Population structure in Italy using ancient and modern samples

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

https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6155.1-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.

Spanish posters should stop having these inferiority complexes over Italians, so much so that they participate in these discussions just to provoke. What is your contribution to this discussion? Nothing. Only very puerile provocations.
 
Is it possible that the Italic IE languages were linked to the Anatolian IE languages?

Or was Elymian of Sicily alone a language derived from Hittite? However Wikipedia says it has been speculated, not that there's a certainty about Elymian and its likelihood of being related to Hittite.

Pretty unlikely. Italic shares the many innovations that define LPIE and link all known IE subgroups together with the exception of Anatolian IE. Besides, Italic clearly shares many more similarities (not just vocabulary, but morphology and syntax too) with Celtic. Anyway, the Wikipedia article itself makes it clear that the association of Elymian to Anatolian IEs is just a tentative hypothesis, the evidences are too scant even to analyze and classify the language at all, let alone to link it to Hittite.

Anyway, Italy does have some Anatolia_BA-related ancestry (not that much if you include other more proximate sources with more EEF, like Minoan_Lasithi, and others with more CHG/Iran_Chl, like Hajji Firuz_Chl), and South Italians and Cretans look closest to BA Anatolians (which of course must not imply direct descent, but rather an accumulation of similar admixtures over the millennia)... But we will never be sure those movements involved Anatolian IE speakers unless we find strong evidences of Hittie, Luwian or other Anatolian IE language in Italy.

Based on what I can notice in modern Italians, I'd still link (pre-)Proto-Italic people to an EEF-enriched BB split, maybe with some Western CWC (Germany) input mixed into them, too.
 
I have noticed that some people are treating Herodottus as if he was like a modern historian with all the modern advantages of communication, records and travel. Think a lot of his histories are based on myths or stories he has picked from traders that travelled to those places. I do not for a moment believed that he travelled all over the Balkans and wrote down all the borders between the different tribes of Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians. Think of his writings as a guideline.
 
I don't understand why the fact that Etruscan is not related to Vasconian or Basque or Iberian means it can't be a pre-Indo-European language.

By this time, the "farmers" had been in Europe for 5,000 years. Is that long enough for differences in language to have developed?

Are Iberian and Vasconian or Basque closely related?

Plus, we have so little actual written Etruscan, I don't know how hard and fast conclusions can be reached. It seems linguists are all over the place in this matter.

Or, we could go back to the hypothesis that some R1b people, as perhaps in Spain, carried non-IE languages. Of course, we don't yet know the yDna of the Etruscans.

Are some people still writing elsewhere that there was an "elite" migration from Asia Minor and the language came from them? It would have to have been very small as the autosomal signature is not only close to Tuscans, North Italians, Spaniards, but one is close to the French.

Also, to correct a misstatement above, there was disagreement among the ancient authors as to whether the Etruscans were "local" or from Lydia.

I don't think we can already rule out the possibility(not likelihood) that Etruscan/Tyrsenian languages came from Anatolia or more broadly from the East Mediterranean... but onlyat least 2,000 years before some people had thought. In all of Italy, even North Italy, some of the best models that I can reach, using only Eneolithic & Bronze Age samples, include a good chunk (~20-30%) of Minoan-like ancestry. Of course that does not mean "from Minoans", but "similar to the genetic structure found in those few Minoan samples". There is also a lot of extra CHG/Iran_Chl-related admixtures. So some similarity with the BA East Mediterranean probably did exist, which might have brought the Tyrsenian language family (and what if the Minoan language belonged to a related group, even if it was not Tyrsenian itself?). In any case, that language shift would have happened even before Proto-Italic existed (let alone was spoken in much of Italy, or in Italy at all).
 
Spanish posters should stop having these inferiority complexes over Italians, so much so that they participate in these discussions just to provoke. What is your contribution to this discussion? Nothing. Only very puerile provocations.

Ignorance knows no national borders, I'm afraid.

We have great posters from Iberian descended areas, like Duarte and Ygorcs, for example.

Just an example: did you know that Etruscans have nothing to do with iron metallurgy? :) If it weren't so sad it would be funny.

Sometimes I get very frustrated by the level of ignorance out there, usually married to very noxious agendas. It's even more dangerous when someone does have knowledge of basic dna and the samples or superficial knowledge of, say, Imperial Rome, and just massages it all to fit into their agendas.
 
