Genetic study The Picenes and the Genetic Landscape of Central Adriatic Italy in the Iron Age.

[Robotnick]

I really don't know why people keep bringing up "Germanic in North Italy" unless we're talking about certain rather remote Alpine regions. Unless I'm somehow completely wrong I'm pretty sure it's been rather well-established that the Germanic contribution to the whole of North Italy is minimal at most.

I know when one is a teenager and one learns about Lombard/Gothic invasions it might make one think there may have been some significant input, but upon actually inquiring into genetic studies, such conceptions should be laid to rest and buried so we can all move on with an informative discussion rather than circling back to these tired misconceptions.

 

[ihype02]

If your only argument is concerning Y-DNA then that is also a bad argument and I've already explained why. Not only do we lack sufficient Y-dna in Roman era northern Italy to even perform a comparison to the EMA, but Y-DNA itself cannot be used to quantify ancestry. This is an undeniable fact which seems to be consistantly avoided for reasons I can only imagine.

Nobody here is denying the existance of Germanic population movements into Italy, including myself. It seems like you have also misunderstood my argument. What we are debating is what kind of an effect these movements had on the broad population genetics of Italy after the fact. Some are speculating between 15-20% of Italians were replaced by germanic migrations which is absolute rubbish. The figure realistically is far lower just based off the numerous autosomal studies we've seen which totally lack German/Northern European individuals. Anyone who is more interested in Y-DNA speculation than the real deal profiles recovered from this migratory time period of late antiquity to the early middle ages is in my opinion, more concerned with their own theories and agenda than the truth of the matter.

Nobody said that 20% of all Italians were replaced by Germanics. This figure was the upper bound of the North Italian region. And the Germanic Y-Dna in is places like Calabaria is almost zero, possibly not even brought by pure Germanic people either.

 

[ihype02]

PCAs and autosomal ancestry most definitely do demonstrate continuity (or lack thereof) when looking at a chronological timelapse. They are far more complete sources of ethnological information than Y haplogroups and there is no "averaging out" to be had here. As I've said multiple times, if the scenario of a German-Imperial average were true then we should be seeing a broad spectrum between German and Imperial Roman profiles from 450AD to 700AD all over the northern half of the country. There is precisely only one burial site where see this in and it is unsurprisingly attributed to Langobard material culture. The numerous other sites in North, Central and Southern Italy do not reflect this. We see the incoming of Northern Italic newcomers reflected by the IA Picene profile in late antiquity and EMA Lazio, but that's really about it. Venosa remains Imperial like, Bardonecchia remains Picene-like, and Torino remains a mix of the two with a majority of Picene like admixture. You could say EMA Burgusio, which lies on the border of the German speaking Alto-Adige and Switzerland showed an Italo-Celtic cline during the EMA, but that's about it. Still no Germans to be had even in the most northerly border locations. Existing evidence so far continues to point towards the opposite conclusion of widespread Germanic introgression in favor of local population movements within Italy, itself.

Honestly the ignoring of autosomal dna at any point is simply unscientific at its core. It is the most complete genetic info you will get about any person's ethnological association and it is particularly useful for Italians due to how divergent the Aegean heavy Roman era Imperials were from Northern Europe.

PCAs and autosomal models can demonstrate continuity but at same time they can be misleading too. Modern English overlap with Bronze Age British (even more than Picenes do with North Italians) despite receiving ~40% of their male Y-Dna from Anglo-Saxon and other related Germanic settlers. Unless English people can claim a nearly absolute continuity with Roman era Britons of England, there's holes in the ideology.

Also Western Jews are very close to the Imperial Roman average and if I recall correctly they have quite a little bit of that Levantine ancestry, which you claim was zero in Imperial Romans.

And besides that we haven't even seen Italic people from the north yet, let's just wait. We know that Italians from Marche are different from Picenes, just like most Europeans are different from their Iron Age predecessors. (including me)

 

[HereToLearn]

And besides that we haven't even seen Italic people from the north yet, let's just wait. We know that Italians from Marche are different from Picenes, just like most Europeans are different from their Iron Age predecessors. (including me)

What are your IA predecessors out of curiosity?

 

[Pygmalion]

They claim that one of the samples from the Etruscan necropolis of the Orientalizing period in Colle di Val D'Elsa is a Sardinian:

In the Etruscan site of Monteriggioni/Colle di Val D’Elsa, we found an outlier (EV15A) that is more similar to modern Sardinians or European Neolithic populations

Two genetic outliers (EV15A and EV18) can be observed among the Etruscans from Monteriggioni/Colle Val D’Elsa. While the former shows a genetic makeup analogous to coeval Sardinians [22], probably representing the genetic outcome of the well-known IA connections between this island and Etruria [30], the latter is more similar to Central European BA/IA individuals, like other Etruscan outliers already described [9]. The presence of all these genetic outliers in the Italic IA, also attested among the Romans [8], is a direct consequence of the great mobility of the Mediterranean populations [7,31].

