Population structure in Italy using ancient and modern samples

[Cato]

Cremation in Veneto appeared in the Middle Bronze Age is not a new thing

Utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[markod]

That Proto-Villanovans were Urnfield entering Italy through NE Italy is also believed by archeologists (which is also the area where the Rhaetians were). That those Urnfield were the Italic speaking tribes is more complicated, due to a whole series of considerations that have not yet come to a definitive conclusion on the Italics, on the difference between Western and Eastern Italics, and to the fact that those properly Italic are considered by some scholars only the Osco-Umbrians who practiced mostly inhumation while the proto-Villanovans are incinerators.

Green and red is where incineration is dominant, yellow area is where inhumation is dominant.

IIRC the Italian linguists who propound that the Latino-Faliscans arrived separately claim they did so from Anatolia via Apulia. Highly contentious to say the least. But I've never heard that they could have arrived as Urnfielders from Central Europe. Makes zero sense.

The Italian Urnfielders were either Proto-Italics who were partly conquered by a local or foreign Etruscan stratum, or they were Tyrsenians to begin with. Archaeological cultures don't just trifurcate into three different language families (Italic, Tyrsenian, Venetic) without conquest or major assimilation.

 

[CrazyDonkey]

Two possibilities:

1. The Etruscans were simply urbanized Villanovans.

2. The Etruscans colonized the Villanovans.

The problem is that there is nothing to distinguish the Latium tribes from the broader Villanovan culture.

 

[Pax Augusta]

2. The Etruscans colonized the Villanovans.

So the Etruscans colonized themselves, being that the Villanovans are the Etruscans. Villanovan is not the name of a people, it is the name of an Etruscan cultural facies.

The problem is that there is nothing to distinguish the Latium tribes from the broader Villanovan culture.

Not true, archaeologically there are differentiations.

 

[markod]

So the Etruscans colonized themselves, being that the Villanovans are the Etruscans. Villanovan is not the name of a people, it is the name of an Etruscan cultural facies.



Not true, archaeologically there are differentiations.

There is a window of about 200 years between the establishment of the archaeological culture and the first Etruscan inscriptions in which conquest, elite domination or the like might have occurred. I don't think it's likely but something like that seems to be the 'mainstream' view in English language scholarship at the time, see Mallory, Anthony before that Gimbutas etc. .

 

[Pax Augusta]

There is a window of about 200 years between the establishment of the archaeological culture and the first Etruscan inscriptions in which conquest, elite domination or the like might have occurred. I don't think it's likely but something like that seems to be the 'mainstream' view in English language scholarship at the time, see Mallory, Anthony before that Gimbutas etc. .

The window may be due to the introduction of the alphabet. None of these scholars is a specialist and there are many English speaking scholars who do not support what you say.

 

[markod]

The window may be due to the introduction of the alphabet. None of these scholars is a specialist and there are many English speaking scholars who do not support what you say.

I mean those scholars I mentioned have considerable influence in the field so it might not be a good idea to outright dismiss their opinions. Better to engage their arguments.

 

[Angela]

There is a window of about 200 years between the establishment of the archaeological culture and the first Etruscan inscriptions in which conquest, elite domination or the like might have occurred. I don't think it's likely but something like that seems to be the 'mainstream' view in English language scholarship at the time, see Mallory, Anthony before that Gimbutas etc. .

That's the view of people studying the Indo-Europeans, not of archaeologists, certainly not of Etruscologists from any country, not, at least, since the mid-twentieth century. They may be wrong, of course. That's a separate matter.

As we've discussed, there's no sign of a conquest in the archaeological layers. A slow infiltration by an elite is possible, but when, from what direction?

People have been debating this since the classical era. The resolution may come from ancient dna, but even then it's going to have to be put in the context of ancient dna both north and south of the Etruscan area.

