Population structure in Italy using ancient and modern samples

[Tomenable]

Some comments on samples from Aosta Valley:

This study has only two samples from Aosta. There was a study a few years ago with over 20 samples from Aosta.

I compared these two new Aostans to those 20 Aosta samples, from the old study which I have also downloaded.

And here is what I see:

ALP225 - this sample is just like Aostans from the old study, a little bit more Piedmont-like
ALP227 - this sample is almost certainly a German-speaking Aostan (Walser minority)

The second sample is much more northern-shifted, similar to Saarland and Swiss Germans.

=====

PS:

A bit disappointed that some regions are not represented or represented by very few samples.

[Tomenable]

​Two more outliers:

ALP188 from Friuli and ALP414 from Trentino have at least partially Slavic ancestry (probably Slovene or Carinthian Slovene).

Is there a Slavic-speaking minority in Friuli and/or in Trentino?

[torzio]

​Two more outliers:

ALP188 from Friuli and ALP414 from Trentino have at least partially Slavic ancestry (probably Slovene or Carinthian Slovene).

Is there a Slavic-speaking minority in Friuli and/or in Trentino?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavia_Friulana

and

East Tyrol has about 10% slavic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Tyrol

[Regio X]

Yes, in Friuli we have Resian and Slovenian minorities, plus the plains were heavy repopulated after hungarian and turkish raids and differents plagues which hitted the area between medieval age and renaissance with people from Balkans, mostly slavic speaking. So there are both slavic speaking minority and an important slavic component in the development of Friulian "ethnicity" (attested also by a great deal of slavic loanwords and toponyms). Besides the two major towns in eastern Friuli region (Gorizia and Trieste) received a not irrelevant influx of settlers from all the former Austro-Hungarian Empire till the annexation of this area to Italy (since you are a Pole I can make you the example of my chemistry teacher in high school whose family came to my hometown from the polish speaking area in the XIX century).

There is this guy with ancestry from Trieste, with whom I would form a new Y branch based on STR markers. Indeed, he has an "Italian" family name, but it's derived from a Slovenian one, ended by "vitz". There must be many similar cases in there.

Also, I know abt. a man from Udine province (close to Gemona del Friuli, more specifically) who scores almost 50% of East Europe in myOrigins, in line with what you said. I myself score 10%, then I assume he would score in 23andMe less than those 50%. Still...
It must be linked with all those R1a-s in Udine province. (Out of curiosity, according to a 23andMe match, this seems to be the line of my mother-in-law's father, whose father was born precisely in Udine-UD.)

[torzio]

There is this guy with ancestry from Trieste, with whom I would form a new Y branch based on STR markers. Indeed, he has an "Italian" family name, but it's derived from a Slovenian one, ended by "vitz". There must be many similar cases in there.

Also, I know abt. a man from Udine province (close to Gemona del Friuli, more specifically) who scores almost 50% of East Europe in myOrigins, in line with what you said. I myself score 10%, then I assume he would score in 23andMe less than those 50%. Still...
It must be linked with all those R1a-s in Udine province. (Out of curiosity, according to a 23andMe match, this seems to be the line of my mother-in-law's father, whose father was born precisely in Udine-UD.)

Not all R1a are in friuli, my wife line is from the north of livenza river to san stino di livenza in the south, province of venice


Btw....plwase send me privately the link to check our relatives as i lost it when my old pc died in early august

[torzio]

Mr. torzio, maybe you don't know that the historical border between Venetians and Friulians is exactly the Livenza river (old people in Portogruaro area still speak a venetianized version of Friulian). In a more general point of view I think that as for all the Y haplogroups there can be a lot of different explanations for the presence of a specific line in a specific area.

Thank you......i know what people speak, i was in veneto , ponzano a few years ago to see my first cousins and went to porcia near pordenone to see some 2nd cousins.... the area only speaks venet and does not know furlan.....thats what i found being there 3 weeks
Livenza river is the border of veneto and friuli and my wife is from motta and they know zero furlan even though its a border town

I was trying to say that R1a is not only slav as it was already in alps, balkans , germany etc before any slavs got there

[Salento]

I’ve seen around East_Med related discussions about the V2 K15 results of Pugliesi (and other Regions).

Generally, they're not very different from mine, until they reach the Red_Sea. After that, they start to vary with each other.

fwiw my results from that point down:



https://anthrogenica.com/showthread....689#post599689

[Jovialis]

I get 29.86 Pct,

It is a meaningless construct that subsumes disparate groups with different source populations, that do not apply to one another.

