Breakdown of R1b subclades in Italy (Boattini et al.)

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I have counted the samples for each R1b subclade in the new study of Italian Y-chromosomes by Boattini et al. and calculated the percentages for R1b for each province.

The two most interesting R1b subclades in Italy are R1b-U152, which I believe to be associated with the Italic migrations, and R1b-M269 (which also includes L23, not tested in this study), which is generally found in Greece, Anatolia and the Balkans, and can be linked to the Etruscan (in the northern half) and Greek (in the southern half) colonisations of the Italian peninsula. Both the Greeks and the Etruscans carried many other Y-DNA haplogroups alongside R1b-M269, mainly E1b1b, G2a and J2. Italic people were essentially R1b-U152, but probably also had some R1b-P312 and G2a, and perhaps even J2b and R1a.

[EDIT:] It is also possible that M269 or L23 came with the Trojans after the destruction of Troy by the Greeks circa 1200 BCE. According to the legend, some Trojans escaped to Italy and became the ancestors of the Romans. Another candidate for the Trojan haplogroup is R1b-U152 itself, as U152 is generally associated with the expansion of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, which suddenly started around 1200 BCE, just after the destruction of Troy. Did the Trojans found the Hallstatt culture in addition to Rome ? It's not excluded.

In my opinion, the Romans, who had mixed Italic, Etruscan and Greek origins, carried both U152 and M269 lineages. However, by looking at the European-wide distribution of both lineages, it seems that the Romans carried far more U152 than M269, since U152 can be found all over the former Roman Empire, generally at frequencies of minimum 5% in places like Iberia, Britain, the Rhineland, the Balkans, Romania, and Greece. U152 is much rarer in parts of Europe that had no Roman connection, such as Ireland, Scandinavia or Northeast Europe. It is also found in North Africa (1 to 5%). M269, on the other hand, is really typical of the territory of Magna Graecia, and only occasionally found in Western Europe (less than 1%).


North Italy

In Cuneo, south-west Piedmont, 16 out of 30 samples are R1b (53.5%). Among them we find eleven Italic U152 (36.5%), three Celtic P312 (10%), and one probably Celtic L21. M269 = 0%.

In Savona/Genova, central Liguria, 26 out of 50 samples are R1b (52%). Among them we find eleven Italic U152 (22%), ten Celtic P312 (20%), three Greco-Etruscan M269 (6%), and one probably Celtic L21.

In Como, north-west Lombardy, 22 out of 41 samples are R1b (53.5%). Among them we find nine Italic U152 (22%), four Celtic P312 (10%), four Greco-Etruscan M269 (9.5%), three Germanic U106 (incl. one L48), and two Celtic SRY2627.

In Brescia, north-east Lombardy, 25 out of 39 samples are R1b (64%). Among them we find twenty Italic U152 (51% !), two Celtic P312, one Germanic L48, and one probably Celtic L21. M269 = 0%.

In Vicenza, central-west Veneto, 12 out of 40 samples are R1b (30%). Among them we find four Italic U152 (22%), three Celtic P312, two Germanic U106 (incl. one L48), two Greco-Etruscan M269 (11%), and one Middle Eastern M343.

In Treviso, central-east Veneto, 16 out of 30 samples are R1b (53.5%). Among them we find ten Italic U152 (33.5%, incl. eight L2), three Greco-Etruscan M269 (10%), two Germanic L48, and one Celtic P312.

In Bologna, central Emilia-Romagna, 17 out of 29 samples are R1b (58.5%). Among them we find nine Italic U152 (31%), three probably Celtic L21, two Greco-Etruscan M269 (7%), two Celtic P312, and one Germanic L48.


Unsurprisingly, M269 is higher around the Po Valley, which was part of Etruria, but absent from western Piedmont, which had no Etruscan or Greek connection.


Central Italy

In La Spezia-Massa, north-west Tuscany, 17 out of 24 samples are R1b (71%). Among them we find nine Italic U152 (37.5%), four Celtic P312, two probably Celtic L21, and two Greco-Etruscan M269 (8.5%).

