southern Italian paper 2014-Sarno, Boattini et al

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It's taken me a while to get through the paper. Basically, like all the other papers on Italian uniparental markers, it suffers from having too few samples(although it gains credibility because of a sampling method based on regional surnames), and from the fact that they're still not using full genome sequences. I think part of the problem is that since they perhaps don't have the resources to do wide spread testing, they are trying to draw what conclusions they can from comparisons with prior data bases, which are usually at a much lower level of resolution.

Still, I think there's some interesting stuff here.

I was particularly interested in their TMRCA dates, which they define as not the population split time, but the amount of time needed to evolve the STR genetic variation.I should emphasize that they emphasize how cautious you have to be with TMRCA dates, given the uncertainties about the proper mutation rates and how dependent the results are on the number and type of STR's that are chosen, even though they were careful to use only the slowest moving markers.

That said, I think looking at the relative ages is informative, and there are a few "good fits". Here is the chart:
View attachment 6418

In terms of yDNA, you have G-P15 coming in at around 7,000 B.C., which seems a pretty good fit for the Neolithic to me, although they maintain that this indicates a possible pre-Neolithic appearance in Italy. (In their prior paper, there was indeed one cluster of G2a that was even older than this. Clumping all the subclusters of G2a into one group obscures that in this case)

P312 and R-M17 show up next, with an approximate age of 2300 B.C. which would correlate with the putative dates for the appearance of the Indo-Europeans. In the rest of Europe, we're talking about Bell Beaker and Corded Ware, which would certainly fit with these two haplogroups. In Italy, we have evidence for Bell Beaker in some areas of northern Italy, but as for the south, it only appears in western Sicily. The modern distribution shows a slight preponderance in Sicily versus southern Italy, but he samples are, of course, small. (5.09/3.64)

Then, the authors examined the five most common yDNA "J" haplogroups, which by their calculations have a TMRCA of between 1700 to 1250 B.C., and total about 24% of all the y haplogroups. In northern Italy, this is the time of the Terramare culture, which some observers have tied to the Indo-Europeans, but the dates for P312 and R-M17 are older according to their method.

These are the groups with dates around 1600-1700 B.C.:
J2a-410, which is highest in the Caucasus but present in Anatolia and Greece. It has the highest frequency in the area, at 9.51%, and is slightly more frequent in Sicily.
J2b-M12, which has a similar distribution to E-V13, and is therefore high in the Balkans. It comes in at 3.37 and appears more in S.Italy than in Sicily.
J2a-M92, with high frequencies in Anatolia and Tuscany (Nobody 1, are you reading this?
smile.gif
) It also comes in at 3.37% and is spread equally throughout SSI.

Then you have these slightly later haplogroups with a supposed age of 1250 B.C.
J2a-M67, with peaks in Crete, Greeks, Albanians, and the Caucasus. It represents 3.07% of the population and is a little heavier in southern Italy.
J1-M267, which is the type found in Eastern Anatolia, and the Caucasus, not Arabia. It is 4.91% of the total population, and heavier in Sicily.

The authors waffle about the source of these lineages, saying that they could have a Neolithic source, or perhaps a source in Phoenician colonies.
I have my doubts about a Neolithic origin, given that the "J" lineages haven't shown up in any Neolithic context, although one could show up tomorrow, of course. As for the Phoenicians, everything I know about them indicates they established emporia, not large scale settlements on the Greek model, although even they were male mediated. I also would think the Phoenician signature, coming, as some of it would have, from Carthage, would have carried a North African flavor, and we don't see very much of that at all.

I'm rather surprised that these geneticists don't know that southern Italy, at this period in history was very much under the influence of the Minoan civilization, and then Mycenean Greece, and that there was also, according to Pallottino, a movement across the Adriatic which gave rise to the Appennine Culture of central into southern Italy. I would think the latter might be a good fit for J2b.

See The Foundations of Latin, by Philip Baldi, an online book, p. 100,
and The Bronze Age, by V. Gordon Childe, also an online book, p.195,
and https://www.academia.edu/1300703/Th...tern_Sicily_and_Cyprus_in_the_Late_Bronze_Age

This is then followed by E-v13, with a date of approximately 350 B.C. This seems to be a relatively good fit for the Greek colonization of SSI, which began around the 700's B.C.