[Regio X]

Not all R1a are in friuli, my wife line is from the north of livenza river to san stino di livenza in the south, province of venice
Btw....plwase send me privately the link to check our relatives as i lost it when my old pc died in early august

Yes, I know R1a can be found in other places, but while it's relatively common in Friuli and particularly Udine, it's uncommon elsewhere, even in Treviso.

I don't know what the link is. Please send me a PM with more details.

[Salento]

I get 29.86 Pct,

It is a meaningless construct that subsumes disparate groups with different source populations, that do not apply to one another.

I had the same impression.

You said it so well, I couldn't have said it like that even if I wanted to :)

[Jovialis]

I had the same impression.

You said it so well, I couldn't have said it like that even if I wanted to :)

My single population sharing distance of K15 vs the autosomal components assigned in the paper, to those populations.

As you can see there are some differences, thus I think "Eastern Mediterranean" is not a sufficient construct to go by. Rather, it is better to go by the ancient samples. In this case, modeled with ABA, which largely accounts for the overlap.

[Jovialis]

My single population sharing distance of K15 vs the autosomal components assigned in the paper, to those populations.

As you can see there are some differences, thus I think "Eastern Mediterranean" is not a sufficient construct to go by. Rather, it is better to go by the ancient samples. In this case, modeled with ABA, which largely accounts for the overlap.

The Ashkenazi Jews probably get a great deal of their North African-like component from ancient times. For example, the brown Natufian component here. This further illustrates the disparity between the cohort of populations in "Eastern Mediterranean":

[Jovialis]

Taking a look at East-Med's proximity to Palestine, and seeing the great-genetic diversity within that in the academic chart; Idk how it can serve as a measure for much.

I always looked at those components within GEDmatch calculators as arbitrary. I find it interesting to look at how samples fall in relation to one another on the PCA. But I defer to academic papers for what they're made of. That's also why consumer genomic testing percentages should be taken with a grain of salt as well; they're not academic.

[Angela]

"Components" based on modern populations are bound to be faulty. Once we had no choice. Now we do.

It's extremely foolhardy to attach these labels to any actual migration of people and try to put a date on it.

Dienekes realized that years and years ago, but you'd never know it from the way some internet "experts" use these calculators.

See:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2012/09...decad-k7b.html

We've learned a lot since then. There are even more layers. Like I said: you'd never know that from some of the commentary.

[Salento]

My single population sharing distance of K15 vs the autosomal components assigned in the paper, to those populations.

As you can see there are some differences, thus I think "Eastern Mediterranean" is not a sufficient construct to go by. Rather, it is better to go by the ancient samples. In this case, modeled with ABA, which largely accounts for the overlap.

A while ago, I noticed that SItaly3 (us, Puglia), has 2 less component than the other neighbors (no NAfrica1 and no EEN).

... my PCA:
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...l=1#post580199

... EDIT:



WHG = Western Hunter-Gatherer
EEN = European Early Neolithic
SBA = Bronze Age from steppe
ABA = Bronze Age from Anatolia

[Jovialis]

A while ago, I noticed that SItaly3 (us, Puglia), has 2 less component than the other neighbors (no NAfrica1 and no EEN).

... my PCA:
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...l=1#post580199

... EDIT:



WHG = Western Hunter-Gatherer
EEN = European Early Neolithic
SBA = Bronze Age from steppe
ABA = Bronze Age from Anatolia

All in all, these are also constructs that have a lot of overlap too:

Antaolian Copper age/ Bronze age is basically Anatolain_N + CHG. There's overlaps with the EEN with Anatolain_N. SBA is a mix of EHG and CHG, so there's overlap there. Then there's also a bit Anatolian_N there too, especially by the MLBA.





Nevertheless, these constructs are based on ancient DNA, and have an archaeological basis to exist in reality.

[Jovialis]

All in all, these are also constructs that have a lot of overlap too:

Antaolian Copper age/ Bronze age is basically Anatolain_N + CHG. There's overlaps with the EEN with Anatolain_N. SBA is a mix of EHG and CHG, so there's overlap there. Then there's also a bit Anatolian_N there too, especially by the MLBA.





Nevertheless, these constructs are based on ancient DNA, and have an archaeological basis to exist in reality.

Moreover, I take Angela's point in regards to the Iran Neo. It is probably from ABA, as it can be modeled that way in the study. CHG and Iran Neo are very similar; as the Post-Roman Egypt paper admixture chart shows.