In the admixture analysis at K = 4 the aforementioned sample seems to lack Yamnaya admixture, however one thing doesn't convince me, his aplogroup is R1-M269/L23, certainly not typical of nuragic Sardinia.

 

[Pax Augusta]

In the admixture analysis at K = 4 the aforementioned sample seems to lack Yamnaya admixture, however one thing doesn't convince me, his aplogroup is R1-M269/L23, certainly not typical of nuragic Sardinia.

There are R1bs among the Nuragic samples (see Marcus 2020). I do not remember their final clade, though.

The explanations may be numerous, however.

 

[Archetype0ne]

There are R1bs among the Nuragic samples (see Marcus 2020). I do not remember their final clade, though.

The explanations may be numerous, however.

I recall Hunter Provyn claiming that the Picene L283 (could?) represent intermediary clades between Balkan L283 and Nuragic L283. Which fits here since we had some L283 in Etruscan context, and now we have Sardinian autosomals among Etruscans. So the link from the eastern to the western seas of Italy are heavily implied. This is relevant for L283, as the Nuragic samples were fully Sardinian autosomally with little IE, and quite basal, giving rise to all sorts of speculation of when and where they came from.

 

[Vitruvius]

I really don't know why people keep bringing up "Germanic in North Italy" unless we're talking about certain rather remote Alpine regions. Unless I'm somehow completely wrong I'm pretty sure it's been rather well-established that the Germanic contribution to the whole of North Italy is minimal at most.

I know when one is a teenager and one learns about Lombard/Gothic invasions it might make one think there may have been some significant input, but upon actually inquiring into genetic studies, such conceptions should be laid to rest and buried so we can all move on with an informative discussion rather than circling back to these tired misconceptions.

Agreed. Langobard colonization in Italy was about as significant as Roman colonization in Northern Europe. That is both types of populations were totally subsumed by locals over time and left little behind. Some people would rather pretend otherwise, for whatever reason.

 

[Ghurier]

There are R1bs among the Nuragic samples (see Marcus 2020). I do not remember their final clade, though.

The explanations may be numerous, however.

If I remember well, there is a R-L23 Punic-related sample around ~800 BCE
Samples prior to that have unfolded as R-V88 according to my memmory.

But here, we are so many years post R-M269 arrival in Western-Europe that there have been largely enough time for some minor lineage to migrate to Sardinia (with, for exemple BBs) be "admixture cleaned" and then migrate back to mainland Italy.

 

[mount123]

I recall Hunter Provyn claiming that the Picene L283 (could?) represent intermediary clades between Balkan L283 and Nuragic L283. Which fits here since we had some L283 in Etruscan context, and now we have Sardinian autosomals among Etruscans. So the link from the eastern to the western seas of Italy are heavily implied. This is relevant for L283, as the Nuragic samples were fully Sardinian autosomally with little IE, and quite basal, giving rise to all sorts of speculation of when and where they came from.

Intermediary as in phylogeny-wise? If I recall correctly Trojet was the first to comment on their possible clade placement by interpreting what the authors of the paper have stated in the supplementary.

There seem to be links between some of the Italian and Western Balkan archeological complexes even prior to Cetina-Dinaric, so those could be the mediators for some of the "basal", if you will, J2b-L283 samples in prehistoric Italy. If I recall correctly though, even the "basal" clades have also been in the Western Balkans for instance YP91, in what is modern day North Western Croatia-Slovenia border during the IA. I was referring to the Late Bronze Age Sardinian ORC007, Flor has him as >Z622>? in the J2b-L283 map.

 

[Pygmalion]

If I remember well, there is a R-L23 Punic-related sample around ~800 BCE
Samples prior to that have unfolded as R-V88 according to my memmory.

But here, we are so many years post R-M269 arrival in Western-Europe that there have been largely enough time for some minor lineage to migrate to Sardinia (with, for exemple BBs) be "admixture cleaned" and then migrate back to mainland Italy.

That sample with R-M269 comes from the Villamar Necropolis that's dated to 300-200 BC based on the type of burials and the chronology of the funerary goods, even though the calibrated C14 dates of the human remains are strangely older than that ( 600 BC or so), therefore there's a discrepancy between the date of the burials and of the buried remains.

