Talk on Ancient Italian/Roman DNA over in Stanford.

[Salento]

I don't get what you mean.

That was my suspicion. Till I read that comment(the "not even Anatolian_BA") from the PHD attending the event.

It is saying that it’s all Political and untrue.

It’s been unleashing on us with subliminal messages, casting personal judgments, and spreading its utopian-propaganda, and Anti-American sentiment.

 

[Georgewalley]

Cardium pottery does derive from the Upper Euphrates-Levant region though - it seems to have spread via sea from the Aleppo plateau to the Adriatic and Italy (later Spain), before heading down into Tunisia and (in my opinion) eventually spreading into Africa. This is probably (again, imo) how Y DNA T, R1b-V88 etc. ended up in the Sahel among the Chadic branch.

Also there's no evidence that the EEF ancestry of the Balkans is from a farming wave originating East of Central Anatolia.

Also it's noteworthy to remember that many customs of the Roman army originated from Assyrians including the religion. Zoroastrianism was widespread among the roman religion and I'm pretty sure many Roman legion members were of Babylonian, Eastern in terms of origin that's why they have found even a single Levant outlier sample in Britain. The Levant Neolithic surely didn't come from Mycenaean samples, nor even Bronze Age Anatolians with high Iran Neolithic admixture had it, but later by the assimilation of non specific Near Eastern groups.

 

[Jovialis]

I'm going to wait for authentic information on this study. There's no sense in getting too excited over what some random anonymous layman claims to have seen, or even trust them to properly convey it. About samples we know nothing about really, in a place that may not be resentative of the acutal population.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Also it's noteworthy to remember that many customs of the Roman army originated from Assyrians including the religion. Zoroastrianism was widespread among the roman religion and I'm pretty sure many Roman legion members were of Babylonian, Eastern in terms of origin that's why they have found even a single Levant outlier sample in Britain. The Levant Neolithic surely didn't come from Mycenaean samples, nor even Bronze Age Anatolians with high Iran Neolithic admixture had it, but later by the assimilation of non specific Near Eastern groups.

Roman soldiers of non-Italian origin were almost always assigned in their local regions. I doubt your idea is correct.

 

[Jovialis]

I'm going to wait for authentic information on this study. There's no sense in getting too excited over what some random anonymous layman claims to have seen, or even trust them to properly convey it. About samples we know nothing about really, in a place that may not be resentative of the acutal population.

If the Romans are similar to Southern Italian, great! If they're similar to Northern Italians, that's great too. It just shows me that most italians are similar or somewhere between Mycenaeans and Romans in genetic affinity.

 

[Salento]

Great find, Jovialis! This is definitely a keeper, especially when, hopefully, the ancient dna starts coming in...

Urbanism in Ancient Peninsular Italy: developing a methodology for a database analysis of higher order settlements (350 BCE to 300 CE)
http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue40/2/index.html

Here's one after Roman colonization:

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/romurbital_mc_2015/

Maps posted by Jovialis and Latgal.

 

[Angela]

Maps posted by Jovialis and Latgal.

It would certainly have scrambled up the genetics to some degree all by itself.

Maybe we can put to rest Eurogenes' speculation that those "Southern" Colegno samples were from Crete, or that of some people from Anthrogenica who thought they were Jews. They were just Italian.

The density seems to be from southern Toscana through Campania, though, yes?

I wish it included Sicilia.

 

[Salento]

It would certainly have scrambled up the genetics to some degree all by itself.

Maybe we can put to rest Eurogenes' speculation that they were from Crete, or that of some people from Anthrogenica who thought they were Jews?

The density seems to be from southern Toscana through Campania, though, yes?

I wish it included Sicilia.

Yep, That's how it looks @ first sight.

 

[Angela]

Unusually high frequencies of J in Villanova would definitely sell me on the Asia Minor hypothesis. Amazing that we still have no samples from those sites.

Unless J2 has been in Italy since the Copper Age or Early Bronze, yes?

