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I am also interested in the genetic profile of Decapolis, but unfortunately i don't think any sample has been tested yet. Hopefully sometime soon we will see some in a general Levantine study.Originally Posted by Angela
I am not aware of any Greeks on MTA. I am myself from Peloponnese (Messenia and Corinth) but i haven't yet done any test since i am under a very tight budget. I was hopping for a considerable discount during the holiday season (Black Friday and Christmas) but still nothing that satisfies me. Although it will probably be MyHeritage or 23andMe.
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I think MyHeritage is pretty decent when it comes to Greek ancestry. It's the favorite of the European Diaspora of Greeks. I don't have any personal experience with 23andme. They have never let you upload other companies' raw files.
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Yeah, i am in general looking for the cheapest option available from the main companies. I can then easily (and more cheaply) move downstream from there. Here is a PDF that was recently shared by a Greek admin from the "Greek DNA Project" in FTDNA, https://antoniosdnaproject.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Y-DNA-Haplogroup-and-Genealogy.pdf. Very helpful for considering your available options.
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Does anyone know if mta takes my heritage data?
Non si fa il proprio dovere perchè qualcuno ci dica grazie, lo si fa per principio, per se stessi, per la propria dignità. Oriana Fallaci
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I think it's possible. The MTA website has the following statement, "WE SUPPORT AUTOSOMAL FILES FROM ANCESTRY, 23ANDME, MYHERITAGE, FTDNA, DANTE LABS, LIVINGDNA AND MORE".
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Not all companies accept kits from all countries.
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written history is relatively recent. its naïve to think that everything started when Greeks started to write. To me its obvious the affinity with Minoans has to do with a pre Hellenic population that resided in the area before Indo-Europeans arrived
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By the way, i would like to emphasize something i didn't mention. The Maniots and Tsakones, despite the fact that they have the lowest Slavic admixture, they differ from all other Peloponnesians and seem to have the lowest affinity to Sicilians and Italians, when compared to the other Peloponnesian subgroups. Therefore, i don't think Maniots would show any exceptional Mycenaean affinity, at least not the one we expect.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg201718/tables/2
https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg201718/tables/3
Nonetheless, the Laconians that surround them surprisingly have the closest affinity to Italians, followed by Messenians (which is where my father is from). Therefore Laconians (excluding Maniots and Tsakones) would be more preferable as samples.
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Which written history are you referring to if i may ask, because Philistines are Biblical characters, namely they weren't recorded in ancient Greek sources but rather Hebrew. Nonetheless, archaeology corroborates their existence. If you find some time have a look at this presentation regarding the archaeology of the Philistines presented by Aren Maeir, namely "New Perspectives on the Philistines in Light Recent Excavations at Tell Es-Safi/Gath" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJC8OAhm1f4). The aforementioned DNA maps and study (which i mentioned in post #1697) also suggest a migration that relates.
Second, there is no considerable genetic affinity between Minoans and Levantines. I just gave two hypotheses to explain this rather minor affinity between modern (not ancient) southern Levantine populations and Minoans.
Last, both Minoans and Mycenaeans had mostly pre-Greek ancestry that was namely from an Anatolian Neolithic-related population and a Caucasus/Iran-related population, not Levantine. Furthermore, Mycenaean Greeks had only inherited approximately 4-16% steppe ancestry, obviously IE. Please go and study more carefully the genetic study this thread is based on.
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Any ideas as to why that would be? If they have the lowest Slavic admixture you would think they would score closer to the Mycenaeans than the mainlanders who have higher Slavic.
Anyone trustworthy ever directly compare a "pure" Maniot one on one to the Mycenaean samples, versus perhaps Laconians?