The last group for which dates are given are the R1b U-152 groups, and R-U106, both of which date to around the beginning of the Common Era. I have personally been leaning toward a possible correlation with Terramare for U-152 but that has a date of 1700 B.C. Otherwise, are we looking at Urnfield or Hallstadt influenced cultures? For L2, would we then be looking at Alpine Celts and/or Gauls? I really don't know. A date like this also doesn't make any sense for U-106 in Sicily, which is where it is more predominant by far. I would think that would correlate more with the Normans one thousand years later in 1000 A.D.. If all of these dates were to be pushed forward 1,000 years, that would play havoc with everything we think we know about the movement of these haplogroups.
 
Thanks Angela for making the essence out of the paper.

So who were the first Neolithic farmers, the first farmers? We have hg T left, unless I missed it. It is not very strong but well spread these days.
Haplogroup-T.gif



Then G came, also possibly being the force behind Varna and Cucuteni?
Haplogroup_G2a.gif
 
another add to this paper with charts
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/sicilian-haploid-genetics-in.html

some IDs i do not know about..........I know TV =treviso, BO=bologna.....but the other tuscan and ligurian ones I have no clue.

Its odd for the NCI = northern-central italians ( i read it as and ), have ydna from the north and Iberia, while mtdna has it from the levant but not africa

distribution of mtDNA genetic variation (Figure 3a). Nearly all of the Mediterranean populations (with some exceptions, i.e. AG, TV, BUR) appear indeed distributed along a longitudinal transect running from North African and Near Eastern countries (large white squares) to the Iberian Peninsula (large black squares), with the bulk of the South-Eastern European populations (including Balkans and Italy) roughly occupying an intermediate position therein
 
another add to this paper with charts
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/sicilian-haploid-genetics-in.html

some IDs i do not know about..........I know TV =treviso, BO=bologna.....but the other tuscan and ligurian ones I have no clue.

Its odd for the NCI = northern-central italians ( i read it as and ), have ydna from the north and Iberia, while mtdna has it from the levant but not africa

distribution of mtDNA genetic variation (Figure 3a). Nearly all of the Mediterranean populations (with some exceptions, i.e. AG, TV, BUR) appear indeed distributed along a longitudinal transect running from North African and Near Eastern countries (large white squares) to the Iberian Peninsula (large black squares), with the bulk of the South-Eastern European populations (including Balkans and Italy) roughly occupying an intermediate position therein

Table S1 explains where all the samples come from; In the case of NCI (north-central Italy) it is all from Boattini et al 2013: SVGE (Savona-Genova) TV (Treviso) BO (Bologna) GRSN (Grosseto-Siena) MC (Macerata) CB (Campobasso)

And the mtDNA for NCI:
L = 0.00% (0) / M = 0.87% (2) / N = 0.87% (2) / N1 = 2.18% (5) / I = 1.31% (3) / W = 0.87% (2)
X = 1.31% (3) / R* = 0.00% (0) / R0 = 1.31% (3) / HV = 3.93% (9) / H = 45.85% (105)
V = 1.31% (3) / T = 10.48% (24) / J = 8.30% (19) / U = 12.23% (28) / K = 9.17% (21)

The study is practically a combo of Boattini et al 2013 and DiGaetano et al 2009 i.e. nothing much new (not at all); Grant revelation is the most common single Y-DNA Hg in South Italy and Sicily (SSI) is G2a-P15 followed by E-V13, J2a-M410 and R1b-U152 (U152* and L2);
 
Thanks Angela for making the essence out of the paper.

So who were the first Neolithic farmers, the first farmers? We have hg T left, unless I missed it. It is not very strong but well spread these days.
Haplogroup-T.gif



Then G came, also possibly being the force behind Varna and Cucuteni?
Haplogroup_G2a.gif

No, you didn't miss it. The attachment with the TMRCA table wasn't showing because I had too many attachments. I just fixed it. Unfortunately, they didn't do a TMRCA calculation for T. The total amount for T is 2.45% and it's all T1a.

They also didn't do TMRCA calculations for I2 P215 (2.15), I2a M26 (.61) or I2a M223 (1.84%), which is very frustrating. The STR's are in the paper, so someone adept at the calculations could probably figure it out.

