Talk on Ancient Italian/Roman DNA over in Stanford.

Angela said:

It's amazing how obsessed the posters on anthrogenica are about Italian genetic history when they aren't even Italian. I wonder why?

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Indeed.

All in all, the current findings point to Italy's overall structure by the empire's founding under Augustus being similar enough to modern Italians (northern to center populations shifted to Iberians, southerners shifted to Mycenaeans). And it still doesn't support Nordicism/Attempts To Project Post-Columbian Racial Policies Onto Romans since there's no actual evidence of some Indian style caste system or less north shifted Italians being discriminated against by Caesar's day.

Alyan said:

All in all, the current findings point to Italy's overall structure by the empire's founding under Augustus being similar enough to modern Italians (northern to center populations shifted to Iberians, southerners shifted to Mycenaeans). And it still doesn't support Nordicism/Attempts To Project Post-Columbian Racial Policies Onto Romans since there's no actual evidence of some Indian style caste system or less north shifted Italians being discriminated against by Caesar's day.

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It does seem like there was a separate class of Northern Italian-like people though. Also obviously though, not Northern European-like.

Okay, so the Iran_N appears at the START of the Neolithic in Italy - I confirmed it with Moots herself. Now I'm confused.[FONT=&quot]


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Georgewalley said:

The Near Eastern like outliers dissapeared after the antiquity because they were later absorbed into the genepool, it's not the same as the Near Eastern aka. Levant N admixture dissapeared rather widespreaded into furthern north and became more balanced out with less regional differences, well Sicilians have around ~20% Levant Neolithic like admixture while Northerners have less than 5%.

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OMG! READ! IT DISAPPEARS BY LATE ANTIQUITY NOT AFTER.

Hellenthal was wrong, and so were you. Great over it.

This is like when you couldn't comprehend pigmentation papers.

You're done.

@ ygorcs.

hm, could it before christianity? or after?

ToBeOrNotToBe said:

It does seem like there was a separate class of Northern Italian-like people though. Also obviously though, not Northern European-like.

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How could you possibly know that, since we don't have the burial contexts of the samples? You really love to wildly speculate. What about Etruscans? They were Kings of Rome. Are you sure they were Northern Italian like? What if they too are closer to Southern Italians?

Okay, so the Iran_N appears at the START of the Neolithic in Italy - I confirmed it with Moots herself. Now I'm confused.

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Why? Go back and look at the Peloponnese Neolithic samples, especially the "outlier".

Perhaps it will turn out as I always hoped: migration of Minoan like peoples into Italy. They're my favorite ancient civilization, apart from Etruscans.

Earlier in the thread, its been pointed out that we don't have isotope information to tell the locals from the migrants so we can't draw any conclusion about anything yet. We don't know where they're from.

(yes some samples are obviously from elsewhere like the Middle Eastern ones)

Significant immigration into Central to Northern Italy is more Imperial than Republican. And even with the slavery Romans didn't target on ethnicity/race (so before the Last Punic War and Caesar's Conquests plenty of slaves should be Italian).

As I said, the evidence supports continuity with Modern Italy's structure (ranging from Iberian-like to Aegean-like from the Republic on).

ToBeOrNotToBe said:

It does seem like there was a separate class of Northern Italian-like people though. Also obviously though, not Northern European-like.

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You need to show there was a caste system with discrimination for them to be a "class."

Angela said:

How could you possibly know that, since we don't have the burial contexts of the samples? You really love to wildly speculate. What about Etruscans? They were Kings of Rome. Are you sure they were Northern Italian like? What if they too are closer to Southern Italians?

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One of the Etruscan kings of Rome was half Greek. The use of words like "north Italian" or "south Italian" is useless in this context (the beginning of the historical period). These terms are only used because users have very little archaeological knowledge and oversimplify everything.

davef said:

Earlier in the thread, its been pointed out that we don't have isotope information to tell the locals from the migrants so we can't draw any conclusion about anything yet. We don't know where they're from.

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That's a serious question. What would the analysis of the isotope of the bone remains of a second-generation New Yorker born and bred in NY to non-New Yorker parents tell?

Angela said:

How could you possibly know that, since we don't have the burial contexts of the samples? You really love to wildly speculate. What about Etruscans? They were Kings of Rome. Are you sure they were Northern Italian like? What if they too are closer to Southern Italians?

Why? Go back and look at the Peloponnese Neolithic samples, especially the "outlier".