So some similarity with the BA East Mediterranean probably did exist, which might have brought the Tyrsenian language family (and what if the Minoan language belonged to a related group, even if it was not Tyrsenian itself?). In any case, that language shift would have happened even before Proto-Italic existed (let alone was spoken in much of Italy, or in Italy at all).


Minoans were mostly EEF + minor CHG, their closest population was Anatolian_N. So also Minoan language was likely an EEF/ENF language.

SHjZcj8.png

 
On Etruscans. Nothing revolutionary, a bit long, but worth watching, imo.

 
Etruscan language. What did it sound like?

 
I don't think we can already rule out the possibility(not likelihood) that Etruscan/Tyrsenian languages came from Anatolia or more broadly from the East Mediterranean... but onlyat least 2,000 years before some people had thought. In all of Italy, even North Italy, some of the best models that I can reach, using only Eneolithic & Bronze Age samples, include a good chunk (~20-30%) of Minoan-like ancestry. Of course that does not mean "from Minoans", but "similar to the genetic structure found in those few Minoan samples". There is also a lot of extra CHG/Iran_Chl-related admixtures. So some similarity with the BA East Mediterranean probably did exist, which might have brought the Tyrsenian language family (and what if the Minoan language belonged to a related group, even if it was not Tyrsenian itself?). In any case, that language shift would have happened even before Proto-Italic existed (let alone was spoken in much of Italy, or in Italy at all).

I agree with much of this post. I was merely asking questions. I have no issue with Etruscan being possibly not a language of EEF people on the Italian peninsula but rather a language which made its way up the boot of Italy through Bronze Age Migrations from the east, most likely by way of Greeks, although there are other possibilities. Heck, one linguist thinks its Uralic in origin (Hungarian).

I fail to see how any of this could be proved either way unless we have in the future a "Rosetta Stone" like moment with some language spoken/written elsewhere.

However, going by the evidence we have so far, which is the "leaked" PCA, at least 2 of the Etruscans plot with the Iberians. Do they have 20-30% Minoan like ancestry too? How about the French? One of them plots near the French too. Maybe we just really don't have the right samples yet for some of these "runs".

I'm sure when we have the actual samples things will become clearer. It would also help to have Neolithic Era samples from Italy, particularly from the cultures around or immediately to the south of Tuscany, and some samples from that 1000 year blank slate in between some Italian samples and the Iron Age.

I'm open to whatever the evidence will show.

@Binx,
Indeed.
 
Heck, one linguist thinks its Uralic in origin (Hungarian).

Etruscan as Uralic in origin is unlikely imho.


@Binx,
Indeed.

Thanks.

Moreover, in my opinion, closer we get to the end of Bronze age/Iron Age the more a language is no longer in close connection with the genetics of the population.

The Mycenaeans spoke an Indo-European language but how much genetically can be defined as Indo-European? The Mycenaeans are more EEF than genetically Indo-European and are still very close to the Pre-Indo-european language Minoans.
 
I don't think we can already rule out the possibility(not likelihood) that Etruscan/Tyrsenian languages came from Anatolia or more broadly from the East Mediterranean... but onlyat least 2,000 years before some people had thought. In all of Italy, even North Italy, some of the best models that I can reach, using only Eneolithic & Bronze Age samples, include a good chunk (~20-30%) of Minoan-like ancestry. Of course that does not mean "from Minoans", but "similar to the genetic structure found in those few Minoan samples". There is also a lot of extra CHG/Iran_Chl-related admixtures. So some similarity with the BA East Mediterranean probably did exist, which might have brought the Tyrsenian language family (and what if the Minoan language belonged to a related group, even if it was not Tyrsenian itself?). In any case, that language shift would have happened even before Proto-Italic existed (let alone was spoken in much of Italy, or in Italy at all).

I dont see how anyone can claim etruscans are from aegean/anatolian areas when the lemnian stelae is 400 years younger in time to what etruscans where speaking in italy......logically lemnos would be an etruscan colony of traders setup to trade along anatolia or in the black sea.......a stop off port for etruscans
 
I dont see how anyone can claim etruscans are from aegean/anatolian areas when the lemnian stelae is 400 years younger in time to what etruscans where speaking in italy......logically lemnos would be an etruscan colony of traders setup to trade along anatolia or in the black sea.......a stop off port for etruscans

Well, nobody said Etruscans - the people and its culture - came readily from Aegrean/Anatolian areas, let alone by the time of the Lemnian stelae. I'm talking of much earlier migration events that could possibly have brought the language (or rather its mother or even gradmother language) and some ancestral admixture to Italy. Lemnian is too late to serve as either evidence or counter-evidence for what we've speculated here. Profound East Mediterranean influence in Italy, especially South Italy, is a fact, it's not controversial. What needs to be determined is whether they were the bringers of some language still spoken in the Early Roman era in Italy.
 