[By the way, there is new data for both yDNA and mtDNA for three areas in this paper, which should be added to the calculations upon which the maps are based. I just realized that. The three new areas are Trapani, Enna, and Cosenza ]

I think T is a good bet for the Neolithic, as is G, but I do think that the prior Boattini paper showed that one cluster of "G" is even older than the dates for the Neolithic in southern Italy. For example, the average date they find for yDNA G-P15 in this paper is 9339 BP, or 7300 B.C. The Neolithic in the south east (Puglia) is dated to 6000-5700 B.C. This flow then moved west toward Calabria and Eastern Sicily, where you find impressed ware at about 5800-5400 B.C. There was a parallel and culturally slightly different Neolithic flow in western Sicily 6,000-5750 B.C. Of course, their dates could be off, but as I said, they found that one cluster is even older than the 7300 B.C.E. date.

I think the whole Gravettian and Epi-Gravettian in the Balkans and Italy is rather mysterious. Were they yDNA I2a as well? Or was there also some G present among the Hunter-Gatherers of the Mesolithic?

I'm also intrigued by that strip of particularly high G2a in central to southern Italy in the Apennines. Is it a case of the mountains serving as a refugia for Neolithic populations? Or, which I think is just as likely, especially if we consider the results of the prior Boattini et al paper, did G2a come to Italy in successive gene flows, perhaps Mesolithic, certainly Neolithic, but also some during the Metal Ages, with J2b perhaps and the Apennine culture, and perhaps some also from Crete etc.? I think a Bronze Age flow might be possible given the hot spots in western Iberia and the traces that appear in Wales, perhaps? Does anyone know off hand if any subclades have been found in the G2a in those areas and whether there's some J2b? I know there's some yDNA E in Wales, correct?

That question about how different the haplogroups of that area might have been from those of northern Europe even in the Mesolithic is also raised by the mtDNA results.
 
Thanks for explaining the paper, Angela. And I agree that Magna Graecia could be the reason for the elevated levels of J2 found in Sicily and southern Italy, and I think that could also explain the higher levels of E1b1b. But I have a question about the approximately 600 years of Roman occupation. Do you think that could have been responsible for some of the R1b found in Sicily and southern Italy? The history books I've read about the Roman republic and empire do suggest that the Romans mostly organized large plantations, especially in Sicily, but didn't plant large colonies of people from northern or central Italy. However, I think such a long period of occupation must have affected the DNA distribution to some extent.
 
Thanks for explaining the paper, Angela. And I agree that Magna Graecia could be the reason for the elevated levels of J2 found in Sicily and southern Italy, and I think that could also explain the higher levels of E1b1b. But I have a question about the approximately 600 years of Roman occupation. Do you think that could have been responsible for some of the R1b found in Sicily and southern Italy? The history books I've read about the Roman republic and empire do suggest that the Romans mostly organized large plantations, especially in Sicily, but didn't plant large colonies of people from northern or central Italy. However, I think such a long period of occupation must have affected the DNA distribution to some extent.

How about the Samnites and other Oscan folks? Trickling down into Pelasgian (Oenotrian) territory long before the Romans; Strabo (V/III) states that the Samnites are from the Sabines and Dionysius (II/XLIX) based on Xenodotus records that the Sabines stemmed from the Umbrians;

As for Roman lands/estates in Southern Italy - in the Republic it had a strong connection to the assidui class for only citizens with property/finances were allowed into the Legions (until Marian-reforms ~107BC) Proletarii/Capite-censi were citizens not eligible for the Legions (due to no property); After the 2nd Punic-war and the land-crisis of the 2nd cen BC and the thus resulting Gracchan-reforms of the ager publicus a lot of Roman citizens moved to the South; But the South still remained mostly Socii (Italic allies) territory;

The_Growth_of_Roman_Power_in_Italy.jpg
 
Thanks for explaining the paper, Angela. And I agree that Magna Graecia could be the reason for the elevated levels of J2 found in Sicily and southern Italy, and I think that could also explain the higher levels of E1b1b. But I have a question about the approximately 600 years of Roman occupation. Do you think that could have been responsible for some of the R1b found in Sicily and southern Italy? The history books I've read about the Roman republic and empire do suggest that the Romans mostly organized large plantations, especially in Sicily, but didn't plant large colonies of people from northern or central Italy. However, I think such a long period of occupation must have affected the DNA distribution to some extent.

