Population structure in Italy using ancient and modern samples

[Ygorcs]

Suddenly some sanity from someone who actually knows a lot about the Etruscans.

To think someone would actually endorse the theorizing of that crackpot, Woudhuizen!

Not to diminish Pax Augusta's evident deep knowledge about the matter, but, with all honesty, I must say that one doesn't even need to know a lot about the Etruscans to not give credit to an outdated hypothesis (or should we say speculation? Scientific hypotheses are more well substantiated) by yet another linguist who tried to force an unclassified language into one's favorite existing language family (usually because of some badly disguised agenda). I mean, Etruscanis so obviously different from any known IE language (including Anatolian ones) not just in basic vocabulary, but also in grammar, that if it were IE it would certainly have diverged from the rest of the family so, I mean, soooooo long ago that it could never have been an offshoot of Anatolian IE related to LBA/IA Luwian, and that would take us back to discussing Etruscans as a people native to Europe since the Neolithic era. Sigh...

[Angela]

To my knowledge the only Etruscan remains are those of ELITE Etruscans, the ones who could afford big sarcophagi.

Let me amend that to make it clearer: to my knowledge the only Etruscan remains are those from Etruscan cemeteries, which have all the hallmarks of being graves of the elite.

If that's the case, then the implication is, going by the PCA, that even the elite migration theory of "Etruscans", which posits that in the first millennium BC there was a migration of a small group of people from Anatolia to the area of modern Tuscany who brought with them the advancements which became evident in Etruscan culture, becoming the "local" elites, is incorrect, because instead of being very West Asian like, these "elites" are "Iberian" or French, or Northern Italian like.

Anyone have a problem with that?

Now, if the "Etruscan" samples from this paper were found tossed into a poor class grave, like that of a servant, then it might still be possible that some of the elites looked different autosomally, more West Asian. It would be very bad science, however, not to have included some samples from the definitely "elite" graves for comparison, of which there are MANY.

Let's assume for a moment this latter scenario is the case. That would mean that the "lower orders" were the ones who were more "steppe" like, more "northern", more Iberian, French, and North Italian like. These more "northern" like people would be the ones who didn't create this magnificent civilization. Yes?

I actually, for the record, documented here in 2014, left open the possibility that there was an elite migration from West Asia.

What I was much more skeptical of was any claim that there was a folk migration from West Asia to the area of modern day Tuscany in the Iron Age. Given these "leaked" results, that is a complete nonstarter. If that were the case why do we have only non West Asian looking samples, samples plotting with Iberians, the French, and Northern Italians?

Is it possible that within these Etruscans we may find some J2? Yes, it's highly possible, imo. Some may have come from more northern areas, but much may have infiltrated up the peninsula from the south, or from the Balkans or from Crete or elsewhere in the southeast. I have been saying ad nauseam, for close to ten years (I have documented posts here from 2014), that I believe/believed there was movement from "Greek" areas perhaps starting in the early Bronze Age, and that J2 would show up in Italy in the Bronze Age. That's ANCIENT GREECE and its islands and its settlements or perhaps even from the direction of Crete before there were Greek speakers there or maybe from elsewhere in the east. That's before mainland Greeks, especially those from places like Greek Macedonia, were changed by the Slavic migrations. I myself, part Tuscan, share an IBD segment with Crete Armenoi.

This is why we need samples from places like Rinaldone.

However, they couldn't have been hugely affected, unless everybody thinks the Iberians are very West Asian too.

Let's also be clear: we're not talking about modern Tuscans here. We're talking about the Etruscans.

If something is wrong with my logic, please don't hesitate to point it out.

[markod]

Not to diminish Pax Augusta's evident deep knowledge about the matter, but, with all honesty, I must say that one doesn't even need to know a lot about the Etruscans to not give credit to an outdated hypothesis (or should we say speculation? Scientific hypotheses are more well substantiated) by yet another linguist who tried to force an unclassified language into one's favorite existing language family (usually because of some badly disguised agenda). I mean, Etruscanis so obviously different from any known IE language (including Anatolian ones) not just in basic vocabulary, but also in grammar, that if it were IE it would certainly have diverged from the rest of the family so, I mean, soooooo long ago that it could never have been an offshoot of Anatolian IE related to LBA/IA Luwian, and that would take us back to discussing Etruscans as a people native to Europe since the Neolithic era. Sigh...