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I am really intrigued as well. And it gets even deeper since even Maniots and Tsakones differ between them, as is also evident in Figure 1b. Take note that the East and West Tayetos samples that are presented on the map are also considered part of Mani (compare to this map as well https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Mani_2000.png). Surely the geographic isolation of both, which in the case of Tsakonians also preserved their rather precious dialect (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nxD4GDJXCw), and in the cases of both Maniots and Tsakonians resulted to their rather late Christian conversion during the 10th-12th centuries CE (similar to the case of Scandinavia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_Peninsula#Religion), are a testament of that.
But yeah, it would be interesting to run a PCA comparing them to ancient populations. Because modern populations don't do the trick, and there have been a number of them shown in the aforementioned study (https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg201718).
On Maniots we read, "The Maniots differ from all other Peloponneseans by PCA (Figure 1b) and ADMIXTURE (Figure 1e) analysis. They also differ from mainland, island and Asia Minor Greek populations (data not shown) and from all the other populations of Supplementary Figure 4, which have been compared by PCA analysis, but they partially overlap with the Sicilians and the Italians (namely barely with Sicilians, not really rest of Italians).
In his treatise on the administration of the Byzantine Empire, the Emperor Constantin Porphyrogenitus describes how two Slavic tribes, the Mellingi and the Ezeritae, were forced by the Byzantines to withdraw to the slopes of Tayetos. The Mellingi continued to be mentioned in the Peloponnesean history untill the 15th century. Because of the writings of Porphyrogenitus we sampled separately the populations of the East and the West slopes of the Tayetos and the Deep Mani. By PCA (Figure 4a) and ADMIXTURE (Figure 4d) the populations of Tayetos are distinct from the populations of the Slavic homeland. Fallmerayer argued that the inhabitants of Deep Mani are of Slavic origin. PCA (Figure 4b) and ADMIXTURE (Figure 4d) analyses makes this hypothesis unlikely.
As an alternative origin of the Maniots, Fallmerayer proposed that they are descendants of Mardaites. This medieval warrior tribe used to inhabit the mountainous regions between Asia Minor and Syria but in late seventh century CE was resettled by the Byzantines in Asia Minor and other areas of the Empire. The Mardaites have disappeared from history but oral tradition claims that they are the ancestors of the Maronites of Lebanon, although this claim has been disputed. PCA and ADMIXTURE analyses failed to show any close relationship between Maniots and the Maronites (Supplementary Figure 5).".
On Tsakonians we read "The Tsakones of the eastern slopes of Mount Parnon differ from all other Peloponneseans (Figures 1b and e) and from all other populations of Supplementary Figure 6 we have compared them. They used to speak a dialect of Doric origin which was not comprehended by the other Peloponneseans. Their name was considered by medieval authors to represent a corruption of the word Lacones (Tsakones=Lacones).".
In the end the paper didn't come to any conclusions concerning them.
PostScript: Each mention of a Figure has been linked to the source. Download the Supplementary Figure only one time.
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I thought in this too, Demetrios, but it seems the comparisons of these ancient DNA individual bearers are made with modern pops, and I think, as does Angela, that this 'south-balkanic-south-italic' or whatever Phillistins genetic input has been disolved long time ago.
the remark concerned Cyprus and Sth-Levant proximty compared to Anatolia. More than a survey shows that Cypriots have some non negligible input from 'Levant', since Chalco or just after, so little CHG-Iranlike, and some Natufian substratum.
Even on the maps you provide here, about IA Ashkelon, a bit heterogenous, we see that when Levant is stronger, Cypriot is stronger too.
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I did agree with Angela on this, on post #1697. But i still think that later Hellenistic colonies such as Decapolis might have something to show.
As for Cypriots, indeed it is understandable that they must have inherited some Levantine DNA as well, especially when we consider that Phoenicians had also colonized the south of the island. But it seems that the CHG/Iran-related admixture is the most prevalent of all, namely more than half, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Europe#/media/File:WestEurasia_admixture_crop.png.
Last, on the IA Ashkelon maps, they do indeed appear largely heterogeneous (the last not so much), and i mention that this is most probably due to early intermixing and local assimilation. I mean even the aforementioned paper i shared on post #1697 showed that this foreign ancestry had been diluted within no more than two centuries by local Levantine-related gene pool, so naturally they should be appearing heterogeneous.
