily.[55

 

[Vitruvius]

J2a can be Greek, Anatolian and Levantine it is as diverse as R1b. The fact there is minimal J2a and the bulk of G and T is also of Italic subtract shows huge disproportionality between that 50% Aegean Autosomal DNA and Y-DNA. And nowhere did I say all the migrants or even the bulk came from Levant.



Well if you want to attribute most of the shift to the Greeks for Southern Italians you reach a ~80% replacement and for Central Italians you reach a 50-60% replacement just like Vitruvius suggested. There is no contradiction in the truth. If you think those percentages are not accurate then maybe your hypothesis is wrong. You cannot cherry pick the percentages to make your theory more convincing.

Keep in mind that not all Tuscans are identically the same. I spoke of a roughly 50/50 scenario for the central Italian average, but the northern edges of Tuscany are most definitely going to look more similar to a 70/30 split favoring North Italic ancestry. @Vallicanus can attest to this as that's how he plots. I just want to be clear that I'm not lumping every last Italian from C. Italy into this 50/50 split scenario and that I speak in generality when I say this.

 

[ihype02]

Keep in mind that not all Tuscans are identically the same. I spoke of a roughly 50/50 scenario for the central Italian average, but the northern edges of Tuscany are most definitely going to look more similar to a 70/30 split favoring North Italic ancestry. @Vallicanus can attest to this as that's how he plots. I just want to be clear that I'm not lumping every last Italian from C. Italy into this 50/50 split scenario and that I speak in generality when I say this.

50% Aegean admixture for any group of Tuscan is too high and it applies to most Tuscans expect for the ones in northern edges as you said.

 

[Vitruvius]

50% Aegean admixture for any group of Tuscan is too high and it applies to most Tuscans expect for the ones in northern edges as you said.

I said approximately a 50/50 for C. Italy, not precisely 50/50 for specifically Tuscany. You're splitting hairs here. Tuscany averaged 42% Imperial like and 58% N. Italic like with an extremely tight fit. Unless the rest of Northern Italy ends up looking significantly different than the 300BC-0 Verona sample I used, then I find this simple two way admixture scenario to be highly probable.

 

[ihype02]

I said approximately a 50/50 for C. Italy, not precisely 50/50 for specifically Tuscany. You're splitting hairs here. Tuscany averaged 42% Imperial like and 58% N. Italic like with an extremely tight fit. Unless the rest of Northern Italy ends up looking significantly different than the 300BC-0 Verona sample I used, then I find this simple two way admixture scenario to be highly probable.


View attachment 15669

I got 48% using Latin_IA but yeah 42% does not make that much of difference what I said either way.

 

[Vitruvius]

I got 48% using Latin_IA but yeah 42% does not that much of difference what I said either way.

I didn't use Latin_IA because Latin_IA profiles with their notably elevated WHG/Barcin pulls ceased to exist after the imperial era. Northern Italians however are clearly found in the late antiquity samples around Rome and these types are not so western shifted.

 

[kingjohn]

Here is another new paper : ( etruscans, picene)
( pre-print )

The Genomic portrait of the Picene culture: new insights into the Italic Iron Age and the legacy of the Roman expansion in Central Italy

Background The Italic Iron Age was characterized by the presence of various ethnic groups partially examined from a genomic perspective. To explore the evolution of Iron Age Italic populations and the genetic impact of Romanization, we focused on the Picenes, one of the most fascinating...

www.biorxiv.org

P.s
Not even 1 E
I do see 1 j1 case at the picene from novilara

 

[Vallicanus]

Here is another new paper : ( etruscans, picene)
( pre-print )

The Genomic portrait of the Picene culture: new insights into the Italic Iron Age and the legacy of the Roman expansion in Central Italy

Background The Italic Iron Age was characterized by the presence of various ethnic groups partially examined from a genomic perspective. To explore the evolution of Iron Age Italic populations and the genetic impact of Romanization, we focused on the Picenes, one of the most fascinating...

www.biorxiv.org

P.s
Not even 1 E
I do see 1 j1 case at the picene from novilara

An east-west genetic split within IA Italy is highlighted in this paper as well as differences in hair and eye colour.

 

[HereToLearn]

An east-west genetic split within IA Italy is highlighted in this paper as well as differences in hair and eye colour.

Very interesting, however I don't know if relatively small samples may harbour sample bias. Even in modern Italy you can see a slight west -east phenotypical cline imho whereas in the east possbly lighter hair and eyes are slightly more common.

Interestingly, the Picenes have a greater proportion of individuals with blue eyes (30.2%) and blond hair color (20.9%) than other Italic populations.

Yet 21% blond hair is high for anywhere in modern day southern Europe.

On the other hand the percentages for light eyes look a bit too low to be realistic, especially among Etruscans (2.6%).

 

[Vallicanus]

Also the Picenes had 25pc of J2, present but rare in IA Latins and Etruscans.

 

[mount123]

Also the Picenes had 25pc of J2, present but rare in IA Latins and Etruscans.

They had J2b-L283. Although not as prominent as in the Picenes there are two J2b-L283 Iron Age Etruscan samples.

 

[ihype02]

This study concludes the same reason for the shift as the other studies.

As for J2 we have to see the dates and the number of samples as well as their subclades. Apulia had quite some J2b too.

 

[ihype02]

Also I am hoping for at least 3 other Greek polises to be studies in the same amount as the Himera. I think only the Italian papers will be able to give a bigger view of the Classical Greek world (and see if E-V13 was indeed present in there or not) considering how much research has been done in Italic people.

I was not very satisfied with the leaked Greek paper from Peloponnese, the number of samples was very small, even smaller than that of Himeras.

 

[Vitruvius]

Also I am hoping for at least 3 other Greek polises to be studies in the same amount as the Himera. I think only the Italian papers will be able to give a bigger view of the Classical Greek world (and see if E-V13 was indeed present in there or not) considering how much research has been done in Italic people.

I was not very satisfied with the leaked Greek paper from Peloponnese, the number of samples was very small, even smaller than that of Himeras.

I personally would very much like to see a large study on Thurii/Sybaris and Syracuse showing at least the time period encompassing 400BC-0. This would've been an example of major Magna Greek cities with large populations in the time frame in which they were conquered and absorbed by Italic speakers. Sybaris in particular is estimated to have had a population of 300,00-500,000 by 500BC. The full census of Roman citizens by comparison in 503BC logged a population of 120,000.

 

[ihype02]

I personally would very much like to see a large study on Thurii/Sybaris and Syracuse showing at least the time period encompassing 400BC-0. This would've been an example of major Magna Greek cities with large populations in the time frame in which they were conquered and absorbed by Italic speakers. Sybaris in particular is estimated to have had a population of 300,00-500,000 by 500BC. The full census of Roman citizens by comparison in 503BC logged a population of 120,000.

Those ancient quotes about the population of cities are obviously not accurate. Remember the Byzantine historian said 270,000 out of 500,000 people in Peloponnese were Albanians in 15th century.

Syracuse had a population at 30,000-40,000 according to archeologists and it was the most populated city in Magna Grecia.