What about the declension system for instance? Typologically Bomhard also sees Tyrsenian as being close (or even the closest relative) to IE, and he's not known for making completely unsubstantiated claims.

http://www.maravot.com/Etruscan_Grammar.html

[Ygorcs]

What about the declension system for instance? Typologically Bomhard also sees Tyrsenian as being close (or even the closest relative) to IE, and he's not known for making completely unsubstantiated claims.

http://www.maravot.com/Etruscan_Grammar.html

Hmm, I do not know, I have more than once seen Bomhard making extremely bold claims based on scant and very vague evidence on topics that most serious amd sensible scholars avoid as too uncertain and unreliable for scientific research (his Proto-Nostratic speculations are a case in point). Though Bomhard and Starostin were reputable scientists, their "excessive confidence" in using statistical methods to infer very ancient phylogenetic relationships in unrelated languages and language families on the basis of very indirect and vague connections has often been criticized by mainstream linguists. Many would say that at that level distinguishing what's true connection from what's random coincidence is extremely hard, perhaps impossible.

Anyway, even Bomhard sees it as part of a language family closely related to the IE one, and not as an Indo-European language, let alone one belonging to one of the other known IE subgroups derived from later (post-PIE) proto-languages.

I'm not sure the wordlist and particles in the link you used are all correct, but I know countless linguist have analyzed the Etruscan lexicon and found few secure cognates (true cognates, not recent shared borrowings) between Etruscan and IE languages.

[berun]

Have you ever done any research before opining?

As an illustration that Etruscans created trading centers in other parts of the Mediterranean, see the following thread:
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...ight=Etruscans

I also posted this in 2014, and it was discussed at length:
""As for Etruscan immigration(s) into Italy based on Herodotus and the non-Greek, Etruscoid Lemnian inscriptions, there is now evidence to the contrary: Etruscan pirates from Southern Etruria may have settled on Lemnos, around 700 BC or earlier and had been responsible for the inscriptions. Moreover, Carlo de Simone has definitely shown that Etruscan is not an Anatolian language.3 The Etruscan numerals, very characteristic elements of any language, do not have any parallels in Anatolian or other languages. "

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2015/2015-03-02.html"



By the way, statistics is math, and it's math which creates Admixture, and all the other statistical tools which come up with conclusions you don't like. Oh, and PCAs too.

Don't have a response yet as to how these "Pelasagian", West Asian, like Etruscans plot so close to some modern Iberians? Cat got your tongue? :)

if it would be ab Etruscan pirate refuge why they changed so much their language, it's untenable, comm'on, and reading things like crackpot for those pro or sanity for thosr against... well, I can realize that it is nothing about science but with emotions, why go far? facts are put in the bin and Etruscan samples come from memory, good waste of time that if mine.

[Jovialis]

I think the Levant_BA component that Ygorcs and others found is contained in Anatolia_BA. The Luwian and Hittite samples had it, too.

Hmmm, perhaps that's one way to model them. Is it being subsumed into these other population models in the graph below? But into what? idk. I wish I had access to this paper, by Willerslev et al:



EDIT: I think you meant to say Levant_N, not Levant_BA.

Levant_BA North, has a similarity to the Anatolians, because Copper age migrates from Anatolia went south there.

[Johane Derite]

In the end, the same things are always repeated with the Etruscans. Sometimes it gets boring.

This is a paper by Fred C. Woudhuizen written over 15 years ago. Everyone who has read a lot about the Etruscans already knows it.

The vision of Fred C. Woudhuizen and his master Beekes is typical of Indo-Europeanists. Indo-Europeanist linguists have done enormous damage to linguistics. Neither of them is an etruscologist. And you can see it clearly from their work that lacks of deep and accurate knowledge of the Etruscan world.

Fred C. Woudhuizen believes that Etruscan is an Indo-European language and derives from colonial Luvian. Nothing could be more wrong. In fact, Woudhuizen's work does not have a good reputation among etruscologists. The consensus is that Etruscan is a pre-Indo-European language and does not belong to the Anatolian language family.

Woudhuizen's conclusions go in the opposite direction even of archaeological discoveries.