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I agree, but to me it looks like there's some variation. There's a slightly darker strip running north/south in Turkey in the last one, for example. I remember reading that the "Turkic" in Anatolians is not evenly spread; it's more in certain areas than others. That might be obscuring similarities which once existed.
I'm also not sure when and with whom it would have arrived. Is it Semitic? Is it much earlier similarities dating back to the Natufians?
How would we know?
I do know that the first movement of farmers from Southeast Turkey, long before the movements from the Northwest, went to Cyprus. Did they go even further?
Aren't the Greek and Turkish Cypriots very alike autosomally with only differences in the yDna predominantly?
That seems to me like the typical situation where the mtDna is very old, resulting in the continuity, and the yDna represents successive new waves which in many cases doesn't change the autosomal signature all that much. It depends on whether the preceding Neolithic populations survived, as in Mycenaean Greece, or survived but in fewer numbers, i.e. Spain, Central Europe etc.
What percentage is yDna J1 in Cyprus, the specifically Levant clades?
Last edited by Angela; 23-11-19 at 03:10.
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@Demetrios,
I don't think I interpret this sentence the way that you do, although I don't have the time tonight to re-read the whole paper and look at all the graphics.
The plain sense reading of that sentence says to me that the Maniots are close "only" to Sicily and other Italians. Nowhere does it say barely with other Italians. I agree the wording of the paper could have been clearer in certain areas, but I'm pretty sure that's correct.
"On Maniots we read, "The Maniots differ from all other Peloponneseans by PCA (Figure 1b) and ADMIXTURE (Figure 1e) analysis. They also differ from mainland, island and Asia Minor Greek populations (data not shown) and from all the other populations of Supplementary Figure 4, which have been compared by PCA analysis, but they partially overlap with the Sicilians and the Italians (namely barely with Sicilians, not really rest of Italians).
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I don't think you'll get any interesting results from Mani, Tsakones, and the other Peloponnesians in order to better understand the Mycenaean-like admix and what happened during the centuries.
I'll not go much into details, but the Medieval name for Peloponnese is Morea, which means mulberry, and Mani in Albanian means mulberry.
You have wave after wave of Arvanites over the centuries, many recorded while many not, so the locals intermixed with the newcomers as we all know.
Now, a little curiosity for you, the local Arvanites of Lakonia call the Greeks Slavs, and the Greek language Shklerishte (Slavic).
As I've always stated, every region in the Balkans became more Northern shifted and I don't mean just the Slavic admix, so Makedonians and Thessalians could have ended up in Peloponnese, Thracians taking their place, and Albanians later on as we know.
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J1 is found in Cyprus at a frequency of 6.5% according to this study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4750176/, though this study was mainly focused on Greek Cypriots.
From what I have read most of the J1 is P58+, and so of West Asian origin. There is a Cypriot on FTDNA who falls under Y10887 (FGC1695), a clade which fits in rather well with the expansion of early Arabic speaking groups and can be linked to the Proto-Arabs. Problem is that, due to the small number of Cypriots tested, I can't be sure if Y10887+ is all that common in Cyprus.
Ydna: J-ZS241
mtDNA: T1a1l
Maternal Ydna: E-V13>CTS5856*
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My interpretation isn't based on that sentence though, but the PCA attached to the supplementary figure. Which by the way isn't that different from the case of Peloponnese which also seems to partially overlap. Here i include both PCAs for comparison. Deep Mani which was the most conservative area of Mani also doesn't seem to overlap with anyone. That one single Deep Mani sample at the very other end of the Mani cluster is most probably a migrant from East Tayetos to Deep Mani.
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Arvanites were mostly concentrated in Corinth and Argolis, and they also don't cluster close to Maniots or Tsakones. If anything they cluster close to all other Peloponnesians. And you seem to be losing the point which is prevalent in so many genetic studies, namely that Greeks and Albanians don't seem to differentiate that much autosomally. Therefore i don't know what's your point here.