 

[Angela]

Another possibility which I raised upthread, and also was raised by Markod, I think.

"

Originally Posted by ToBeOrNotToBe
It does seem like there was a separate class of Northern Italian-like people though. Also obviously though, not Northern European-like.



How could you possibly know that, since we don't have the burial contexts of the samples? You really love to wildly speculate. What about Etruscans? They were Kings of Rome. Are you sure they were Northern Italian like? What if they too are closer to Southern Italians?"



In other words, another possibility is that one of these two groups was Etruscan and one Roman. Who was more "Northern" I have no idea at this point. Neither do I know which ones were "elite" and which not.

As much fun as there can be in speculating, there isn't enough data to reach any conclusions. Nothing is clear. There may not be even when the paper comes out, given that there are only 8 samples.

 

[Cpluskx]

Z2103 and J2 (obviously only specific branches of J2a and J2b, as J2 is old) have such a magnificent modern-day correlation that I'm puzzled at the lack of J2 in Yamnaya.
Just look at this:

Off-topic but what's with the distribution of R1b in Turkey? Doesn't seem to be correlated with any R1b rich Indo-European population / empire there. Hittites, Luwians etc. generally were in Central-West, Greeks in West, Galatians in Central and Turkic people mostly settled in Central and West too. In this map Northern Turkey has the highest % of R1b

 

[Jovialis]

I'm going to wait for authentic information on this study. There's no sense in getting too excited over what some random anonymous layman claims to have seen, or even trust them to properly convey it. About samples we know nothing about really, in a place that may not be resentative of the acutal population.

@Megalophias, care to explain to me why this merits a downvote?

 

[Angela]

Roman soldiers of non-Italian origin were almost always assigned in their local regions. I doubt your idea is correct.

Indeed, they served as auxiliaries, as I also pointed out.

Well, some Emperors had a Praetorian Guard composed of Germans, I believe. Was it Claudius? I can't remember. I'd have to look it up.

In a city of a million or more people I doubt it would make any long term impact.

 

[Megalophias]

Ryukendo said specifically that he is talking about components from the ADMIXTURE run from shown in the presentation; that's the context of no Levantine in Anatolia BA. As we all know ADMIXTURE gives varying results depending on what samples are used, and there is no mystery if it doesn't give exactly the same results as a qpAdm model.

There were no samples from 1700-700 BC, so none from the Middle or Late Bronze Age or initial Iron Age, so any ancestry present in the Republican samples and not yet in the Early Bronze Age could still have arrived in the studied region of Central Italy not long after Emilia and Sicily.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Off-topic but what's with the distribution of R1b in Turkey? Doesn't seem to be correlated with any R1b rich Indo-European population / empire there. Hittites, Luwians etc. generally were in Central-West, Greeks in West, Galatians in Central and Turkic people mostly settled in Central and West too. In this map Northern Turkey has the highest % of R1b

Hard to say really, there are so many different hypotheses. Most obvious would be some kind of proto-Armenian tribe, but I'm not sure if I agree with that. It could also be from the Circassians (they were famously red-headed, so probably originally had a lot of Z2103):

It could also be from some kind of proto-Anatolian invasion if you believe in a Steppe origin, and basically there's too many things to give a likely answer.

One other thing - people from the Pontic region of Turkey have noticeably higher rates of red hair, light skin etc - to a really great extent. They're still mostly Turkish looking of course, but if you see a light skinned/light haired Turk, they are virtually always from the North coast. Think of any light skinned/haired Turk and test that out for yourself.

I'm leaning towards the Circassian hypothesis, by the way, ALTHOUGH it should be noted that the North of Turkey has had more of these light types for a long time - Antinous, for example, was a Bithynian Greek who seems to have looked Swedish even.

 

[Angela]

@Megalophias.

Indeed. The lack of samples from the middle to late Bronze Age is a big issue.

As to the question of Levantine ancestry in Anatolian Bronze, let's hope that when the paper comes out the authors present the results of both methods, and are precise in their language.