Much more interesting than Woudhuizen's paper are the two images that you posted (and that Woudhuizen had taken from other texts and published in his paper).

The first image (fig. 1) comes from a work by Hugh O'Neill Hencken from 1968. It's a bit outdated work but Hencken was a very good archaeologist.

In essence Hencken sees that the biconical urns present in the Etruscan Villanovan are present in the southernmost extension of the Urnfield culture, roughly where today is the Banat, between Hungary, Serbia and Romania. It may be. Others have also found similarities between the Gáva culture (subtype of the Urnfield culture) and the Villanovan, where there are also biconical urns. Hencken's work being over 50 years old, it may be that in the meantime biconical urns have been found in a larger area.

https://books.google.it/books?id=vXljf8JqmkoC&pg=PA598

The second image (fig. 2) comes from a more recent (1997) work by Jan Bouzek.


According to this image house urns are distributed both in Etruria (Tuscany and Lazio) and in the Latial culture (central Lazio).


So, house urns are absolutely not just typical features of the Latial culture according to Bouzek, but also of the Etruscan villanovan culture. This contradicts what Woudhuizen tries to prove.

I will explain why its useful in my opinion. I posted it because it was rich with info from others, not just his own theory that he supports, which I am not supporting personally. I only posted some quotes from the paper, the link is there to read in entirety, its only a couple of pages, not much.

Here is what stood out for me:

The lemnos language does pose a challenge. If the dna results which we only have rumours and a PCA of until now are accurate, then theoretically Lemnos must be tested also and should show up as being Umrbian like autosomally, or at least shifted that way.

Another challenge is that he claims that Etruscans used ("according to Ingrid Pohl in her publication of the Iron Age cemetery of Caere, Pohl 1972") a different inhumation and cremation method to Villanovans:

"One of the most outstanding features of this Etruscan culture is formed by the chamber tomb under tumulus for multiple burials. The burial rites may consist of inhumation or a special form of cremation, according to which the remains of the pyre are collected in a gold or silver container which, wrapped in a purple linen cloth, is placed in a loculus of the grave. The closest parallels for such �lite-cremations are found in Anatolian style chamber tombs under tumulus at Salamis on Cyprus.
The rite in question is meticulously described by Homeros in connection with the burial of Patroklos, for which reason one often speaks of a Homeric burial. As far as mainland Greece is concerned, similar �lite-cremations are attested for the hero of Lefkandi and the burials at the west gate of Eretria. The element which is missing here, however, is the characteristic chamber tomb under tumulus (the hero of Lefkandi is discovered in an apsidal building secondarily used as a grave and covered by a tumulus) Chamber tombs under tumulus for multiple burials are a typical Mycenaean feature.

During the Late Bronze Age this type of burial is disseminated by Mycenaean colonists from mainland Greece to western Asia Minor, where it is subsequently taken over by the indigenous population groups like the Carians, Lycians, Lydians, and ultimately the Phrygians. The earliest indigenous examples are pseudo-cupolas in Caria, dated to the period of c. 1000 to 800 BC.

These graves are characterized by a rectangular groundplan and aconcentrically vaulted roof. The problem of the dome resting on a square issolved by the so-called pendentive. This very same construction is typical ofchamber tombs in Populonia during the 7th century BC. Similarly, in Lydia a chambertomb has been found with a roof vaulting lenghtwise in the same way as forexample the famous Regolini-Galassi tomb at Caere, dating to the 7th century BC.

Furthermore, Mysia has produced a chamber tomb which is entirelyhewn out of the soft tufa with mock roof beams in place as if it were a wooden construction. The same technique is so common for Etruria that if the photos of the Mysian example would have had no caption one could easily bemistaken to be dealing with an Etruscan grave.Unfortunately, the Anatolian examples in the last mentioned two cases wereso thoroughly robbed that they cannot be properly dated.

Next, it deserves ourattention that Lycia from the 6th century BC onwards is typified by fa�adegraves hewn out of the natural rock, which bring to mind the fa�ade graveshewn out of the natural rock of Norchia and its immediate surroundings towhich a similar date is assigned as the Lycian counterparts. Like the Mysian tomb mentioned above, the fa�ade graves imitate wooden constructions. Hence, it is interesting to note that actual woodenconstructions have been dug up in Phrygia. Here large wooden boxes datingto the late 8th and early 7th century BC serve as a replacement of the stonebuilt chamber tomb in a similar manner as in Vetulonia during the 7th century BC. Finally, mention should be made of a Lycian chamber tomb from the5th century BC with paintings which bear a strong resemblance to theEtruscan ones in Tarquinia � be it that the Lycian paintings, in contrast to theirEtruscan counterparts, show Persian motifs.