Second, Shklerishte in Arvanitika simply means someone who speaks a different language. It originates from the word shqa/shkl(j)a which originally meant Bulgarian or Orthodox Slav, and in turn is a cognate of the Greek "Σκλάβος" (Sklábos) meaning Slav, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%BB%CE%AC%CE%B2%CE%BF%CF%82, out of which the word stems. The terms were eventually generalized to mean all that speak a different language once Arvanites migrated to the South, hence why it was also applied to Greeks. It was a remnant of when they were surrounded only by Slavs.
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Regarding J1a, there was also a southwestern Anatolian EBA sample that had it from the study of this thread. Namely one from Isparta, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5565772/table/T1/. And in addition the study also had the following statement, "while the Bronze Age southwestern Anatolians may have had ~6% ancestry related to Neolithic Levantine populations.". I wouldn't find it surprising if some also made its way to Cyprus, it's certain it did.
Last edited by Demetrios; 23-11-19 at 17:37. Reason: J1a instead of simply J1
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I think that takes care of that point.
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@Demetrios, Kelmandasi,
Yes, that's what I thought. I didn't remember the figures for J1 being all that high in Cyprus. Some late arriving J2 clades might also have carried some Levantine, yes?
As to Demetrios' specific point here:
"Regarding J1, there was also a southwestern Anatolian EBA sample that had it from the study of this thread. Namely one from Isparta, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5565772/table/T1/. And in addition the study also had the following statement, "while the Bronze Age southwestern Anatolians may have had ~6% ancestry related to Neolithic Levantine populations.". I wouldn't find it surprising if some also made its way to Cyprus, it's certain it did."
I've been trying to get this point across to people since I don't know when.
Some of the "Levantine" they find in other groups might have arrived with Anatolians, not just with Arabs or Jews.
I'm thinking of Crete as just one example.
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Yes, I'm familiar with that graphic.
I remember combing the data in the paper and supplement over and over again trying to get a handle on what "Italian" in the context of the paper means for the authors. It seems and seemed to me that it changed its meaning as to whom it includes depending on the particular graphic or paragraph, but they never clarify it. That's what I meant when I said that it wasn't very clearly or well written. We talked a lot about it in the early parts of the thread.
Yes, the Mani icon just barely misses the "Italian" icon, but is that the Tuscans? If it is, then the Mani icon would be right over where the Southern Italians might plot. Plus, there really is almost no difference between certain Sicilians and certain Calabresi, for example.
Even ignoring that, the graphic supports the conclusion reached by the authors that the Mani aren't very similar to anyone with, the exception of the Sicilians. Even in that case it's only some of the Mani. I would add some similarity to a few people in East Tay. Only one sample, but still.
I don't think their distance from everyone is all that unusual considering their isolation.
I don't think that means we can't draw some conclusions, however. Sardegna also plots far away from everyone else because of drift, but we can and do study them, and draw a lot of conclusions from them. The Ogliastra region is even more isolated, with less influence from the outside world, but it still tells us a lot about Copper Age/early Bronze Age unadmixed "Old Europe". It's just that conclusions have to be cautious ones.
Anyway, that's how I see it.
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Never heard about Bardhuniotes for example? It seems that with the arrival of the Albanians the Mellingi and the Ezeritae have disappeared.
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Regarding J2, yeah, it's also certain that some J2 belonging to Phoenicians for example, certainly also carried Levantine ancestry when they colonized south of Cyprus. Some, not much i gather, also could have come during the Ottoman era. Take note that Cyprus was also under Assyrian rule for a relatively short period of time, namely during the 7th century BCE, although they were essentially called in by the Greek rulers of the island, in fear of the Neo-Assyrian Empire's power which had just attacked and beaten Babylonia, therefore even in that case it shouldn't have been much if any.
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