I think Nobody 1 hit it right on the nail. I sometimes wonder if the north and the south were even more different prior to Rome. The creation of colonies by the Romans which settled northerners in the south and southerners in the north was quite deliberate in some cases, specifically to pacify the "natives". The Apuani of my own area, who had the misfortune of being in the way of the Roman desire to build a road into Gaul were defeated after years of brutal warfare, and many of the survivors were supposedly resettled in the south. Likewise, the Roman colony of Luni, which was on the sea at the mouth of the Magra, was settled with people from further south specifically in order to pacify the area. (Also, of course, the Romans needed a port for the shipment of the Carrara marbles.)

Ed.I should have thought of it before, but that goes some way toward explaining these very young dates for the R1b-U152. They would apply not to the entrance of R1b U-152 and L2 into Italy itself, but to the entrance into southern Italy, which is a very good fit indeed for the incorporation of the south by Rome. (i.e. a process that very much intensified during the Empire)
 
No, you didn't miss it. The attachment with the TMRCA table wasn't showing because I had too many attachments. I just fixed it. Unfortunately, they didn't do a TMRCA calculation for T. The total amount for T is 2.45% and it's all T1a.

They also didn't do TMRCA calculations for I2 P215 (2.15), I2a M26 (.61) or I2a M223 (1.84%), which is very frustrating. The STR's are in the paper, so someone adept at the calculations could probably figure it out.

[By the way, there is new data for both yDNA and mtDNA for three areas in this paper, which should be added to the calculations upon which the maps are based. I just realized that. The three new areas are Trapani, Enna, and Cosenza ]

I think T is a good bet for the Neolithic, as is G, but I do think that the prior Boattini paper showed that one cluster of "G" is even older than the dates for the Neolithic in southern Italy. For example, the average date they find for yDNA G-P15 in this paper is 9339 BP, or 7300 B.C. The Neolithic in the south east (Puglia) is dated to 6000-5700 B.C. This flow then moved west toward Calabria and Eastern Sicily, where you find impressed ware at about 5800-5400 B.C. There was a parallel and culturally slightly different Neolithic flow in western Sicily 6,000-5750 B.C. Of course, their dates could be off, but as I said, they found that one cluster is even older than the 7300 B.C.E. date.

I think the whole Gravettian and Epi-Gravettian in the Balkans and Italy is rather mysterious. Were they yDNA I2a as well? Or was there also some G present among the Hunter-Gatherers of the Mesolithic?

I'm also intrigued by that strip of particularly high G2a in central to southern Italy in the Apennines. Is it a case of the mountains serving as a refugia for Neolithic populations? Or, which I think is just as likely, especially if we consider the results of the prior Boattini et al paper, did G2a come to Italy in successive gene flows, perhaps Mesolithic, certainly Neolithic, but also some during the Metal Ages, with J2b perhaps and the Apennine culture, and perhaps some also from Crete etc.? I think a Bronze Age flow might be possible given the hot spots in western Iberia and the traces that appear in Wales, perhaps? Does anyone know off hand if any subclades have been found in the G2a in those areas and whether there's some J2b? I know there's some yDNA E in Wales, correct?

That question about how different the haplogroups of that area might have been from those of northern Europe even in the Mesolithic is also raised by the mtDNA results.

The tabel with TRMCA is indeed very interesting, but unfortunately not complete.
The late TRMCA for J2b and E-V13 surprises me.
The G-P15 is by far the oldest.
I is not mentioned in the table, but it might well be that all paleolithic branches in Italy are extinct.

This contrasts with the much older TRMCA s for MtDNA
 
No, you didn't miss it. The attachment with the TMRCA table wasn't showing because I had too many attachments. I just fixed it. Unfortunately, they didn't do a TMRCA calculation for T. The total amount for T is 2.45% and it's all T1a.

They also didn't do TMRCA calculations for I2 P215 (2.15), I2a M26 (.61) or I2a M223 (1.84%), which is very frustrating. The STR's are in the paper, so someone adept at the calculations could probably figure it out.