The strange thing is their finding of "Iran Neolithic" in the south.If they are correct, we need ancient dna to understand it. The farmers of Iran didn't fly over all the territory in between to land in Southern Italy at some late date. Nor, I would suggest, did undiluted Iranian farmer ancestry still exist in the Roman Era. Everything indicates to me that it started to spread during the Copper Age, mixing with, in West Asia, earlier farmer ancestry. Likewise, Anatolian type farmer ancestry moved to the lands of the Iranian farmers.

Also, when looking at the study this way, you can see that the only place that was really impacted by NAfrica1 was in Sicily, and parts of Iberia; albeit a marginal degree.

[Jovialis]

Moreover, I take Angela's point in regards to the Iran Neo. It is probably from ABA, as it can be modeled that way in the study. CHG and Iran Neo are very similar; as the Post-Roman Egypt paper admixture chart shows.



Also, when looking at the study this way, you can see that the only place that was really impacted by NAfrica1 was in Sicily, and parts of Iberia; albeit a marginal degree.

Tomorrow it will be one year since this pre-print came out. I will be looking forward to seeing it published. Keeping with my point above, you can model these populations like below as well. The Dzudzuana population were Paleo-Caucasians, that were very similar to Anatolian Neolithic; who make up the majority of autosomal DNA in West Eurasia.



https://www.biorxiv.org/content/earl...23079.full.pdf

[Jovialis]

Steppe Ancestry Reached Switzerland Before Germany; Implications For Etruscan Origins. For what it’s worth, I don’t know what says about Etruscan origins, who are as mysterious to me as they were 20 years ago.

https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2019/...ad-09-25-2019/

Here's an interesting comment by Razib Khan on Etruscan origins.

[Angela]

Here's an interesting comment by Razib Khan on Etruscan origins.

I agree with Khan. I don't see how that makes anything clearer.

We just have to wait for the actual samples.

As pertains to the comments on the "Turtle Island" site, you gotta love how "Andrew" doesn't care that the "leaks" are that the Etruscans were nearly identical to the Italics genetically. He knows better, and they aren't.

If, when the samples are published, they indeed turn out to be like Italics, then it's irrelevant what anyone has speculated in the past. Any explanations will have to take that into account.

Language is separate from genetics. You'd think the Basques would have taught us that.

[Ygorcs]

I agree with Khan. I don't see how that makes anything clearer.

We just have to wait for the actual samples.

As pertains to the comments on the "Turtle Island" site, you gotta love how "Andrew" doesn't care that the "leaks" are that the Etruscans were nearly identical to the Italics genetically. He knows better, and they aren't.

If, when the samples are published, they indeed turn out to be like Italics, then it's irrelevant what anyone has speculated in the past. Any explanations will have to take that into account.

Language is separate from genetics. You'd think the Basques would have taught us that.

You know, I have wondered if the fact that Etruscans seem to have developed from a subset of Urnfield culture, which also occupied much of what already had steppic ancestry since many centuries before and would be certainly IE-speaking areas centuries later, tell us something about what the Urnfield was really about. I'm thinking of something like the High Middle Ages civilization of Catholic Christendom in Europe, which was multilingual and multicultural, but there were clear common features and a sense of loose sociocultural connection because of a shared religion (and we know a shared religious identity would manifest particularly well in people's burial traditions). If the Bronze Age in much of the central part of Europe experienced somewhat of a religious revolution, causing some sense of being part of a shared civilization, despite cultural and linguistic diversity, it could explain the genetic homogeneization and partial cultural homogeneization without them speaking the same language Family.

[Angela]

You know, I have wondered if the fact that Etruscans seem to have developed from a subset of Urnfield culture, which also occupied much of what already had steppic ancestry since many centuries before and would be certainly IE-speaking areas centuries later, tell us something about what the Urnfield was really about. I'm thinking of something like the High Middle Ages civilization of Catholic Christendom in Europe, which was multilingual and multicultural, but there were clear common features and a sense of loose sociocultural connection because of a shared religion (and we know a shared religious identity would manifest particularly well in people's burial traditions). If the Bronze Age in much of the central part of Europe experienced somewhat of a religious revolution, causing some sense of being part of a shared civilization, despite cultural and linguistic diversity, it could explain the genetic homogeneization and partial cultural homogeneization without them speaking the same language Family.

It's certainly possible, Ygorcs.

We're working in the dark now because we have so few samples from so many areas of ancient Italy that it's difficult to come to firm conclusions.