In Pistoia, central-north Tuscany, 8 out of 13 samples are R1b (61.5%). Among them we find five Italic U152 (38.5%), one Celtic P312, one Germanic U106, and one Greco-Etruscan M269 (7.5%).

In Grosetto-Siena, southern Tuscany, only 42 out of 86 samples are R1b (49%). Among them we find 32 Italic U152 (37%), five Greco-Etruscan M269 (6%), four Germanic U106 (incl. one L48), and one Celtic P312.

In Foligno, central-east Umbria, 14 out of 37 samples are R1b (38%). Among them we find nine Italic U152 (24.5%), two Greco-Etruscan M269 (5.5%), two Celtic P312, and one Germanic L48.

In Macerata, central-east Marche, 15 out of 40 samples are R1b (37.5%). Among them we find six Italic U152 (15%), four Celtic P312, three Greco-Etruscan M269 (7.5%), one Middle Eastern M343, and one Germanic U106.


The highest frequency of R1b-U152 in Italy, or indeed anywhere in the world, is found in Tuscany, Emilia and southern Lombardy, a region corresponding fairly well to ancient Etruria.


South Italy

In southern Italy the percentage of R1b-U152 falls dramatically.

In L'Aquila, Abruzzo, 8 out of 23 samples are R1b (35%). Among them we find three Italic U152 (13%), two Greco-Etruscan M269 (8.5%), one Celtic P312, one Germanic U106, and one Proto-Celto-Germanic P311. L'Aquila was founded by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, and three samples could indeed be of German origin (one I2b1, one R1a, and one R1b-U106).

In Campobasso, Molise, 7 out of 29 samples are R1b (24%). Among them we find three Germanic U106 (incl. one L48), two Italic U152 (8%), one Greco-Etruscan M269 (4%), and one probably Celtic L21. The percentage of Germanic haplogroups is far higher, unsurprisingly since Campobasso was founded by the Lombards: four I1 samples (16%), three R1b-U106 (12%) and one I2b1 (4%). So a total of 32% of Germanic lineages (possibly more if we add one R1b-L21 that could also be Germanic).

In Benevento, Campania, 12 out of 36 samples are R1b (33.5%). Among them we find five Greek M269 (14%), two Italic U152 (5.5%), two Celtic P312, one probably Celtic L21, one Celtic SRY2627. Benevento was the seat of a powerful Lombard duchy, and 11% of the male lineages appear to be Germanic: two R1a1, one I1d, one R1b-L48.

In Matera, Basilicata, 2 samples out of 25 are R1b (8%). One is a Greek M269 (4%) and the other an Italic U152 (4%).

In Lecce, Apulia, 10 out of 39 samples are R1b (25.5%). Among them we find three Greek M269 (7%), three Italic U152 (7%), two Celtic P312, one probably Celtic L21, and one Germanic L48.

In Cosenza/Catanzaro/Crotone, Calabria, 11 out of 38 samples were R1b (29%). Among them we find six Italic U152 (15.5%), three Greek M269 (8%), one Germanic L48 and one Celtic P312.

In Catania, eastern Sicily, 22 out of 62 samples are R1b (35.5%). Among them were nine Greek M269 (14.5%), three Celtic P312, six Germanic U106 (including three L48), two probably Celtic L21, one Celtic SRY2627, and only one Italic U152 (1.5%).

In Ragusa, southeast Sicily, 10 out of 44 samples are R1b (24%). Among them were five Italic U152 (12%), one Greek M269 (2.5%), two Germanic U106 (including one L48), one probably Celtic L21, and one Celtic P312.

In Agrigento, southwest Sicily, 9 out of 42 samples are R1b (21.5%). Among them were five Italic U152 (12%) three Greek M269 (7%), and one Celtic P312.

In Olbia/Tempio/Nuoro, north-east Sardinia, 11 out of 40 samples are R1b (27.5%). Among them were five Italic U152 (12.5%) three Greek M269 (7.5%), one Middle Eastern M343, one Celtic P312, and one Celtic SRY2627.