 

[bicicleur 2]

That's the view of people studying the Indo-Europeans, not of archaeologists, certainly not of Etruscologists from any country, not, at least, since the mid-twentieth century. They may be wrong, of course. That's a separate matter.
As we've discussed, there's no sign of a conquest in the archaeological layers. A slow infiltration by an elite is possible, but when, from what direction?
People have been debating this since the classical era. The resolution may come from ancient dna, but even then it's going to have to be put in the context of ancient dna both north and south of the Etruscan area.

yes, but a slow infiltration would have left some genetic markers
which, despite efforts have not been detected yet

my guess is Estruscans are 'urbanised Villanovans', as CrazyDonkey puts it
in which case Villanovans would have been multilingual

Hittite empire and Urartu were multilingual too
in Urartu, Armenian language came into the written record, only after a dynastic switch

 

[Angela]

yes, but a slow infiltration would have left some genetic markers
which, despite efforts have not been detected yet

my guess is Estruscans are 'urbanised Villanovans', as CrazyDonkey puts it
in which case Villanovans would have been multilingual

Hittite empire and Urartu were multilingual too
in Urartu, Armenian language came into the written record, only after a dynastic switch

Well, we don't know their yDna, not even at low resolution.

Let's say, for example, some J2 shows up. We would need the ydna of the "proto-Vilanovans" or "Villanovans" etc. Let's say they don't have any. Would that be it? I don't think so. We'd have to see if the same or related J2 shows up at the same time or earlier in southern Italy, which might mean it just filtered up over centuries or even a millennia.

We would also have to check across the Adriatic. Perhaps there was a movement into Italy in the mid-to-late Bronze, but it was by people from parts of Greece or the Balkans.

It's much more complicated than amateurs have been proposing because they refused to accept that "additional" CHG/IN had been moving into southern Europe, and not just Italy, for a very long time.

I wonder about E-V13 too. When did it arrive? Was it really only with Magna Graecia, or was it also in the Bronze Age?

I do agree there's nothing to say that some people intruding from the north or northeast might have adopted the language of the locals. The Basques did it, after all.

To get back to this paper, one of the conclusions which some people are losing sight of is that most of the "admixture", even the most recent ones, took place from within Italy, i.e. people from the south moving north. That basically stopped with the fall of the Roman Empire, which led to some drift. It has resumed, which will change Italian genetics once again. Even I have contributed to it.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Well, we don't know their yDna, not even at low resolution.

Let's say, for example, some J2 shows up. We would need the ydna of the "proto-Vilanovans" or "Villanovans" etc. Let's say they don't have any. Would that be it? I don't think so. We'd have to see if the same or related J2 shows up at the same time or earlier in southern Italy, which might mean it just filtered up over centuries or even a millennia.

We would also have to check across the Adriatic. Perhaps there was a movement into Italy in the mid-to-late Bronze, but it was by people from parts of Greece or the Balkans.

It's much more complicated than amateurs have been proposing because they refused to accept that "additional" CHG/IN had been moving into southern Europe, and not just Italy, for a very long time.

I wonder about E-V13 too. When did it arrive? Was it really only with Magna Graecia, or was it also in the Bronze Age?

I do agree there's nothing to say that some people intruding from the north or northeast might have adopted the language of the locals. The Basques did it, after all.

To get back to this paper, one of the conclusions which some people are losing sight of is that most of the "admixture", even the most recent ones, took place from within Italy, i.e. people from the south moving north. That basically stopped with the fall of the Roman Empire, which led to some drift. It has resumed, which will change Italian genetics once again. Even I have contributed to it.

what language would the people from the south, coming to northern Italy have spoken?
Semitic, Greek, something else?
Etruscan is not completely isolate, like Basque, but still it has very few relatives

 

[markod]

yes, but a slow infiltration would have left some genetic markers
which, despite efforts have not been detected yet

my guess is Estruscans are 'urbanised Villanovans', as CrazyDonkey puts it
in which case Villanovans would have been multilingual

Hittite empire and Urartu were multilingual too
in Urartu, Armenian language came into the written record, only after a dynastic switch

That doesn't leave much room for the Proto-Italics, however. Villanova culture wasn't very expansive - quite the opposite.