In summary, on the basis of the preceding survey of relations in funeral architecture one gains the impression that Etruria was in close contact with variousregions of western Anatolia during the Early Orientalizing period andbeyond . Possibly, a crucial role was played by Mysia, the Aeolian coast, andthe offshore islands like Lesbos, because here the typical local pottery, justlike in Etruria from the 7th century BC onwards, consists of bucchero."

This is significant, because if these types of burials are different to Villanovan types, then they need to be explained, were there Mycaneans in umbria? Otherwise, if house urns are etruscan, were there etruscans in north germany?

The Italo-Celtic-Germanic affinities fit more neatly for the shared toponyms and house urn material culture, whereas its a bit more difficult the other way around.

One thing this author, and most authors are probably not aware of is that the "Patroclus" types of burials are also in Albania according to Hammond:

[Demetrios]

Thracians in Lemnos? ok, but just read some interesting info here:

https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/...greek-speakers

well, I know to sum, 1 + 1 = 2, Etruscan and Lemnian are related, and Lemnos was inhabited by Pelasgians. Italian posters can deny the evidences, no matter.

Crete also had Pelasgians, but we also know that Crete used to have many other peoples as well.

For example Homer writes:
"There is a land called Crete, in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair, rich land, begirt with water, and therein are many men, past counting, and ninety cities. They have not all the same speech, but their tongues are mixed. There dwell Achaeans, there great-hearted native Cretans (eteo-Cretans), there Cydonians, and Dorians of waving plumes, and goodly Pelasgians.".

The same can be true with Lemnos. Homer wrote that the Sintians were the first inhabitants of the island, and they were a Thracian tribe. Other authors also wrote of the Greek tribe of Minyans living on the island, before being expelled by Pelasgians coming from Attica. Others also presented Pelasgians as Tyrrhenians. So you see, nothing is certain and probably Lemnos had a number of different people just like with the case of Crete above. After all, don't take as a fact that Greek authors were always accurate with their designations. They could in fact be generalizing when they wrote Pelasgians.

[Johane Derite]

So if Villanova is italic as he claims, and if in this study that has been leaked, its villanovans that have been tested, then we should expect them to plot the way they do, we don't know which types of graves have been tested, if there are disagreements about which ones are the "etruscan" proper method, then both variants need to be tested to make sure we aren't reading italic umbrian results as etruscan.

"Finally, the identification of the bearers of Villanovan culture in Etruria withthe forebears of the Etruscans disregards the historical evidence according towhich the Etruscans colonized the land of the Umbrians and drove them outof their original habitat (Plinius, Natural History III, 14, 112).

As a matter offact, there are numerous reminiscences of the Umbrians originally inhabitingthe region later called Etruria, like the river name Umbro, the region calledtractus Umbriae, the association of the Umbrian tribes of the Camartes andSarsinates with the inland towns Clusium and Perugia, and the identificationof Cortona as an Umbrian town (Altheim 1950, 22-3).

At any rate, the siteswhich have yielded Umbrian inscriptions mostly lie along the eastern fringeof the Villanovan style cremation area (Poultney 1959, 3) and there even havebeen found Umbrian type inscriptions in Picenum on the other side of theAppenines, whereas literary sources speak of Umbrians in Ancona,Ariminum, Ravenna and Spina to the north (Briquel 1984: 33; 51; 88; Salmon1988, 701) � regions where (proto-)Villanovan is attested (cf. Fig. 3)."

[Johane Derite]

And pelasgians are balkan people, so we shouldn't expect any dramatic west-asian shift from people with pelasgian origins.

[Demetrios]

I will explain why its useful in my opinion. I posted it because it was rich with info from others, not just his own theory that he supports, which I am not supporting personally. I only posted some quotes from the paper, the link is there to read in entirety, its only a couple of pages, not much.