[By the way, there is new data for both yDNA and mtDNA for three areas in this paper, which should be added to the calculations upon which the maps are based. I just realized that. The three new areas are Trapani, Enna, and Cosenza ]

I think T is a good bet for the Neolithic, as is G, but I do think that the prior Boattini paper showed that one cluster of "G" is even older than the dates for the Neolithic in southern Italy. For example, the average date they find for yDNA G-P15 in this paper is 9339 BP, or 7300 B.C. The Neolithic in the south east (Puglia) is dated to 6000-5700 B.C. This flow then moved west toward Calabria and Eastern Sicily, where you find impressed ware at about 5800-5400 B.C. There was a parallel and culturally slightly different Neolithic flow in western Sicily 6,000-5750 B.C. Of course, their dates could be off, but as I said, they found that one cluster is even older than the 7300 B.C.E. date.

I think the whole Gravettian and Epi-Gravettian in the Balkans and Italy is rather mysterious. Were they yDNA I2a as well? Or was there also some G present among the Hunter-Gatherers of the Mesolithic?

I'm also intrigued by that strip of particularly high G2a in central to southern Italy in the Apennines. Is it a case of the mountains serving as a refugia for Neolithic populations? Or, which I think is just as likely, especially if we consider the results of the prior Boattini et al paper, did G2a come to Italy in successive gene flows, perhaps Mesolithic, certainly Neolithic, but also some during the Metal Ages, with J2b perhaps and the Apennine culture, and perhaps some also from Crete etc.? I think a Bronze Age flow might be possible given the hot spots in western Iberia and the traces that appear in Wales, perhaps? Does anyone know off hand if any subclades have been found in the G2a in those areas and whether there's some J2b? I know there's some yDNA E in Wales, correct?

That question about how different the haplogroups of that area might have been from those of northern Europe even in the Mesolithic is also raised by the mtDNA results.

The TMRCA in a region will always be older than the time when a haplogroup moved to that region. If the two ages were equal it would mean that all modern carriers of a haplogroup are descended from a single founder, which is extremely unlikely in any situation.

For example, the TMRCA ages for G2a is 2000 years older than the arrival of Neolithic farmers, which makes sense since there were many families of Balkanic or Anatolian farmers who migrated to Italy, who would not have shared a common ancestor with each others for many centuries or millennia.

As for age of J1 (1200 BCE) and J2 (1700 BCE) in South Italy, it could fit well with the Greek colonisation, assuming that the Greek colonists shared a common ancestor sometime between 500 and 1000 years before settling in Magna Grecia, which is reasonable.

The most surprising is the very recent TMRCA age for E-V13, only 2300 years ago. That is almost too recent for the Roman expansion to southern Italy. I had thought that E-V13 in Italy was Late Palaeolithic to Early Neolithic, but this data says that E-V13 people came during the Roman Empire or Early Middle Ages, perhaps from the Balkans (Albanians, Byzantine Greeks ?). The only alternative is that a single E-V13 man who lived around 300 BCE fathered a very prolific lineage. Or the data is wrong/incomplete, which cannot be ruled out either considering the relatively small sample size.
 
Then, the authors examined the five most common yDNA "J" haplogroups, which by their calculations have a TMRCA of between 1700 to 1250 B.C., and total about 24% of all the y haplogroups. In northern Italy, this is the time of the Terramare culture, which some observers have tied to the Indo-Europeans, but the dates for P312 and R-M17 are older according to their method.

These are the groups with dates around 1600-1700 B.C.:
J2a-410, which is highest in the Caucasus but present in Anatolia and Greece. It has the highest frequency in the area, at 9.51%, and is slightly more frequent in Sicily.
J2b-M12, which has a similar distribution to E-V13, and is therefore high in the Balkans. It comes in at 3.37 and appears more in S.Italy than in Sicily.
J2a-M92, with high frequencies in Anatolia and Tuscany (Nobody 1, are you reading this?
smile.gif
) It also comes in at 3.37% and is spread equally throughout SSI.

Then you have these slightly later haplogroups with a supposed age of 1250 B.C.
J2a-M67, with peaks in Crete, Greeks, Albanians, and the Caucasus. It represents 3.07% of the population and is a little heavier in southern Italy.
J1-M267, which is the type found in Eastern Anatolia, and the Caucasus, not Arabia. It is 4.91% of the total population, and heavier in Sicily.

As I said so many times the best explanation of J* distribution in Europe is Proto_Caucasic, Mesopotamian and Indo_European expansion.