In Oristano, central-west Sardinia, 7 out of 42 samples are R1b (16.5%). Among them were three Italic U152 (7%) two Greek M269 (4.5%), and two Middle Eastern M18.


What we observe is a remarkable consistency in the minimum levels of U152 across southern Italy, with frequencies generally oscillating between 7% and 12%. Only Catania has very little U152 (1.5%), but it may be due to the sampling. The tip of Calabria just across the Strait of Messina has 15.5%, so the average of the two is nevertheless 8.5%.

M269 reaches the highest frequency around major Greek colonies, like in Benevento (Naples) and Catania.

Only the Italic U152 and the Greco-Etruscan M269 are found throughout the Italian peninsula. Celtic and Germanic clades are irregularly dispersed and found generally in places with known Celtic or Germanic connections. The fact that U152 is present everywhere, even in Sardinia, is a clear sign that U152 was spread by the Romans well after the Italic migrations (since Italic people never settled in Sardinia).

It's a real shame that there are no samples for the Latium in this study. This would have been highly illuminating regarding the percentage of Italic vs Etruscan/Greek ancestry among the Romans.
 
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North Italy

In Cuneo, south-west Piedmont, 16 out of 30 samples are R1b (53.5%). Among them we find eleven Italic U152 (36.5%), three Celtic P312 (10%), and one probably Celtic L21. M269 = 0%.

I may be missing something, but if one probably Celtic L21 showed up out of thirty... wouldn't the percentage be 3.3% instead of 0%?
 
I have updated the map of R1b-U152 taking into account the Boattini study.

Haplogroup-R1b-S28.gif
 
I have counted the samples for each R1b subclade in the new study of Italian Y-chromosomes by Boattini et al. and calculated the percentages for R1b for each province.

The two most interesting R1b subclades in Italy are R1b-U152, which I believe to be associated with the Italic migrations, and R1b-M269, which is generally found in Greece and Anatolia, and can be linked to the Etruscan (in the northern half) and Greek (in the southern half) colonisations of the Italian peninsula.

In my opinion, the Romans, who had mixed Italic, Etruscan and Greek origins, carried both U152 and M269 lineages. However, by looking at the European-wide distribution of both lineages, it seems that the Romans carried far more U152 than M269, since U152 can be found all over the former Roman Empire, generally at frequencies of minimum 5% in places like Iberia, Britain, the Rhineland, the Balkans, Romania, and Greece. U152 is much rarer in parts of Europe that had no Roman connection, such as Ireland, Scandinavia or Northeast Europe. It is also found in North Africa (1 to 5%). M269, on the other hand, is really typical of the territory of Magna Graecia, and only occasionally found in Western Europe (less than 1%).

In regards to the high levels of R1b-U152 in Switzerland, Upper Rhine, Alsace-Lorraine as well as the Po valley and Tuscany;

I would be more inclined in assuming a common Indo-European stock that eventually branched out within Europe;

This Indo-European stock being a significant part of the proto-Keltic Gauls and in complete part the proto-Italic Umbrians

A link that is also found in a common Linguistic root between Celtic and Italic;

David Rankin - Celts and the Classical World (1986)
As in Celtic, so also in Italic, /p/—/k w/ becomes / kw/—/k w/ and /p/—/p/ according to dialect, as in ' quinque' and 'Pompeius'. The 'b' future, which is found in Latin and other Italic dialects, occurs also in Celtic: both Celtic and Italic retain the /samo/ suffix for the superlative degree of adjectives. These are some of the obvious points of resemblance. There are considerably more. In the range of correspondences, Latin seems to have points markedly in common with q-Celtic, whereas Oscan and Sabellian seem to be closer to p-Celtic. These and other factors could suggest an earlier geographical continuity between the ancestors of Italic and Celtic speakers.