Anyhow R-M269 arriving with the Bell Beakers in Sardinia seems plausible, even though it's not been found yet.

 

[Ghurier]

I recall Hunter Provyn claiming that the Picene L283 (could?) represent intermediary clades between Balkan L283 and Nuragic L283.

Intermediary as in phylogeny-wise? If I recall correctly Trojet was the first to comment on their possible clade placement by interpreting what the authors of the paper have stated in the supplementary.

This claim is from the paper itself, no need of Trojet or Hunter, the hability to read is sufficient :

On the other hand, it is worth noting that the trans-Adriatic distribution of the internal branches of J2-M172/M12 was previously interpreted as a clue of a BA expansion from the Balkans in the Italian area and a link between BA Balkans and BA Nuragic Sardinia, possibly with peninsular Italian intermediates that were not observed before [19,49]. Interestingly, two out of three of our J2-M12 Picene samples (PN91 and PN101), due to their phylogenetic position (Additional file 3: Fig. S10) in between the BA Nuragic and the BA Balkan clusters, could represent the descendants of the aforementioned Italian intermediates.

Yet, we don't know if the placement of this samples is :
--> Accurate (the phylogenic tree in the paper contains many weird stuff)
--> A consequence of a lack of resolution.

To me, these samples are likely Z597+ (considering the age and location ... but some Z2509+, Z597-, are not completely out of the picture).
Finding more upstream, Z597-, samples in Italy would be fun too ... it would prove again (some steppists proponents have hard time to acknowledge this fact) that the diversity at the upper stages is in Italy.

The claimed "BA expansion" makes little sense as clade temporal segregation is a ~3100 BCE node, and the diversity at this level is totally absent from Balkans (saves one single clade).
As usual, a half-cooked claim about Y-DNA in published papers that are focussing (with reasons) on autosomal DNA for years now.

If I recall correctly though, even the "basal" clades have also been in the Western Balkans for instance YP91, in what is modern day North Western Croatia-Slovenia border during the IA.

YP91 is a "widely" spread subclade, considering the diversification history and the location of the descendents, it likely had a similar "story" than Z597, but most likely as a slightly northern component around eastern Alps during BA.

I was referring to the Late Bronze Age Sardinian ORC007, Flor has him as >Z622>? in the J2b-L283 map.

This sample is YP91+, based on a high-quality mid-sequence read (thus not likely to be a mis-read).
Trojet have "issues" with the existence of such sample, and the huge diversity signal it creates in Nuragic Sardinia at Perdasdefogu.
Thus, he decided that this "high-quality mid-sequence read" is wrong !!!
This is one of the red flags that make any of his claim suspicious at best.

In the case of YP91, you expect them out in the air in Europe since at least ~2300 BCE.

 

[mount123]

@Ghurier Y'all would rather lose a leg than learn English, huh? I said "Trojet was the first to comment on their possible clade placement by interpreting what the authors of the paper have stated in the supplementary."

IIRC, ORC007 did not have coverage for Z600 hence the cautiousness. Considering that all other samples are Z600(>>YP157) that's totally valid. You're as usual projecting your own biases.

YP91 is a "widely" spread subclade, considering the diversification history and the location of the descendents, it likely had a similar "story" than Z597, but most likely as a slightly northern component around eastern Alps during BA.

I mostly agree with you on this one.

 

[Ghurier]

@Ghurier Y'all would rather lose a leg than learn English, huh? I said "Trojet was the first to comment on their possible clade placement by interpreting what the authors of the paper have stated in the supplementary."

You might want to apply your own advise .
There is nothing to "interpret" here ... The clades being "intermediates" is written in the paper.
Repeating =\= Interpreting.

IIRC, ORC007 did not have coverage for Z600 hence the cautiousness. Considering that all other samples are Z600(>>YP157) that's totally valid. You're as usual projecting your own biases.

No, I just didn't apply selection biases to the data.
From the data, ORC007 is YP91+, period.
The mis-read hypothesis is "extremely weak" due to the fact that it is based on a high-quality mid-sequence read.

When you have an outcome with 99.9% chances and one with 0.1% chances ... logically you go for the 99.9% solution.
If you exclude some data because it challenges your model ... then indeed you are projecting your biases .
If you want to rise some doubts, you can, but you should still mention the read in a comment, and even quote the likelyhood values to give the reader a way to make his own opinion.
Here, we are just dealing with low-level propagandists, having hard time to face any sample not fitting their view.