There is a lack of J* in Neolithic samples, a lack of J* in Mesolithic samples. It's brotherclades are I and K* (to which R1* and R2* belong) Only possibility remaining is a Bronze/Iron Age distribution.
 
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Ed.I should have thought of it before, but that goes some way toward explaining these very young dates for the R1b-U152. They would apply not to the entrance of R1b U-152 and L2 into Italy itself, but to the entrance into southern Italy, which is a very good fit indeed for the incorporation of the south by Rome. (i.e. a process that very much intensified during the Empire)

Could the TMRCA be corrupted given that it is for both the Sicilian samples as well as the South Italian samples lumped together? In the sense of why would the Sicilian R1b-U152 share the same (most recent) common ancestor in date/migration as the South Italian R1b-U152; Also for R1b-U106 or even E-V13; Historically the South of Italy (and its regions) has a diff. pre-Roman history than Sicily (and its regions) - apart for the Greek colonies which emerged from the same source (Ionian/Doric) and during the same time span for both regions; I think if they would have determined the TMRCA for each region separately the dates would be varying for certain lineages;
 
another add to this paper with charts
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/sicilian-haploid-genetics-in.html

Its odd for the NCI = northern-central italians ( i read it as and ), have ydna from the north and Iberia, while mtdna has it from the levant but not africa

distribution of mtDNA genetic variation (Figure 3a). Nearly all of the Mediterranean populations (with some exceptions, i.e. AG, TV, BUR) appear indeed distributed along a longitudinal transect running from North African and Near Eastern countries (large white squares) to the Iberian Peninsula (large black squares), with the bulk of the South-Eastern European populations (including Balkans and Italy) roughly occupying an intermediate position therein

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Perhaps it would be helpful to review this graphic:

View attachment 6420

MtDNA in general is much more homogenous than yDNA. That's a pattern that we see not only in Italy. That said, a southeast/northwest cline can still be discerned in these samples, with the northern ones clustering generally closer to Iberian samples, and SSI clustering closer to southeastern samples. The only anomalies are that Treviso is much more southeastern than its geographical position in the northeast of Italy would indicate, clustering closest to Jordan, and that Agrigento clusters more with the northwest than one would expect from its location. I've said before that I think this area, and up even into the Austrian Tyrol, is much more southeastern than might have been expected, at least in terms of mtDNA, and even in terms of yDNA when other cities are sampled. (In terms of the mtDNA samples from Iberia, it's Burgos which is an anomaly.) As per yDNA, Treviso itself performs more as expected, clustering with Liguria and Toscana.

The only disagreement I would have with Boattini in this regard is their decision to place Campobasso in the Molise within "central Italy". Everything I have seen, including this paper, still indicates to me that there is a definite break in the Italian cline just south of Rome, despite the fact that there is indeed a difference between Campania and or Sicily and Calabria, for example(at least if one is considering non-coastal Campania).
 
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The TMRCA in a region will always be older than the time when a haplogroup moved to that region. If the two ages were equal it would mean that all modern carriers of a haplogroup are descended from a single founder, which is extremely unlikely in any situation.

For example, the TMRCA ages for G2a is 2000 years older than the arrival of Neolithic farmers, which makes sense since there were many families of Balkanic or Anatolian farmers who migrated to Italy, who would not have shared a common ancestor with each others for many centuries or millennia.

As for age of J1 (1200 BCE) and J2 (1700 BCE) in South Italy, it could fit well with the Greek colonisation, assuming that the Greek colonists shared a common ancestor sometime between 500 and 1000 years before settling in Magna Grecia, which is reasonable.

The most surprising is the very recent TMRCA age for E-V13, only 2300 years ago. That is almost too recent for the Roman expansion to southern Italy. I had thought that E-V13 in Italy was Late Palaeolithic to Early Neolithic, but this data says that E-V13 people came during the Roman Empire or Early Middle Ages, perhaps from the Balkans (Albanians, Byzantine Greeks ?). The only alternative is that a single E-V13 man who lived around 300 BCE fathered a very prolific lineage. Or the data is wrong/incomplete, which cannot be ruled out either considering the relatively small sample size.


The sample numbers may not be very large, but their selection, using regional surnames, at least ensures that the results will not be skewed by modern internal migrations, which cannot be said of other analyses of Italy.