Perhaps it will turn out as I always hoped: migration of Minoan like peoples into Italy. They're my favorite ancient civilization, apart from Etruscans.

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I'd guess the Etruscans were Minoan-like - I think both were Y DNA J-rich of the Anatolian branch that spread across the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. The Italics, though, ultimately surely derive their ancestry from the Steppe Bell Beakers - though, as mentioned, they only had Northern Italian levels of Steppe. In the early stages of Italic development in Northern Italy, I'd guess they were more Swiss-like though.

As for Iran_N - Moots told me herself that it spread BEFORE the Copper Age. I'm now 100% sure, in my mind at least, that this is from the Cardium Pottery culture, which has roots around the Upper Euphrates (rather than the typical 1st wave Balkan EEFs, who derive from Western and Central Anatolia). These EEFs probably entered Italy at some point after Cardium Pottery folk, accounting for the dilution in Iran_N ancestry. I still think Iran_N would have spread across the Mediterranean with copper metallurgy, but perhaps (as this would have been an elite migration for sure) it didn't have much of an impact genetically.

ToBeOrNotToBe said:

I'd guess the Etruscans were Minoan-like - I think both were Y DNA J-rich of the Anatolian branch that spread across the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age.

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There's no evidence that the Etruscans were Minoan-like. Not even linguistic, and less than ever archaeological. Anyway the original nucleus of the Minoans eventually comes from the EEFs, and they were not very different from the Mycenaeans except for a small percentage of EHG. Y-DNA J is not particularly widespread in modern Etruscan areas, its peaks are in non-Etruscan areas in Italy, not to mention the fact that J means nothing because the different branches of all its subclasses have very varied dispersion.

ToBeOrNotToBe said:

The Italics, though, ultimately surely derive their ancestry from the Steppe Bell Beakers - though, as mentioned, they only had Northern Italian levels of Steppe. In the early stages of Italic development in Northern Italy, I'd guess they were more Swiss-like though.

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There is no archeological evidence that Italics derive their ancestry from the Steppe Bell Beakers either. Italics arrived between MBA and LBA, unlikely earlier.

ToBeOrNotToBe said:

I'd guess the Etruscans were Minoan-like - I think both were Y DNA J-rich of the Anatolian branch that spread across the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. The Italics, though, ultimately surely derive their ancestry from the Steppe Bell Beakers - though, as mentioned, they only had Northern Italian levels of Steppe. In the early stages of Italic development in Northern Italy, I'd guess they were more Swiss-like though.

As for Iran_N - Moots told me herself that it spread BEFORE the Copper Age. I'm now 100% sure, in my mind at least, that this is from the Cardium Pottery culture, which has roots around the Upper Euphrates (rather than the typical 1st wave Balkan EEFs, who derive from Western and Central Anatolia).

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The "first wave" of farmers to leave the Near East left from the land where southeastern Turkey meets Syria, so, the juncture between Anatolia and the Levant, although those terms are irrelevant in the time periods we're discussing. We know they went to Cyprus. Perhaps they went on to Crete and then Italy. Or perhaps some of the Peloponnese Neolithic people went on to Italy. We just don't know yet.

Certainly, Cardial has nothing to do with Mesopotamia.




As for "classes" in Roman society, of course they existed. There were Patricians and Plebeians after all, but even by the time of Caesar that was all disappearing.

Caesar's aunt Julia (the Julii were among the elite of the elite in terms of patrician ancestry) married Marius, an upstart of rural equestrian origin, and Marcus Agrippa, who was lieutenant, friend, and son-on-in law of Augustus was of humble plebeian origin from the countryside.

Ancient Rome was not ancient India or even the Britain of the 19th century.

They also weren't necessarily big on blood tie genealogy. Adoption was a very important part of Roman family life.

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


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


For that matter, Marc Anthony was a plebeian, and again, colleague and friend of Caesar, and married into the imperial family.

Angela said:

The "first wave" of farmers to leave the Near East left from the land where southeastern Turkey meets Syria, so, the juncture between Anatolia and the Levant, although those terms are irrelevant in the time periods we're discussing. We know they went to Cyprus. Perhaps they went on to Crete and then Italy. Or perhaps some of the Peloponnese Neolithic people went on to Italy. We just don't know yet.

Certainly, Cardial has nothing to do with Mesopotamia.

As for "classes" in Roman society, of course they existed. There were Patricians and Plebeians after all, but even by the time of Caesar that was all disappearing.