Here is what stood out for me:

The lemnos language does pose a challenge. If the dna results which we only have rumours and a PCA of until now are accurate, then theoretically Lemnos must be tested also and should show up as being Umrbian like autosomally, or at least shifted that way.

Another challenge is that he claims that Etruscans used ("according to Ingrid Pohl in her publication of the Iron Age cemetery of Caere, Pohl 1972") a different inhumation and cremation method to Villanovans:

"One of the most outstanding features of this Etruscan culture is formed by the chamber tomb under tumulus for multiple burials. The burial rites may consist of inhumation or a special form of cremation, according to which the remains of the pyre are collected in a gold or silver container which, wrapped in a purple linen cloth, is placed in a loculus of the grave. The closest parallels for such �lite-cremations are found in Anatolian style chamber tombs under tumulus at Salamis on Cyprus.
The rite in question is meticulously described by Homeros in connection with the burial of Patroklos, for which reason one often speaks of a Homeric burial. As far as mainland Greece is concerned, similar �lite-cremations are attested for the hero of Lefkandi and the burials at the west gate of Eretria. The element which is missing here, however, is the characteristic chamber tomb under tumulus (the hero of Lefkandi is discovered in an apsidal building secondarily used as a grave and covered by a tumulus) Chamber tombs under tumulus for multiple burials are a typical Mycenaean feature.

During the Late Bronze Age this type of burial is disseminated by Mycenaean colonists from mainland Greece to western Asia Minor, where it is subsequently taken over by the indigenous population groups like the Carians, Lycians, Lydians, and ultimately the Phrygians. The earliest indigenous examples are pseudo-cupolas in Caria, dated to the period of c. 1000 to 800 BC.

These graves are characterized by a rectangular groundplan and aconcentrically vaulted roof. The problem of the dome resting on a square issolved by the so-called pendentive. This very same construction is typical ofchamber tombs in Populonia during the 7th century BC. Similarly, in Lydia a chambertomb has been found with a roof vaulting lenghtwise in the same way as forexample the famous Regolini-Galassi tomb at Caere, dating to the 7th century BC.

Furthermore, Mysia has produced a chamber tomb which is entirelyhewn out of the soft tufa with mock roof beams in place as if it were a wooden construction. The same technique is so common for Etruria that if the photos of the Mysian example would have had no caption one could easily bemistaken to be dealing with an Etruscan grave.Unfortunately, the Anatolian examples in the last mentioned two cases wereso thoroughly robbed that they cannot be properly dated.

Next, it deserves ourattention that Lycia from the 6th century BC onwards is typified by fa�adegraves hewn out of the natural rock, which bring to mind the fa�ade graveshewn out of the natural rock of Norchia and its immediate surroundings towhich a similar date is assigned as the Lycian counterparts. Like the Mysian tomb mentioned above, the fa�ade graves imitate wooden constructions. Hence, it is interesting to note that actual woodenconstructions have been dug up in Phrygia. Here large wooden boxes datingto the late 8th and early 7th century BC serve as a replacement of the stonebuilt chamber tomb in a similar manner as in Vetulonia during the 7th century BC. Finally, mention should be made of a Lycian chamber tomb from the5th century BC with paintings which bear a strong resemblance to theEtruscan ones in Tarquinia � be it that the Lycian paintings, in contrast to theirEtruscan counterparts, show Persian motifs.

In summary, on the basis of the preceding survey of relations in funeral architecture one gains the impression that Etruria was in close contact with variousregions of western Anatolia during the Early Orientalizing period andbeyond . Possibly, a crucial role was played by Mysia, the Aeolian coast, andthe offshore islands like Lesbos, because here the typical local pottery, justlike in Etruria from the 7th century BC onwards, consists of bucchero."

This is significant, because if these types of burials are different to Villanovan types, then they need to be explained, were there Mycaneans in umbria? Otherwise, if house urns are etruscan, were there etruscans in north germany?

The Italo-Celtic-Germanic affinities fit more neatly for the shared toponyms and house urn material culture, whereas its a bit more difficult the other way around.