As for the TMRCA analysis, I have my doubts as to the precision of the dates, as I said, and as they state, given the uncertainties regarding the mutation rates to be used, and particularly given the fact that these are not FG sequences, and that they are using STRs, and not that many of them, although they were careful about which ones they chose.

However, the relative positions of the haplogroups are, I think, informative, and in that light, E-V13 in SSI is indeed very young. Of course, there are sub-groups within E-V13, and examination of those sub-groups might reveal some older, perhaps even Neolithic type E-V13, but in general, most of it is, I think, Bronze Age and later in SSI.

I doubt that most of it can be attributed to the Byzantines, although I'm sure that they had some effect on yDNA distributions in SSI. The absolute numbers were not that large, and the Byzantine soldiers and merchants were by no means only drawn from Greece and the region around Albania anyway. They would have been drawn from all parts of the Byzantine Empire, particularly from greater Anatolia. There was some actual folk migration into southern Italy during late Byzantine times, but again, not in very large numbers, and heavily in areas like Puglia and Ionian Calabria.

The Albanians who came in later times, the Arbereshe, are even less likely to account for these large numbers, as they were even fewer in number.

The largest single movements post Neolithic into Italy from the southeast are either in the 1800 to 1200 B.C. time period, when we're talking about Minoan and Mycenean influence, or in the colonization period of the first millennia B.C., from the Greek city states. The latter seem to me to be the most likely source.

Of course, I really hope that we get some ancient DNA samples from all over Italy and Greece to finally get some clarity about these matters. If not that, I would think they'd at least be able to do some complete sequencing of these yDNA samples, and compare them to complete yDNA sequences from Greece and the Balkans and the Alps etc.
 
Could the TMRCA be corrupted given that it is for both the Sicilian samples as well as the South Italian samples lumped together? In the sense of why would the Sicilian R1b-U152 share the same (most recent) common ancestor in date/migration as the South Italian R1b-U152; Also for R1b-U106 or even E-V13; Historically the South of Italy (and its regions) has a diff. pre-Roman history than Sicily (and its regions) - apart for the Greek colonies which emerged from the same source (Ionian/Doric) and during the same time span for both regions; I think if they would have determined the TMRCA for each region separately the dates would be varying for certain lineages;

I don't think that at this level of resolution they had enough samples to do TMRCA's by region of some of these lineages.

Even if they had, after looking at all the various ways that they computed the differences, I would agree with their conclusion that although there is great heterogeneity in SSI, there really isn't a lot in the way of significant substructure in even the yDNA, either between southern Italy and Sicily or in terms of the sometimes posited east/west division of Sicily. I just think that over time there's been a lot of admixture within the area generally covered by The Kingdom of The Two Sicilies, and also, the differences which do exist may be on a very local level, not a regional one, which is why we need lots of ancient dna if we're interested in understanding ancient population movements.

In terms of U-152 in particular, I've looked at it pretty carefully, and every time I think I see a pattern, it tends to evaporate. Yes, U-152 and L-2 are slightly higher in southern Italy than in Sicily, which was a surprise frankly, given the large "Lombard" (northern Italian) emigration to Sicily in the Middle ages. However, when you look at East Sicily versus West Sicily, you do see that while U-152 is similar throughout the island, for L-2 specifically West Sicily is proportionately indeed much higher in it than East Sicily (7.59%/2.92). So, I thought, U-152 in general might have been colonists from the northern part of the peninsula in Roman times, (or part of the earlier general movement of U-152 into Italy from the north) but L-2 is medieval. However, what then are we to make of the next highest occurrence of L-2, which comes in at 13.33 in Cosenza in Calabria? L-2 in Catania, meanwhile, in eastern Sicily, is 0, and U-152 is only at 1.92.

As to the pre-Roman migrations to SSI, I honestly don't think there would have been much difference between the various Bronze and Iron Age groups. They all basically came from the southeast, either from the central Balkans, Greece, both the islands like Crete and the mainland, or perhaps a few directly from Anatolia. The only possible exception would be the Sicani, about whom very little is known, but who may have come from the northwest. So, most of these people would have been very similar, in my opinion.

In terms of these pre-Roman migrations, this is one of the most useful maps I've found. It highlights, among other things, why I doubt there was very extensive Phoenician input into the Sicilian gene pool.
sicily480yf1.png
 
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