With the Indo-European proto-Italics branching out into the Italian peninsula and the Indo-European proto-Keltic Gauls branching out across Western Europe;

Myres et al 2011
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3039512/

Specifically, S116*(xU152, M529) occurrence is maximal in Iberia (Figure 1j), whereas the U152 branch is most frequent (20–44%) in Switzerland, Italy, France and Western Poland, with additional instances exceeding 15% in some regions of England and Germany (Figure 1l).

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Sardinia and Sicily are mostly affected either by the Romans (Italic stock Romans) or Medieval North Italians (Tuscans, Lombards, Genoese, Pisans)
 
That map is excellent maciamo. How can we know that M269 is linked to Etruscan R1b, what if the Etruscans didn't have R1b?i think it would be safer to associate R1b M269 with the Greeks, Hellenic Dorian Greeks in particular, but even then, how can we associated M269 R1b to the Greeks with certainty?
 
i may be missing something, but if one probably celtic l21 showed up out of thirty... Wouldn't the percentage be 3.3% instead of 0%?

l21 = 3.3%
m269 = 0%
 
In regards to the high levels of R1b-U152 in Switzerland, Upper Rhine, Alsace-Lorraine as well as the Po valley and Tuscany;

I would be more inclined in assuming a common Indo-European stock that eventually branched out within Europe;

This Indo-European stock being a significant part of the proto-Keltic Gauls and in complete part the proto-Italic Umbrians

A link that is also found in a common Linguistic root between Celtic and Italic;

David Rankin - Celts and the Classical World (1986)
As in Celtic, so also in Italic, /p/—/k w/ becomes / kw/—/k w/ and /p/—/p/ according to dialect, as in ' quinque' and 'Pompeius'. The 'b' future, which is found in Latin and other Italic dialects, occurs also in Celtic: both Celtic and Italic retain the /samo/ suffix for the superlative degree of adjectives. These are some of the obvious points of resemblance. There are considerably more. In the range of correspondences, Latin seems to have points markedly in common with q-Celtic, whereas Oscan and Sabellian seem to be closer to p-Celtic. These and other factors could suggest an earlier geographical continuity between the ancestors of Italic and Celtic speakers.


With the Indo-European proto-Italics branching out into the Italian peninsula and the Indo-European proto-Keltic Gauls branching out across Western Europe;

Myres et al 2011
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3039512/

Specifically, S116*(xU152, M529) occurrence is maximal in Iberia (Figure 1j), whereas the U152 branch is most frequent (20–44%) in Switzerland, Italy, France and Western Poland, with additional instances exceeding 15% in some regions of England and Germany (Figure 1l).

---
Sardinia and Sicily are mostly affected either by the Romans (Italic stock Romans) or Medieval North Italians (Tuscans, Lombards, Genoese, Pisans)

I agree with that. But within Italy the vast majority of U152 is Italic. In France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, U152 may be either Celtic or Italic (Roman).
 
That map is excellent maciamo. How can we know that M269 is linked to Etruscan R1b, what if the Etruscans didn't have R1b? i think it would be safer to associate R1b M269 with the Greeks, Hellenic Dorian Greeks in particular, but even then, how can we associated M269 R1b to the Greeks with certainty?

Are We so sure that Etruscans didn't have R1b?
 
More leca-culo attitude from emperor Vallicanus; as usual.
 
Are We so sure that Etruscans didn't have R1b?

The Etrsucans were a non-Indo-European people as manifested by their Language.
Historically the Etruscans (Tyrsenoi) are located (originating) in the East Aegaen;
Herodotus places their origin in Lydia (West Anatolia) and Dionysius places their origins in Thessaly;

So it would be safe to assume the Etruscans to be from Y-DNA Hg most frequent in the East Aegaen - East Mediterranean - Anatolia/Near East;

But keep in mind that the Pelasgian Tyrsenoi mixed with the pre-existing Indo-European Umbrians within the specific regions they (the Pelasgians) settled (Between Arno and Tiber / South-East Po Valley / Appenines).
as recorded by Dionysius and proven by Anthropology (Forensic Archaeology) of the Villanova c. cemeteries.