Etruscan as Uralic in origin is unlikely imho.

I don't know why, but Hungarians seem to be like Turks in that their ultranationalists have tried to link it with basically any ancient language connected with a great civilization and not properly classified as of now (language isolates). It's weird.
 
repost

Repost; 

It is now accepted by many scholars that from Golasecca Celtic type ethnic groups emerge. Also because the language of the inscriptions associated with the Culture of Golasecca is Lepontic language that is considered a Celtic language to all intents and purposes. There is now a great consensus on this. Golasecca is the final result of a fusion of Ligurian-like elements (pre-Indo-European elements) with migrants who arrive from Urnfield culture and are proto-Celtic.

Golasecca :
45° 42′ 0″ N, 8° 39′ 0″ E


 
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Imo, all civilizations are not "equal" in terms of the "hallmarks" of civilization, or their sophistication: some have more remarkable achievements than others.

You want to believe that Golasecca was as sophisticated and "remarkable" a civilization as the Etruscans? That's your prerogative, although nothing in that material shows that in any way, imo. So, I completely and utterly, but respectfully disagree.

I've already answered that.


"The Etruscans were obviously the most advanced civilization of the early Iron Age of Italy. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise."


It is now accepted by many scholars that from Golasecca Celtic type ethnic groups emerge. Also because the language of the inscriptions associated with the Culture of Golasecca is Lepontic language that is considered a Celtic language to all intents and purposes. There is now a great consensus on this. Golasecca is the final result of a fusion of Ligurian-like elements (pre-Indo-European elements) with migrants who arrive from Urnfield culture and are proto-Celtic.




Why are you copying and pasting my posts?
 
And you can continue to deny ancient dna in preference to your outdated theories.

Do you even read other people's posts, or look at PCAs? Do you know what a PCA is? Do you know what ancient DNA is?

It seems some of the Etruscans plot pretty damn close to the Iberians. Hello, fellow Pelasgian. :)

which Etruscans? looking at recent papers on ancient and modern samples I would not accept their lack of social or cultural discrimination
 
I have noticed that some people are treating Herodottus as if he was like a modern historian with all the modern advantages of communication, records and travel. Think a lot of his histories are based on myths or stories he has picked from traders that travelled to those places. I do not for a moment believed that he travelled all over the Balkans and wrote down all the borders between the different tribes of Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians. Think of his writings as a guideline.

It's not just that, even.

Other ancient historians believed that the Etruscans were descended from local people. Some only remember what they choose to remember, or they quote what someone else says without doing the actual research.

I wrote this in 2014:

"Well, the conclusion of Briquet, and my conclusion after reading the chapter again, is that none of what these ancient writers say should be taken as a "scientific inquiry about the identity of a people."

As Briquet shows quite compellingly, I think, these ancient writers were not historians in the modern sense of the world. They wove together the stories of their gods and ancient heroes and modern cultural and trade associations into one big mish mash, and, as is the case for some people nowadays as well, they often had an agenda to promote.

Dionysius, as has been seen, supported the autochthonous origin. However, given the tenor of his entire work, some scholars believe he supported this theory largely to denigrate the Etruscans by showing them not to be Greek or civilized, but rather the barbarian pirates of common Greek perception.

As to Herodotus' claim, I would suggest reading the whole chapter by Briquet; it's not very long. To recap it, it appears in a much longer exposition of who invented the games. In the course of it he says that the Lydians maintained that they invented the games at the same time that they sent some settlers to "Tyrrhenia". It doesn't seem they were necessarily correct about who invented the games, and, of course, the area around the northern Aegean was also called "Tyrrhenia" at one point. Meanwhile, the Etruscan/Tyrrenians called themselves Rasenna. You see how it goes?

Also, as has been pointed out, Lydians spoke an Indo-European language, and the Lydian historian of the 5th century BC, Xanthos, had, according to Dionysius, never heard of the story.

As for the "Pelasgian" theory of Hellicanus, among others, both the Greeks and the Etruscans promoted it, but from the explanation of Briquet, both the Greeks and the Etruscans, although sometimes rivals in trade, were also allies in trade, and it was in both their interests to support a theory whereby the Greeks and the Etruscans were somewhat related.

