I really don't understand why they are saying that Volterra
displays a unique Y-chromosomal genetic structure. It's not really true.
Volterra is 49,6% R1b-M269 (U152, S116, U106), 13,3% G-M201, 13,3% J2-M172, 7,1% E1b-M78 (E-V13), 4,4% I-M170 (xM26), 4,4% T-M70, 2,7% I2-M26... There are differences with the rest of Tuscany, but this could be due to internal sub-regional differences or to just random variation. Also the size of the sample could play a role.
It could be indeed an old Etruscan-Rhaetian link, dating back to a Neolithic/Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic.
Volterra has also 7,1% of R1b-U106, 2,7% of I-M233, 1,8% of I-M253... a Germanic influence seems to really exist there. Even some of G and T could have arrived with a Germanic movement. The Longobards?
I think the majority of the inhabitants of the Borbera Valley still speak today a dialect of the Ligurian and not Piedmontese type.
That's what I was wondering too about all of those haplogroups up in the area of the Piemonte, Liguria, Lombardia, Emilia border, the "Quattro Province" area.
The authors of the paper mention the Langobards up there in the Val Borbera, but their castles are in the whole area, and also all over the Lunigiana and down into Toscana too. Some of the old calculators consistently give Tuscans about a third "Germanic" type ancestry. These "Germanic" y lines, which would have been minority lines, just might not have totally drifted out of the pool of y haplogroups in these more remote areas.
Did you see where the area of greatest variation is for G2a-L497? It's not in the Alps, it's just below Denmark. Although originally a Neolithic line, it might have gotten picked up by Indo-European groups and then spread into both Celtic speaking and Germanic speaking peoples.
Yes, they speak Ligurian dialects up there, largely because the villages were feudatories of families from Genova.
"
in provincia di Alessandria, l'Oltregiogo storico a sud di Ovada e Novi Ligure include i centri di Gavi, Arquata Scrivia e Serravalle Scrivia, la val Lemme e la val Borbera, che fecero parte della Repubblica di Genova o furono amministrati come feudi da famiglie genovesi"
https://www.visitriviera.info/tradizioni-cultura/lingua-ligure/
"
The Val Borbera (
val Borbëa or Borbéia" in Ligurian, val Borbaja in Piedmontese) is a valley formed by the River Borbera, a tributary of the Scrivia, located in the province of Alessandria. It was historically linked to the Republic of Genoa, the Ligurian Republic and is still strongly tied to Liguria.[1]:
"It is surrounded by high mountains, making it a place isolated from the surrounding valleys, little touched by industrialization and with a well-preserved environment. Up until the beginning of the 20th century, there was no road connecting the upper with the lower valley, the main passageway being the gravel riverbed in the dry season. It is the only valley of Piedmont bordering on the Emilia-Romagna region."
"Its population has been considered a
genetic isolate.
[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Borbera
Actually, the paper that is the subject of the OP says the road wasn't paved until a couple of decades ago.
The sample that is used in some modern population genetics studies (and labelled Piemonte, which is a bit inaccurate, although the political borders are a bit irrelevant), comes from a study done there precisely because it is a genetic isolate.
"In this paper we report a demographic and epidemiological analysis of a genetically isolated population, settled in Val Borbera, a large valley in the North West Apennines, in Italy. Around 60% of the modern descendants, still living in the 7 main villages of the valley or in the nearby areas, have been recruited based on their ancestry. Analysis of the large genealogy constructed starting from city and parish archives showed not only that endogamy was high in the past, but also that >90% of the participants to the study had 4 grandparents born in the valley and that 87% were connected in a unique large genealogical tree that included up to 16 generations tracing back to the 16th century."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2761731/
I think the best way to think of them is probably as a very drifted segment of the population of the "Quattro Province".
Interesting article in Italian:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattro_Province
This is the English version:
https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattro_Province&prev=search
"From a linguistic point of view it is difficult to give an exact classification of the
Gallo-Italic linguistic varieties still spoken today, together with
Italian , in the area of the Four Provinces
[6] . In the territory in question,
dialects of
the Ligurian language and transitional dialects between Ligurian,
Emilian and
Piedmontese intersect.On the other hand, among the
provinces in question, it is only
Genoa that is at the center of the linguistic system of its
administrative region of belonging. The
province of Piacenza is characterized by Emilian varieties in contact with
Lombardy , which, however, going back up the
Apennine valleys are gradually affected by Ligurian characters. The Emilian dialect then extends to the
Oltrepò Pavese , where the continuity with the
Piacenza area gives way to Piedmontese influences as one approaches the border with the
province of Alessandria , whose easternmost portion - the
Tortonese - is still interested from
the dialectal continuum of Emilia
[7] [8] to the
river Scrivia [9] . In the Alessandria area, going westwards there are gradual changes that gradually lead to a rapprochement with the Piedmontese, while to the south we approach the Ligurian
[9] , similarly to what happens in the
province of Pavia and in the Piacenza area."
"There are many evidences of the presence of the
Ligurians since
the Stone Age (
Neolithic village in
Travo ,
val Trebbia piacentina ) and in
the Iron Age (
castelliere , fortified village, of
Guardamonte in the
Alessandrino ).
[ citation needed ] [3]Also well documented the presence of the
Romans : many toponyms, archaeological finds (remains of the city of
Libarna in Val
Scrivia ) and historical documentation (
Tabula alimentaria Traiana of the municipality of
Velleia of the
second century AD ). According to the historian
Polybius , in December
218 BC ,
Hannibal inflicted a heavy defeat on the Roman consul Tito Sempronio Longo in the
battle of Trebbia . Some toponyms of
Val Trebbia and
Val Boreca , as
Zerbaseems to trace traces from the passage of Hannibal's troops.
From the
fourth century , under the increasing pressure of the barbaric peoples, there was a migration from the Ligurian coast and from the plain towards the mountainous areas. Thus new settlements were formed based on an agro-pastoral subsistence economy.
The history of the territory is strongly linked to the presence of the monastery of
Bobbio (PC), historical and cultural center of primary importance and rich
monastic fief with possessions throughout northern Italy, founded in the
seventh century by the Irish monk
San Colombano , also in function of point of control of traffic to and from the
Ligurian Sea , especially for the control of
salt traffic towards the
salt route .
After the fall of the Lombards by
Charlemagne , the
Holy Roman Empire later reassigned the territory constituting first the
Marca Obertenga and then the
imperial feuds , with the aim of maintaining a safe passage to the sea, in addition to the bishopric of Bobbio, assigned these territories starting from
1164 , to families (first descendants of the ancient
Obertenghi ) such as: the
Malaspina , the
Fieschi , the
Doria , the
Pallavicino , the
Landi and the
Farnese ) who dominated these feuds for centuries."
I've posted a lot of their music and dancing.
This is specifically from one of the villages tested. If one thing stands out to me about their appearance, it's their height and the fact they're very lean. Height was, according to the genetics paper, one of the extremely heritable traits they possessed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1miA5VJztI