It certainly will help to get more of a fix on the Etruscans autosomally, but we need to compare them with people from earlier periods from north of them on the Italian peninsula, imo, as well as with Italics like Umbrians. We also need to compare them to Romans from the early Republican period, before Rome became a great metropolis and the capital city of an international empire.

What isn't helpful in figuring out the relationship between them and the Romans genetically is labeling, before even seeing the studies and examining the samples, Empire Era merchants living in Ostia, most of them "Greco-Oriental" in origin from the inscriptions, "Romans". Sorry, those were not Italic Romans. Geneticists have got to define what they mean by "Romans". It changed over time: by the third century people from England to Damascus and Egypt would have considered themselves Romans. Of course, it's perfectly possible that some of those people, or their children, stayed in Italy and blended into the population. We just don't know how widespread this phenomena was, whether it was localized to port cities, whether it was widespread, what happened to the big urban populations with the fall and on and on.

Some people want the Genetics for Dummies version. It won't work with such a complicated history.

People approach this topic without even the most basic understanding of Roman history. It's just very disheartening.

I find it amusing that now that the Etruscans may perhaps be more "northern" than once thought, all of a sudden there are all these posts on the net about how much they contributed to making "Rome" Rome.

I have news for these people: the Etruscans got none of those things from central Europe; they are all improvements on the civilization of Greece and Anatolia. :)

What is even more amusing is my memory of how, even on this site, there were those opining that the modern Italians were much more "Etruscan" like in character than Roman like, which was not a good thing, of course. :)

[Pax Augusta]

It always amazes me how the Etruscans always attract the comments of people who know nothing about the Etruscans. Apart from commonplaces, of course.

[MOESAN]

You know, I have wondered if the fact that Etruscans seem to have developed from a subset of Urnfield culture, which also occupied much of what already had steppic ancestry since many centuries before and would be certainly IE-speaking areas centuries later, tell us something about what the Urnfield was really about. I'm thinking of something like the High Middle Ages civilization of Catholic Christendom in Europe, which was multilingual and multicultural, but there were clear common features and a sense of loose sociocultural connection because of a shared religion (and we know a shared religious identity would manifest particularly well in people's burial traditions). If the Bronze Age in much of the central part of Europe experienced somewhat of a religious revolution, causing some sense of being part of a shared civilization, despite cultural and linguistic diversity, it could explain the genetic homogeneization and partial cultural homogeneization without them speaking the same language Family.

It is what I thought and think yet about Urnfields. Some old scholars (archeology of the 1960/70) said that already: a lot of true moves on diverse directions, maybe pushed by a demographic increase in some places, and new cultural exchanges and adoptions, without an unique centre of origin concerning demes, and without a complete osmosis, just partial leveling.

[lynxbythetv]

It's certainly possible, Ygorcs.

We're working in the dark now because we have so few samples from so many areas of ancient Italy that it's difficult to come to firm conclusions.

It certainly will help to get more of a fix on the Etruscans autosomally, but we need to compare them with people from earlier periods from north of them on the Italian peninsula, imo, as well as with Italics like Umbrians. We also need to compare them to Romans from the early Republican period, before Rome became a great metropolis and the capital city of an international empire.

What isn't helpful in figuring out the relationship between them and the Romans genetically is labeling, before even seeing the studies and examining the samples, Empire Era merchants living in Ostia, most of them "Greco-Oriental" in origin from the inscriptions, "Romans". Sorry, those were not Italic Romans. Geneticists have got to define what they mean by "Romans". It changed over time: by the third century people from England to Damascus and Egypt would have considered themselves Romans. Of course, it's perfectly possible that some of those people, or their children, stayed in Italy and blended into the population. We just don't know how widespread this phenomena was, whether it was localized to port cities, whether it was widespread, what happened to the big urban populations with the fall and on and on.

Some people want the Genetics for Dummies version. It won't work with such a complicated history.

People approach this topic without even the most basic understanding of Roman history. It's just very disheartening.

I find it amusing that now that the Etruscans may perhaps be more "northern" than once thought, all of a sudden there are all these posts on the net about how much they contributed to making "Rome" Rome.

I have news for these people: the Etruscans got none of those things from central Europe; they are all improvements on the civilization of Greece and Anatolia. :)

What is even more amusing is my memory of how, even on this site, there were those opining that the modern Italians were much more "Etruscan" like in character than Roman like, which was not a good thing, of course. :)

how exactly did the greeks influence the tyrsennians, as they called them ?



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