Caesar's aunt Julia (the Julii were among the elite of the elite in terms of patrician ancestry) married Marius, an upstate of rural equestrian origin, and Marcus Agrippa, who was lieutenant, friend, and son-on-in law of Augustus was of humble plebeian origin from the countryside.

Ancient Rome was not ancient India or even the Britain of the 19th century.

They also weren't necessarily big on blood tie genealogy. Adoption was a very important part of Roman family life.

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Cardium pottery does derive from the Upper Euphrates-Levant region though - it seems to have spread via sea from the Aleppo plateau to the Adriatic and Italy (later Spain), before heading down into Tunisia and (in my opinion) eventually spreading into Africa. This is probably (again, imo) how Y DNA T, R1b-V88 etc. ended up in the Sahel among the Chadic branch.

Also there's no evidence that the EEF ancestry of the Balkans is from a farming wave originating East of Central Anatolia.

ToBeOrNotToBe said:

I'm now 100% sure, in my mind at least, that this is from the Cardium Pottery culture, which has roots around the Upper Euphrates (rather than the typical 1st wave Balkan EEFs, who derive from Western and Central Anatolia).

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There are 3 Cardial Pottery culture samples from Croatia (I3433, I3947, I3948) who are plain EEF with no extra CHG or anything. I don't know if this is the same group you are thinking of.

Alyan said:

DNA from the Ostia crypt should be a good representative of Roman/Iron Age Central Italian DNA.

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Ostia was Rome's seaport (along with Isola Sacra and Portus), how it can be representative of Roman/Iron Age Central Italian DNA?

ToBeOrNotToBe said:

It does seem like there was a separate class of Northern Italian-like people though. Also obviously though, not Northern European-like.

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Oh, come on, there aren't enough samples to talk of a "separate class of Northern Italian-like people". The only thing that can be said is that there were Northern Italian-like INDIVIDUALS in Central Italy at that time. Not surprising considering how integrated economically and socially the Italian peninsula had become. There is nothing to suggest they were a "class" of their own. They might just have come from a place with a different genetic structure from the local one, nothing else.

Megalophias said:

There are 3 Cardial Pottery culture samples from Croatia (I3433, I3947, I3948) who are plain EEF with no extra CHG or anything. I don't know if this is the same group you are thinking of.

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True, and they seem to have been typical Y DNA C and G2a (like the Anatolian hunter-gatherers from which EEF descends), but perhaps this is from heavy mixing with Balkan EEFs? I mean what other hypothesis is there for Iran_N in EARLY Neolithic Italy if not from Cardium ware?

Ygorcs said:

Oh, come on, there aren't enough samples to talk of a "separate class of Northern Italian-like people". The only thing that can be said is that there were Northern Italian-like INDIVIDUALS in Central Italy at that time. Not surprising considering how integrated economically and socially the Italian peninsula had become. There is nothing to suggest they were a "class" of their own. They might just have come from a place with a different genetic structure from the local one, nothing else.

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Why were they different genetically from most of the population then? The idea that they were migrants from elsewhere, yet remained a separate group throughout the Iron Age and Classical period makes no sense to me without them being a been a class of their own - if not elites, at least cultural conservatives.

Angela said:

The "first wave" of farmers to leave the Near East left from the land where southeastern Turkey meets Syria, so, the juncture between Anatolia and the Levant, although those terms are irrelevant in the time periods we're discussing. We know they went to Cyprus. Perhaps they went on to Crete and then Italy. Or perhaps some of the Peloponnese Neolithic people went on to Italy. We just don't know yet.

Certainly, Cardial has nothing to do with Mesopotamia.

As for "classes" in Roman society, of course they existed. There were Patricians and Plebeians after all, but even by the time of Caesar that was all disappearing.

Caesar's aunt Julia (the Julii were among the elite of the elite in terms of patrician ancestry) married Marius, an upstart of rural equestrian origin, and Marcus Agrippa, who was lieutenant, friend, and son-on-in law of Augustus was of humble plebeian origin from the countryside.

Ancient Rome was not ancient India or even the Britain of the 19th century.

They also weren't necessarily big on blood tie genealogy. Adoption was a very important part of Roman family life.

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

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

For that matter, Marc Anthony was a plebeian, and again, colleague and friend of Caesar, and married into the imperial family.

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Please check the info for Cardial and check the dates. If anything it would be from the Levant.

Cardial is distinct from Peloponnese and Balkan Neolithic. Where the Italian Neolithic fits we don't yet know. It may have been an offshoot of the Peloponnese Neolithic or it may have been separate. We just don't know yet.

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