One thing this author, and most authors are probably not aware of is that the "Patroclus" types of burials are also in Albania according to Hammond:

Yet we see dozens of tumulus burials in the Iron Age of Greece, such as the tumulus of Marathon, used to bury the 192 Athenians, and many other in Macedon, such as the recently unearthed Amphipolis tumulus (Kasta tomb), etc.. And you also forget tumuli burials came in the Balkans with the Indo-European migrations and Mycenaeans also used them. As for Achilles and Patroclus, even though they are legendary/mythical characters we already have genealogies and places of origin, but you very easily disregard them. Even though these are all unrelated with the original subject.

[Johane Derite]

Yet we see dozens of tumulus burials in the Iron Age of Greece, such as the tumulus of Marathon, used to bury the 192 Athenians, and many other in Macedon, such as the recently unearthed Amphipolis tumulus (Kasta tomb), etc.. And you also forget tumuli burials came in the Balkans with the Indo-European migrations and Mycenaeans also used them. As for Achilles and Patroclus, even though they are legendary/mythical characters we already have genealogies and places of origin, but you very easily disregard them. Even though these are all unrelated with the original subject.

He meticulously describes the specific type of tumulus burial, not just a tumulus. And this burial seems to have been used by etruscans according to Woudhuizen. His sources are in the paper.

The etruscans are totally related with the original subject.

[Demetrios]

He meticulously describes the specific type of tumulus burial, not just a tumulus. And this burial seems to have been used by etruscans according to Woudhuizen. His sources are in the paper.

The etruscans are totally related with the original subject.

What's the type exactly? Because when i read "The element which is missing here, however, is the characteristic chamber tomb under tumulus (the hero of Lefkandi is discovered in an apsidal building secondarily used as a grave and covered by a tumulus) Chamber tombs under tumulus for multiple burials are a typical Mycenaean feature.", this is very easily explained by the fact that Homer actually describes that the mound of Patroclus is a temporary burial, not the final one. Also, "the remains of the pyre are collected in a gold or silver container which, wrapped in a purple linen cloth, is placed in a loculus of the grave.", this reminds me of the very widespread larnax, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larnax. As for mounds, they were the most used burial practice described in the Iliad and the Odyssey, you can read more about them here, although you need a free account to read, https://www.jstor.org/stable/500553?...o_tab_contents.

[Pax Augusta]

So if Villanova is italic as he claims, and if in this study that has been leaked, its villanovans that have been tested, then we should expect them to plot the way they do, we don't know which types of graves have been tested, if there are disagreements about which ones are the "etruscan" proper method, then both variants need to be tested to make sure we aren't reading italic umbrian results as etruscan.

I comment on this first and then when I have time I'll comment on the rest. To all these statements you would have been able to find an answer on your own if you had also read at leat the most important texts of etruscology. The whole text of Woudhuizen is his personal interpretation that also goes against the general consensus.

For example there is no consensus at all that Villanova is Italic. Villanovan culture (c. 900 BC – 700 BC) is Etruscan and only Etruscan and is considered the most archaic phase of Etruscan civilization. We have to go back to the Proto-Villanovan (c. 1200 BC — circa 900 BC), which is ancestral not only to the Villanovan culture, but also to the Latial culture (Latins) and Atestine culture (Veneti) and so on. It's an an old thesis that the Proto-Villanovan culture brought the Italics to Italy, but it's still not proven.

The Etruscans of the Villanovan phase practiced incineration for the most part, those that have been tested are likely the result of inhumation burial, which became the most common from a certain point onwards. This is just the biggest difference between Etruscans and Umbrians. The Umbrians descend from the Culture of Terni and are characterized by inhumation burial mostly.

"Finally, the identification of the bearers of Villanovan culture in Etruria withthe forebears of the Etruscans disregards the historical evidence according towhich the Etruscans colonized the land of the Umbrians and drove them out of their original habitat (Plinius, Natural History III, 14, 112).

This paragraph is a good example of how Woudhuizen manipulates sources. Worse for him. Because in the end his work will remain neglected as it is happening (except for all those who desperately want to keep alive the Herodotean narrative of an eastern Etruscan origin). The story that the Etruscans occupied the land of the Umbrians starts with Herodotus around V century BC who reports a legend of the the Lydians. Many historians, archaeologists and etruscologists have questioned the historical credibility of Herodotus' story with convincing arguments.

But Woudhuizen cleverly and craftily puts Plinius there as if he were a source. Plinius born in the Italian Prealps is rather the source of a much more important information: Etruscans and the Rhaetians were related, and this was more recently confirmed by the linguistic data.