The Z2509/Z585 nodes have produced clades with a strict segregation by ~3100 BCE. As of 2024, this is a fact. Which is correct for both ancient DNA and modern DNA known samples.
You have issues with the location of this diversity cluster (and its age) as it didn't suits the narratives you desire.
Me I don't care ... wherever is the diversity, I would consider it.
And contrary to what some seems to believe, the Tyrrhenian early diversity cluster didn't implies a nonsteppic origin. But in a steppic model, then you'll need a realistic demographic mecanism to produce this diversity cluster (and I saw no-one proposing realistic stuff except an early migration wave toward the west).

I mostly agree with you on this one.

And with more samples airing, you will be more and more agree with me.

 

[Archetype0ne]

You might want to apply your own advise .
There is nothing to "interpret" here ... The clades being "intermediates" is written in the paper.
Repeating =\= Interpreting.


No, I just didn't apply selection biases to the data.
From the data, ORC007 is YP91+, period.
The mis-read hypothesis is "extremely weak" due to the fact that it is based on a high-quality mid-sequence read.

When you have an outcome with 99.9% chances and one with 0.1% chances ... logically you go for the 99.9% solution.
If you exclude some data because it challenges your model ... then indeed you are projecting your biases .
If you want to rise some doubts, you can, but you should still mention the read in a comment, and even quote the likelyhood values to give the reader a way to make his own opinion.
Here, we are just dealing with low-level propagandists, having hard time to face any sample not fitting their view.

The Z2509/Z585 nodes have produced clades with a strict segregation by ~3100 BCE. As of 2024, this is a fact. Which is correct for both ancient DNA and modern DNA known samples.
You have issues with the location of this diversity cluster (and its age) as it didn't suits the narratives you desire.
Me I don't care ... wherever is the diversity, I would consider it.
And contrary to what some seems to believe, the Tyrrhenian early diversity cluster didn't implies a nonsteppic origin. But in a steppic model, then you'll need a realistic demographic mecanism to produce this diversity cluster (and I saw no-one proposing realistic stuff except an early migration wave toward the west).



And with more samples airing, you will be more and more agree with me.

Mate you are a walking bias. You would think after 1000 samples between Balkans and Northern Europe you would have adjusted your hypothesis, yet here you are talking about sampling biases . Is this like the third paper in a row giving you nothing to go on, but attempt character assassination on people who have contributed to popular genetics over a decade?

But yeah, go ahead write a whole dissertation like reply about psychology filled with ad hominems now, its not like you got much else to go on on.

 

[Viramund]

Is the sardinian sample (ORC007) really J-YP91 + ?
Personally I tend to trust more on yfull than Trojet, not for any other reason than that i never saw then made a reading mistake but Trojet did, no ofense intended.
If anyone that holds no animosity towards this fading piece of fetishised dna could take a look in ORC007 's Y snps it would be cool i guess.

 

[Ghurier]

Is the sardinian sample (ORC007) really J-YP91 + ?
Personally I tend to trust more on yfull than Trojet, not for any other reason than that i never saw then made a reading mistake but Trojet did, no ofense intended.
If anyone with no animosity about this fading piece of fetishised dna could take a look in it would be cool i guess.

It contains only 1 read (positive), that is a high-quality and mid-sequence read in the bam-file.
No need to trust me, just download the bam file (it is very small), in few command lines you can make the check.

sample : ORC007.A0101.TF
SNP : YP91 (anc : C, der : T)
read : T
pos : 11/66 (position inside the sequence of the BAM file)
proba is wrong = 7.94328e-05 (~0.008%)

Note that there is no reading mistake, Trojet knows very well of this read (we already discussed it).
He just decided that it is a damage (the 0.008% option), and therefore decided to ignore it.
As I said, to me it is a red flag.

 

[Ghurier]

Mate you are a walking bias. You would think after 1000 samples between Balkans and Northern Europe you would have adjusted your hypothesis, yet here you are talking about sampling biases . Is this like the third paper in a row giving you nothing to go on, but attempt character assassination on people who have contributed to popular genetics over a decade?

But yeah, go ahead write a whole dissertation like reply about psychology filled with ad hominems now, its not like you got much else to go on on.

Not really, you see me as a biased person, but because you are biased yourself.
If you try to check the hour with a clock not giving the right time ... you'll even think that a well calibrated clock is wrong .

You know, my "hypotheses", which are in fact results from statistical analyses, just got a recent big validation :
The southern Germany EIA Z597+ sample (MAG006) with an admixture similar to RMPR116 ...
With these samples, we just had validation of the southern german diversity spot at Z597 level during IA !!!
Something that was seen from statistical proxies for years (a Z597+ sub-diversity spot with IA segregation of clades).