 

[berun]

Hum, you get the same paradox to find up Urnfield (Celts) in a region that afterwards is not Celtic? a similar casa happens in Catalonia with Iberian, the Urnfield deliver cremation in pots and new pots but... language was not Celtic either.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Hum, you get the same paradox to find up Urnfield (Celts) in a region that afterwards is not Celtic? a similar casa happens in Catalonia with Iberian, the Urnfield deliver cremation in pots and new pots but... language was not Celtic either.

yes, many urnfields were Celts, but who says all urnfield people were Celts?
and after all, Celtic and Italic are related language groups

 

[Angela]

what language would the people from the south, coming to northern Italy have spoken?
Semitic, Greek, something else?
Etruscan is not completely isolate, like Basque, but still it has very few relatives

Why would they be speaking a Semitic language? That smacks of the kind of thinking that used to think Minoans were descended from Egyptians. So far as I know, there is no archaeologically attested evidence of a movement from the Levant to Italy since the Neolithic.

Etruscan is either a "native" language adopted by newer arrivals in one specific area, or it's a non-IE language from Anatolia, the Aegean, or somewhere on the Balkan peninsula.

There's some fringe theories like the wacko one that ties it to Altaic, of all things, but basically there doesn't seem to be any close relative other than Rhaetic or Lemnian.

Even if they find a link to some other language group it doesn't change the fact that the later comers arriving in Toscana and northern Lazio might have adopted the local language, as Indo-European males probably did in the Basque country, another area that is not particularly isolated in a geographic sense. I've always been intrigued by the fact that Etruscan culture gave women slightly more power and independence than either the Indo-European Latins or the Indo-European Greeks, or certainly than any of the pastoral Semitic groups in the Near East. Could the same be said of the Basques? Perhaps that has something to do with it? Perhaps these men, Indo-European and/or non-Indo-European, adopted the language of the women?

As for what people filtering into Italy from the east (Balkans) or southeast (Aegean and Anatolia) were speaking, it depends on the time period, yes? In the first millennium BC the Greek migrants to Magna Graecia and even to areas like the Veneto and Liguria where the Greeks had colonies, they would have been speaking Greek.

Likewise, if we go back into the late Bronze Age, Mycenaeans would have been speaking Greek. Their predecessors, Minoan like people, would have been speaking a Minoan tongue, yes?* People coming from the Balkans might have been speaking some less differentiated Indo-European variant, or, if they were being pushed out, some "farmer" language.

ED. That's also an unclassified and indecipherable language. It might be the "original" farmer language, or it might be the language of the migrants from Anatolia. It's impossible to say.

 

[Sile]

what language would the people from the south, coming to northern Italy have spoken?
Semitic, Greek, something else?
Etruscan is not completely isolate, like Basque, but still it has very few relatives

If people believe italians entered Italy from the north-east then they are part of the Danubian culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danubian_culture

 

[bicicleur 2]

I associate Semitic with the expansion of bronze from Anatolia/Mesopotamia. Which IMO would be the first candidate if Etruscan wasn't native to Italy.
But my guess is, Etruscan was an old neolithic/chalcolithis local laguage, which was adopted by some incoming IE people, which as you suggested may also have happened in Basque.

 

[Sile]

I associate Semitic with the expansion of bronze from Anatolia/Mesopotamia. Which IMO would be the first candidate if Etruscan wasn't native to Italy.
But my guess is, Etruscan was an old neolithic/chalcolithis local laguage, which was adopted by some incoming IE people, which as you suggested may also have happened in Basque.

so would you believe this article/study then ?
http://www.federatio.org/mi_bibl/Toth_Brunner_Raetic.pdf

 

[CrazyDonkey]

So the Etruscans colonized themselves, being that the Villanovans are the Etruscans. Villanovan is not the name of a people, it is the name of an Etruscan cultural facies.



Not true, archaeologically there are differentiations.

Which ones? They both practiced cremation, burying their dead in funerary "hut" urns, linking them to the Urnfield culture.

My point is that if the Etruscans did not colonize the Villanovans, then it was the Latial (Italite?) culture that was intrusive.

 

[brick]

I want to be in this trash-talking contest, too. The Etruscans were Slovenian!

"There is a genetic continuity between the ancient Etruscans and Veneti and the present day Slovenians."


http://www.theslovenian.com/articles/skulj.htm