As a matter offact, there are numerous reminiscences of the Umbrians originally inhabitingthe region later called Etruria, like the river name Umbro, the region calledtractus Umbriae, the association of the Umbrian tribes of the Camartes and Sarsinates with the inland towns Clusium and Perugia, and the identificationof Cortona as an Umbrian town (Altheim 1950, 22-3).

Numerous reminiscences? This is really funny. Apart from the fact that there is no river in Etruria called Umbro, there are two streams, one in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, in the north of Tuscany, and the other in the south-west of Tuscany, called Ombrone, not Umbro. Other manipulation of Woudhuizen. It is certainly hypothesised that Ombrone derives from the ethnic name of the Umbrians. But there is no absolute evidence that it is so, there are also other hypotheses. It may well have other explanations. And however two streams is too little as proof. For my math teacher the concept of "numerous" means something else.

Of course, there is a legend about these Umbrian tribes who lived in what are the modern borders between Tuscany and Umbria. But nothing has ever been found so far archeologically to prove it. And then, if I remember well for the same areas, there is also the legend that Ligurian tribes lived there. So a slightly crowded area must have been.

The fact that the Etruscan Clusium (Etruscan Clevsin, modern Cortona) and Perugia (Etruscan Phersna Latin Perusia) were also inhabited by Umbrian tribes is by no means surprising. They are both in the most eastern part of the Etruscan world. Perugia is even today the capital of the Umbria region. So they were always cities on the border with the Umbrian world. It does not in any way confirm that Umbrians originally inhabiting the whole region called Etruria. At most, there was a border area between the Etruscan world and the Umbrian world where the two peoples had mixed several times. And this is true for all the border areas of the Etruscan world. In the north-west of Tuscany there is evidence that the Etruscans and Ligurians lived together, as well as in southern Etruria (north and central Lazio) there is evidence of the same thing between Etruscans, Faliscans and Latins. The story of the Faliscans, who spoke the language most similar to Latin but were part of the Etruscan world, is also very iconic.

At any rate, the sites which have yielded Umbrian inscriptions mostly lie along the eastern fringeof the Villanovan style cremation area (Poultney 1959, 3) and there even havebeen found Umbrian type inscriptions in Picenum on the other side of the Appenines, whereas literary sources speak of Umbrians in Ancona, Ariminum, Ravenna and Spina to the north (Briquel 1984: 33; 51; 88; Salmon1988, 701) � regions where (proto-)Villanovan is attested (cf. Fig. 3)."

This is all known, too. Etruscans and Umbrians there in the Adriatic coast have mixed several time. And what does that prove? Certainly does not prove that the Umbrians once inhabited all the lands of the Etruscans, because once again these types of mixes took place in the border areas between the Etruscan and Umbrian worlds and not in the core of the Etruscan world.

[markod]

I comment on this first and then when I have time comment on the rest. To all these statements you would have been able to find an answer on your own if you had also read at leat the most important texts of etruscology. The whole text of Woudhuizen is his personal interpretation that also goes against the general consensus.

For example there is no consensus at all that Villanova is Italic. Villanovan culture (c. 900 BC – 700 BC) is Etruscan and only Etruscan and is considered the most archaic phase of Etruscan civilization. We have to go back to the Proto-Villanovan (c. 1200 BC — circa 901 BC), which is ancestral not only to the Villanovan culture, but also to the Latial culture (Latins) and Atestine culture (Veneti) and so on. It's an an old thesis that the Proto-Villanovan culture brought the Italics to Italy, but it's still not proven.

The idea that Proto-Villanova trifurcated into Etruscan, Venetic and Italic is largely an idea based in the old 'pots not people' paradigm of archaeology still prevalent in classical studies. Someone will need to come up with something better.

[Pax Augusta]

The idea that Proto-Villanova trifurcated into Etruscan, Venetic and Italic is largely an idea based in the old 'pots not people' paradigm of archaeology still prevalent in classical studies. Someone will need to come up with something better.

I know you don't like it.


It's an idea that has great consensus. Proto-Villanovan is a national phenomenon, the following ones are phenomena of regionalization (it's not a trifurcation, not only Villanovan, Atestine and Latial cultures but also other cultures of Italy).