Then, what will be the next one of my "claims" to be validated ? Maybe Tyrrhenian sea by ~3000 BCE.
Of course it would require some real deep sampling of the area, that is "currently" lacking.

PS: good to note but ORC007 being YP91+ or not is not even a crutial elements of the Tyrrhenian diversity cluster that exists anyway at Z2509 and Z585 levels. It just reinforce the idea that L283 arrival in Tyrrhenian sector needs to be fairly early to be able to conserve a that clumped old diversity (found nowhere else) in a place where the clade is otherwise fairly rare.

 

[Archetype0ne]

Not really, you see me as a biased person, but because you are biased yourself.
If you try to check the hour with a clock not giving the right time ... you'll even think that a well calibrated clock is wrong .

You know, my "hypotheses", which are in fact results from statistical analyses, just got a recent big validation :
The southern Germany EIA Z597+ sample (MAG006) with an admixture similar to RMPR116 ...
With these samples, we just had validation of the southern german diversity spot at Z597 level during IA !!!
Something that was seen from statistical proxies for years (a Z597+ sub-diversity spot with IA segregation of clades).

Then, what will be the next one of my "claims" to be validated ? Maybe Tyrrhenian sea by ~3000 BCE.
Of course it would require some real deep sampling of the area, that is "currently" lacking.

PS: good to note but ORC007 being YP91+ or not is not even a crutial elements of the Tyrrhenian diversity cluster that exists anyway at Z2509 and Z585 levels. It just reinforce the idea that L283 arrival in Tyrrhenian sector needs to be fairly early to be able to conserve a that clumped old diversity (found nowhere else) in a place where the clade is otherwise fairly rare.

Mate your claim was that L283 has nothing to do with the steppe and was a local Sardinian like haplogroup, you were even claiming that once we got more samples from France and Germany you would be vindicated. Telling us time will tell, this and that.

Funnily enough, now that we got like 500+ samples from Central Europe and France and all we found was one single L283...? Is that your smoking gun, is that your vindication?

If I was petty I would have rubbed it in your face when the paper came, but I am not about such childish behavior, although I thought and laughed about it.

Yet I wonder what time it is where you at, you might wanna double check that clock of yours.

 

[Ghurier]

Mate your claim was that L283 has nothing to do with the steppe and was a local Sardinian like haplogroup, you were even claiming we got more samples from France and Germany you would be vindicated. Telling us time will tell, this and that.

Now that we got like 500+ samples from Central Europe and France and all we found was one single L283...? Is that your smoking gun, is that your vindication? I wonder what time it is where you at, might wanna double check.

What ? Is your cognitive dissonance preventing you from reading what I wrote for nearly 3-4 years now ?
No, my claim is that the ultimate origin of J-L283 is likely somewhere around the Black-sea (while there is few more exotic ideas not completely out of the picture too).
The three main options being :
--> Anatolia (including eastern mediteranean islands)
--> South-eastern Europe
--> or Steppe
That, it is prior ~3600 BCE.

My favored model, as of today, is a passage from the eastern-med/Black-sea area to Italy with movements related to copper age diffusion in Italy.
While, I expressed it many time, I won't be categoric about this early stage. However, after Z585, we have way more signal, and thus we can have a clearer view.
You are the one believing that a steppic lineage can't make it to Tyrrhenian shores by ~3000 BCE as an isolated lineage.
To me, it is clearly an option that is still open.


From southern Germany IA, we have very few samples ... the recent one were in fact among the first ones for this location and this timeframe, and a L283 was among them. Handle it. We found a L283 during IA in the middle of a modern IA L283 diversity spot !!!

Why in the hell would we go somewhere else and expect L283 during IA when there is no IA-diversity dignal ?
Why do you think that the lack of L283 in France and Czechia among the few samples we have proves that there is none in southern Germany ?
Why do you seems to believe that the lack of sample in France will make MAG006 and RMPR116 disapear ?

Again, no, you don't expect a significant amount of L283 in France by IA (maybe some marginal lineages).
One lineage got probably lost up to Spain by IA ... but it was a totally minor lineage, finding them would rely on a lot of luck.
Same, you don't expect them in north-western Czechia where most IA central European samples are located.

Good to note that these clade likely passed by Urnfielders and/or Eastern-Hallstatt cremating populations.
I don't see how in such setting, with the poor spatial sampling we have of central European during IA, you can pretend to perform analysis by exclusion.

Also note that I won't be surprised if some BA YP91+ or Z615+ eventually got found one day in Central Europe ... but they never were dominant lineages, thus such find is likely not for tomorrow.