Angela
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Wow, this is exciting.
Is this the same paper as the one that RYU reported on? In that one there were two "types" of Romans, yes? One was more "North Italian" like, and one was more "South Italian" like, but by the Imperial period it was definitely more "Southern Italian" like, with a further small change in the post Imperial period.
These look definitely more "South Italian" like. So, this is perhaps a different paper?
Any info on the dating of these samples or the context?
Just assuming for the moment, which I probably shouldn't do, that these samples are all Imperial Era Romans and from a different paper, then I think it just reinforces some of the conclusions we tentatively reached from that prior information.
The "original Romans", from the Republic, were definitely Italic speakers, and were probably more like Northern Italians. As time went on, more and more influence from "Greeks" infiltrated north from Southern Italy. That influence on Italy didn't begin in the first millennium B.C. with Magna Graecia. As I've been saying for ten years, and as recent papers are beginning to conclude, it started back in Mycenaean days.
So, those "more North Italian" Romans of the Republic probably had some of it too, as do modern North Italians. I would guess they were the predictable mixture of Italian MN (also known as Sardinian like) with some steppe admixed migrants, although if Parma Beakers are an indication of the type of admixture we're talking about, they would have varied in the amount of steppe they carried. To that would perhaps have been added a bit of "Mycenaean", carrying a bit of Caucasus/Iran like admixture.
After the incorporation of Magna Graecia in the last centuries of the first millennium BC that would only have increased.
As for the Etruscans, we knew for a long time that their mtDna was like that of most of southern Germany/Northern Italy, i.e. predominantly MN like, so predominantly "farmer" like but with some absorbed U5, either from the WHG, or from the steppe people. I wouldn't presume to judge. Some ancient MtDna experts will have to figure that out.
So, the question has always been, not only what were they like in terms of yDna, but what were they like autosomally. From these leaks, it seems they may have been like Parma Beakers, although which Parma Beaker I don't know. If it's a pretty steppe admixed one, I think we can probably finally put to bed any idea that there was a folk migration from Anatolia to central Italy in the first millennium B.C., an idea which so many have vociferously championed for so long, and which I have resisted for just as long. In the case of the Etruscans we have tons of archaeological evidence, and it just never supported that.
One of the arguments for that very late migration directly from Anatolia has been the "elevated" Caucasus like/Iranian like ancestry in modern Tuscans. What an irony if that came by way of the "Imperial/Classical" Romans, who got it by way of the Greek like people of Southern Italy.
One of the counter arguments has always been that there's a lot of R1b in Tuscans. I've always doubted much of it was "Galiic/Celtic", because other than the northwestern fringe, they really only raided into Tuscany proper, not settled. So, where did the R1b come from? One could say the Romans, but the R1b is unbroken all the way north.
Could it be that the Etruscans, like the Basque, are a case of an R1b but still farmer heavy group mixed with Sardinian like peoples, where, perhaps because it was mostly males by that point, and perhaps the culture was more matrilineal, the children adopted the "farmer" language?
Could there have been a small, elite movement from the Aegean into "Etruria" in the Iron Age? It's possible, I suppose. Y Dna will tell us what happened, although I'm starting to doubt it. Even if one or two samples carry J2, it could have filtered north or been adopted through the long contact between the Etruscans and the Greeks, both directly and through Magna Graecia. We would need a large number of samples.
I know it's unbecoming to say "I told you so", but I have to do it. I took such nonsense over the years from people on dna-forums, where I was virtually excluded, to 23andme forums and even here, where I was constantly harassed, and also saw my ideas ridiculed on theapricity, anthrogenica and by "he who most not be named", .
That's what happens, people, when you follow an agenda, an ideology, instead of looking at all the evidence. Assemble the facts and only the facts, drop all preconceptions and "ologies", and go from there.
@Cato,
I don't know if the more "northern" influence on the Etruscans was Parma Beaker like, or ancient "Ligurian" like, or something else; that's why I said "Parma Beaker like". It definitely seems to be a steppe admixed group to some extent.