To dismiss it, you need more than just a post on a forum.

[markod]

I know you don't like it.


It's an idea that has great consensus. Proto-Villanovan is a national phenomenon, the following ones are phenomena of regionalization (not only Villanovan, Atestine and Latial cultures).

To dismiss it, you need more than just a post on a forum.

I have zero stakes in it, why wouldn't I like it? It's just outdated now that we know migration and conquest are the primary reasons for linguistic/cultural shift. It's not 1960 anymore.

[berun]

And pelasgians are balkan people, so we shouldn't expect any dramatic west-asian shift from people with pelasgian origins.

I think Italians have less problems recognizing the Balkan origin of Daunians or Iapiges, stablished IIRC when Sea People were marauding here and there, also they don't have problems to assign to proto-Villanovians an Italic or Celtic character coming from outside, maybe from the Balkans even if we include in it Hungary. But when there is something about Etruscans coming from elsewere I believe sometimes it is Anthrogenica web when bulling antisteppists.

[Pax Augusta]

I have zero stakes in it, why wouldn't I like it? It's just outdated now that we know migration and conquest are the primary reasons for linguistic/cultural shift. It's not 1960 anymore.

It's an idea that's still being accepted today. There's nothing wrong with not knowing it. Since you speak clearly Italian, the first are the notes of Civiltà dell'Italia Preromana (LE07101474), 2013-2014 university course at the University of Padua. Those notes are the first ones I found. The second from a book published in 2006.

[markod]

It's an idea that's still being accepted today. There's nothing wrong with not knowing it. Since you speak clearly Italian, the first are the notes of Civiltà dell'Italia Preromana (LE07101474), 2013-2014 university course at the University of Padua. Those notes are the first ones I found. The second from a book published in 2006.

Many ideas are wrong and still accepted. Urnfield material cultures are found in the regions where later we see the Etruscans, Rhaetians, Veneti and the Latins. That doesn't mean that all those languages actually spread with Urnfield. There were other peoples around the Alps and in Italy at the time. This is especially obvious in Latium which was barely occupied in the MBA-LBA transition - one of the populations that migrated there in the LB spoke Latino-Faliscan. Languages don't tend to spring from the ground.

[Pax Augusta]

Many ideas are wrong and still accepted. Urnfield material cultures are found in the regions where later we see the Etruscans, Rhaetians, Veneti and the Latins. That doesn't mean that all those languages actually spread with Urnfield. There were other peoples around the Alps and in Italy at the time. This is especially obvious in Latium which was barely occupied in the MBA-LBA transition - one of the populations that migrated there in the LB spoke Latino-Faliscan. Languages don't tend to spring from the ground.

I'm having the hardest time following you. Nowhere is it written that all those languages actually spread with Urnfield.

[markod]

I'm having the hardest time following you. Nowhere is it written that all those languages actually spread with Urnfield.

So which cultures did they spread with.

[Pax Augusta]

The literal meaning of Samothrace/Samothraki is "tall Thrace". This is a synthetic word. Samothrace happens to have the tallest mountain in all of the Aegean, excluding Euboea and Crete. The same is true with the island of Samos, which also translates as "tall" which happens to have the second tallest mountain in all of the Aegean, excluding Euboea and Crete. Supposedly the word "samos" is a Phoenician loanword, originating from Phoenician "sama" meaning "high", although it could also be a Greek original.

Demetrios, thanks for this. Are Phoenician language loans frequent in Greek?

I need to ask you other things about the Greek world, too. I'll do it soon.

[Angela]

You're all missing the point here. The Etruscans were people who, if they didn't move directly from West Asia, were descended from the ancestors of the Albanians. Obviously, that's true of the more "northern" Romans too, just like the Albanians are the true descendants of the Mycenaeans.

You cannot argue with such self-evident truths.

Or, according to Eurogenes, both the Etruscans and the early Romans were clearly heavily steppe people, you know, like the Mycenaeans.

We've just got to get with the program.

[Johane Derite]

You're all missing the point here. The ancestors of the Albanians were the ancestors of the Etruscans, just like the Albanians are the true descendants of the Mycenaeans.

You cannot argue with such self-evident truths.

Or, if you don't like that, they must all have been Serbs.

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.