So R1b-U152 might very well be (most prob.) amongst the Etruscan civilization of Etruria.
 
I have also updated the maps of L21 and U106.

Haplogroup-R1b-L21.gif


Haplogroup-R1b-S21.gif
 
That map is excellent maciamo. How can we know that M269 is linked to Etruscan R1b, what if the Etruscans didn't have R1b?i think it would be safer to associate R1b M269 with the Greeks, Hellenic Dorian Greeks in particular, but even then, how can we associated M269 R1b to the Greeks with certainty?

If the Etruscans came from Anatolia, how could they not have had some R1b ?

How would the Greeks have spread R1b-M269 to central and northern Italy ?

Another possibility is that the R1b-M269 in central and northern Italy came with the Trojans, who according to the legend were the ancestors of the Romans. Ancient Troy might well have been founded by early Indo-Europeans after they invaded Southeast Europe between 4200 BCE and 3000 BCE. The Indo-European Ezero culture, which expanded over most of modern Bulgaria, lasted from 3300 to 2700 BCE. Troy was founded circa 3000 BCE. The timing and location match. This corresponds also to the golden age of the Maykop culture (3700-2500 BCE) on the other side of the Black Sea.

I had originally postulated five years ago that Maykop people founded Troy, and that the seat of the Maykop culture eventually moved to Troy. During that period, the bulk of R1b Indo-Europeans from the eastern and northern shore of the Black Sea migrated to the western shore and Southeast Europe.

The Hittites appear in northern Anatolia around 2000 BCE and spoke a language related to Trojan (Luwian). If the Hittites were Indo-Europeans and R1b, then in all logic Trojans were also R1b people. Since R1b-M269 (or actually its subclade L23, not tested in this study) is the dominant Indo-European variety of R1b in Anatolia, Greece and the Balkans, there have high chances that the Trojans belonged to that subclade.

Another candidate for the Trojan haplogroup is R1b-U152 itself, as U152 is generally associated with the expansion of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, which suddenly started around 1200 BCE, just after the destruction of Troy. What if the Trojans founded the Hallstatt culture and its Italian offshoot, the Villanovan culture ?

The only way to know for sure whether the Trojans were M269, L23 or U152 is to test ancient DNA from the Troy region dating from sometime between 3000 and 1200 BCE. What is certain is that U152 is present in Anatolia today, but it could be the result of back migrations of the Celts and the Romans.
 
It's difficult to distinguish what R1b was brought to Anatolia via Galatians (European celts proper) and what is Brought by M269 or L23 subclades and wether or not these subgroups where brought into Italy by ANATOLIANS/Greeks, certain Greeks surely had R1b as is found in roughly 15-20% of Greeks today but the ANATOLIANS bringing more R1b into Italy, I wouldn't say no and I cannot confirm; difficult question it is.
 
Maybe Greeks brought trace amounts of L23 into south Italy, but the Etruscans, it becomes even more difficult to judge....
 
I heavily doubt it; Hittites and Trojans are linked to Mesopotamian J2.
 
The Trojans of Wilusa who spoke Luwian (a language spread over turkey/Syria/Lebanon) where the very same pelasgians that warred with ancient Ahiyawa (Mycenaean Greeks), they where J2 mesopotamians; as most Turks are today.
 
They where J2 dominant. Now did they also have a R1b L-23 or M269 substratum among them, that is the next question of wich I believe yes. These L23 men arrived from southern Russia migrating into the Caucasus and then to turkey, but never where they the dominating factor.
 
I heavily doubt it; Hittites and Trojans are linked to Mesopotamian J2.

Nope, they were both Indo-European speakers and their culture had clear connections to the Pontic Steppe (like the chariots).
 
They may have borrowed cultural/linguistic aspects of indo-European influence, doesn't mean they where indo-European, even Indians spoke Sanskrit; and indo-aryans where under "indo-European" as well, are their genetic makeup similar to Germans in any way or other indo-European Europeans?
 

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