From the text:
"Etruscans were barbarians; this connected them with a people whom the Greeks represented as having been established on the soil of Hellas even before themselves and constituting the source of several Hellenic populations of later times (especially the Athenians presented by Herodotus 1.56 as the finest example of a Greek people descended from the Pelasgians.)...He well understood an aspect that would have been a positive in the eyes of the Greeks: being of Pelasgian origin, the Etruscans could be perceived, if not as Greeks in the strict sense (because they did not speak Greek) at least as related to a people with whom the Greeks were linked. In short, considered as ancient Pelasgians, the Etruscans were quasi-Hellenes."

This putative "Pelasgian" origin was also helpful to the Etruscans. "It is no coincidence either that around the time that Hellicanus developed the tradition of the Pelasgian origin of the Etruscans (firth century BC)... these two Etruscan cities (Spina and Caere) were centers of active trade with the Greek world. They presented themelves as founded by Pelasgians, highlighted their syngeneia" with this nearly Hellenic people, and conferred on themselves a prestigious foundation for the bonds of exchange and commercial partnership."

I'm quite aware that there are people who would interpret this claim by the Etruscans as meaning they must indeed descend from the "Pelasgians". The Etruscans are like a Rohrschack test; people see what they want to see.

In that regard it should be noted that the Pelasgian spoken, according to Herodotus, in Placia and Sylace near the Hellespont, and in Chalcidice , not in Cortona, as sometimes averred, is held by Dionysius not to resemble Etruscan at all. Well, at least it seems everyone is in agreement that Pelasgian was still spoken in some areas even at this late date. :)
Chalcidice is in Macedonia, by the way, so we are circling that area again...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalkid...Chalidikis.png

I'm rather persuaded by Briquet's conclusions about these stories: "Whether for the autochthonist thesis, or that identifying the Etruscans with the Pelasgians, or that they derived from Lydian colonists, their primary function was to account for the connections that existed at the time that these traditions were disseminated between the historical Etruscans and the Greeks. The meaning of a doctrine such as this, making the Etruscans natives, carried the corollary that they were mere Italian barbarians and were unrelated to Hellenism and its values: we recognize a development by hostile Greeks, probably the Syracusans at the time of their struggles against the Etruscans. The other two doctrines were rather favorable presentations: whether that of the Lydian origin...or that of the Pelasgian origin...With all of this we are far from scientific discourse."

I was particularly amused by the author's citation for a situation where, to facilitate trade, the Spartans asserted "brotherhood" with the Jews through their common origin from Abraham. Who knew? :)

That isn't to say that some historical memories might not have survived of an ancient population movement from the Aegean or other areas to the east into portions of Italy. We in fact know from archaeology that there was movement during the Bronze Age from Greece proper and Crete into Italy. The point is that we don't know if an additional migration happened specifically around 1000 BC to central Italy from either the northern Aegean or some other part of Anatolia, because the ancient writers contradict one another, and the stories are based on assertions that could be seen as agenda driven. I'm back to the beginning on this...if it happened, we don't know if it happened around 900 to 1000 BC, we don't know from where, and we don't know what they were like autsomally. Hopefully we'll know more soon.

What we do know, as the author points out, is that " we cannot reduce a people to a single origin to account for all they have been in history. Every people has been the result of a melting pot, formed by the superposition and mixing of diverse elements. Any attempt to explain it in terms of origin is historically simplistic and wrong."


It doesn't matter how often facts are presented. People will believe what they want to believe.
 
I fully agree with this statement:

I have noticed that some people are treating Herodottus as if he was like a modern historian with all the modern advantages of communication, records and travel. Think a lot of his histories are based on myths or stories he has picked from traders that travelled to those places. I do not for a moment believed that he travelled all over the Balkans and wrote down all the borders between the different tribes of Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians. Think of his writings as a guideline.
 
by the way it's funny to see reactions about Lemnian, Etruscans setting a colony just in an Aegean island, poor Greeks.
Or the Shekelesh and Sardana as Sea Peoples, like those Tuscan Tershen. Well, why expend time with those that don't like maths.
 
by the way it's funny to see reactions about Lemnian, Etruscans setting a colony just in an Aegean island, poor Greeks.
Or the Shekelesh and Sardana as Sea Peoples, like those Tuscan Tershen. Well, why expend time with those that don't like maths.

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/threa...tlement-found-in-Sardinia?highlight=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? :)
 

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