Certainly, I wouldn't be so churlish as to attribute the difficulties with this statement to the reporter. We're always grateful for any insight people can provide by attending these lectures.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Another possibility which I raised upthread, and also was raised by Markod, I think.

"

Originally Posted by ToBeOrNotToBe
It does seem like there was a separate class of Northern Italian-like people though. Also obviously though, not Northern European-like.



How could you possibly know that, since we don't have the burial contexts of the samples? You really love to wildly speculate. What about Etruscans? They were Kings of Rome. Are you sure they were Northern Italian like? What if they too are closer to Southern Italians?"



In other words, another possibility is that one of these two groups was Etruscan and one Roman. Who was more "Northern" I have no idea at this point. Neither do I know which ones were "elite" and which not.

As much fun as there can be in speculating, there isn't enough data to reach any conclusions. Nothing is clear. There may not be even when the paper comes out, given that there are only 8 samples.

I know about the Etruscans having huge influence on early Rome, see my large earlier post (page 5). It's unlikely that the Etruscans came from the North though, what Early Bronze Age culture could they be associated with? There isn't one. In that post I basically said that I think it's likely even that the Etruscans spread to Italy as part of the Sea Peoples (see the map in that post) - the distant Indo-European thing I raised isn't likely, but it's a nice idea and I believe it. The Trojan origin myth for the founding of Rome wasn't just made up for fun, and it seems unlikely to me that the Lemnian link to Etruscan is from some not well-documented hiring of Italian mercenaries.

Plus, what people aren't fully realising (including me until recently), is that it's unlikely this increase in Iran_N was just from Magna Graecia - the Greeks never settled as far North as Lazio, and that can't explain the Etruscan language. The Sea Peoples origin is basically the only real explanation, imo (though they'd be genetically Minoan-like anyway due to their Aegean origin)

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Who disliked that post (the Circassian one)? The pigmentation point about the North of Turkey is pretty much true all the time, and that surely is related to the Z2103. Again, maybe be more open to other suggestions - think of any light-skinned/haired Turk, and see where they come from. 8/10 times they'll come from Pontic Turkey.

 

[Angela]

I know about the Etruscans having huge influence on early Rome, see my large earlier post (page 5). It's unlikely that the Etruscans came from the North though, what Early Bronze Age culture could they be associated with? There isn't one. In that post I basically said that I think it's likely even that the Etruscans spread to Italy as part of the Sea Peoples (see the map in that post) - the distant Indo-European thing I raised isn't likely, but it's a nice idea and I believe it. The Trojan origin myth for the founding of Rome wasn't just made up for fun, and it seems unlikely to me that the Lemnian link to Etruscan is from some not well-documented hiring of Italian mercenaries.

Plus, what people aren't fully realising (including me until recently), is that it's unlikely this increase in Iran_N was just from Magna Graecia - the Greeks never settled as far North as Lazio, and that can't explain the Etruscan language. The Sea Peoples origin is basically the only real explanation, imo (though they'd be genetically Minoan-like anyway due to their Aegean origin)

My dear man, did you never hear about Massalia (Marseilles), and the trading posts near Genova, and over by Venice, not to mention along the Adriatic coast of the Marche?

Fwiw, the Scots (and the English at some point) also thought they were descended from the people of Troy.

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

I wouldn't hang my hat on legends. We have enough trouble with archaeology and genetics.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

My dear man, did you never hear about Massalia (Marseilles), and the trading posts near Genova, and over by Venice, not to mention along the Adriatic coast of the Marche?

Fwiw, the Scots (and the English at some point) also thought they were descended from the people of Troy.

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

I wouldn't hang my hat on legends. We have enough trouble with archaeology and genetics.

Why would you expect trading posts to cause such a large increase in Iran_N? Settlement is the only thing that can really do that at scale. Unless you believe similar things about the Phoenicians etc., which I'm sure you don't.

Also, the majority of Scots and English never had an origin story with anything to do with Troy.