You're right; this happened relatively late.
Is this the same paper as the one that RYU reported on? In that one there were two "types" of Romans, yes? One was more "North Italian" like, and one was more "South Italian" like, but by the Imperial period it was definitely more "Southern Italian" like, with a further small change in the post Imperial period.
These look definitely more "South Italian" like. So, this is perhaps a different paper?
Any info on the dating of these samples or the context?
Just assuming for the moment, which I probably shouldn't do, that these samples are all Imperial Era Romans and from a different paper, then I think it just reinforces some of the conclusions we tentatively reached from that prior information.
The "original Romans", from the Republic, were definitely Italic speakers, and were probably more like Northern Italians. As time went on, more and more influence from "Greeks" infiltrated north from Southern Italy. That influence on Italy didn't begin in the first millennium B.C. with Magna Graecia. As I've been saying for ten years, and as recent papers are beginning to conclude, it started back in Mycenaean days.
So, those "more North Italian" Romans of the Republic probably had some of it too, as do modern North Italians. I would guess they were the predictable mixture of Italian MN (also known as Sardinian like) with some steppe admixed migrants, although if Parma Beakers are an indication of the type of admixture we're talking about, they would have varied in the amount of steppe they carried. To that would perhaps have been added a bit of "Mycenaean", carrying a bit of Caucasus/Iran like admixture.
After the incorporation of Magna Graecia in the last centuries of the first millennium BC that would only have increased.
As for the Etruscans, we knew for a long time that their mtDna was like that of most of southern Germany/Northern Italy, i.e. predominantly MN like, so predominantly "farmer" like but with some absorbed U5, either from the WHG, or from the steppe people. I wouldn't presume to judge. Some ancient MtDna experts will have to figure that out.
So, the question has always been, not only what were they like in terms of yDna, but what were they like autosomally. From these leaks, it seems they may have been like Parma Beakers, although which Parma Beaker I don't know. If it's a pretty steppe admixed one, I think we can probably finally put to bed any idea that there was a folk migration from Anatolia to central Italy in the first millennium B.C., an idea which so many have vociferously championed for so long, and which I have resisted for just as long. In the case of the Etruscans we have tons of archaeological evidence, and it just never supported that.
One of the arguments for that very late migration directly from Anatolia has been the "elevated" Caucasus like/Iranian like ancestry in modern Tuscans. What an irony if that came by way of the "Imperial/Classical" Romans, who got it by way of the Greek like people of Southern Italy.
One of the counter arguments has always been that there's a lot of R1b in Tuscans. I've always doubted much of it was "Galiic/Celtic", because other than the northwestern fringe, they really only raided into Tuscany proper, not settled. So, where did the R1b come from? One could say the Romans, but the R1b is unbroken all the way north.
Could it be that the Etruscans, like the Basque, are a case of an R1b but still farmer heavy group mixed with Sardinian like peoples, where, perhaps because it was mostly males by that point, and perhaps the culture was more matrilineal, the children adopted the "farmer" language?
Could there have been a small, elite movement from the Aegean into "Etruria" in the Iron Age? It's possible, I suppose. Y Dna will tell us what happened, although I'm starting to doubt it. Even if one or two samples carry J2, it could have filtered north or been adopted through the long contact between the Etruscans and the Greeks, both directly and through Magna Graecia. We would need a large number of samples.
I know it's unbecoming to say "I told you so", but I have to do it. I took such nonsense over the years from people on dna-forums, where I was virtually excluded, to 23andme forums and even here, where I was constantly harassed, and also saw my ideas ridiculed on theapricity, anthrogenica and by "he who most not be named", .
That's what happens, people, when you follow an agenda, an ideology, instead of looking at all the evidence. Assemble the facts and only the facts, drop all preconceptions and "ologies", and go from there.
@Cato,
I don't know if the more "northern" influence on the Etruscans was Parma Beaker like, or ancient "Ligurian" like, or something else; that's why I said "Parma Beaker like". It definitely seems to be a steppe admixed group to some extent.
You're right; this happened relatively late.