Talk on Ancient Italian/Roman DNA over in Stanford.

Why is it likely that the Sea peoples spread from Italy to the Eastern Med? Afaik all evidence points towards Aegean origins (e.g. with that pig DNA study from the Philistines). The Sherden link then would be that these people are the name-sake for modern Sardinians as a result of taking over power from the natives.

In terms of the IE-Tyrsenian link, of course it's speculation, but it has some limited evidence backing it up (not that I understand it). There's also the point of where did Etruscan originate from if not from the Sea Peoples. It surely isn't dated all the way back to Cardial Ware farmers, and it definitely isn't related to any branch of IE in Central Europe. The Sea Peoples are the only real explanation imo (and there's circumstantial things like the Teresh-Troy links etc.). Tyrsenian has been linked with Minoan etc. languages as part of a greater Aegean language family, and that also fits with the archaeology. These people (if the Aegean language family is legit) were definitely Pelasgians, and it just so turns out that the Pelasgians were close allies of Troy.

I do thrive on all of this stuff, I'll admit, but I'm a big believer against coincidences (and things like e.g. independent inventions). Even if my idea isn't the truth, I reckon there's a link.

Also, I don't think spread of people always correlates with spread of language - the main idea I've been speaking about over the past few months is that the R1b Bell Beakers were originally non-IE and merely adopted it from the cultures they moved into.


Villanovan culture has nothing to do with bronze age Anatolian cultures or with the Aegean cultures in general. There were movements from Central Europe and the Balkans, this is pretty clear looking at the Protovillanovan and Villanovan culture whose material cultures were clearly influenced by the Urnfield culture and Hallstat culture respectively, but there's no influence from Anatolia, at least by looking at the archaeological record. Even looking at the imports during the Villanovan period the imported objects mostly came from Nuragic Sardinia and later on from the Greek and the Phoenician colonies.
And as for the Sardinians their material culture was still Nuragic during the late bronze age and early iron age with nothing in common with the late bronze age or early iron age Aegean, the few external influences which were confined to metallic artifacts came mostly from Iberia and to a lesser extent Cyprus.
 
Villanovan culture has nothing to do with bronze age Anatolian cultures from the West, this is a fact. There were movements from Central Europe and the Balkans, this is pretty clear looking at the Protovillanovan and Villanovan culture whose material cultures were clearly influenced by the Urnfield culture and Hallstat culture respectively, but there's no influence from Anatolia, at least by looking at the archaeological record. Even looking at the imports during the early iron age they mostly came from Nuragic Sardinia and later on from the Greece and the Phoenician colonies.
And as for the Sardinians their material culture was still Nuragic during the late bronze age and early iron age with nothing in common with the late bronze age or early iron age Aegean, the few external influences which were confined to metallic artifacts came mostly from Iberia and to a lesser extent Cyprus.

So if Urnfield is Etruscan or perhaps Tyrsenian, what was the proto-Celtic Urheimat?
 
So if Urnfield is Etruscan or perhaps Tyrsenian, what was the proto-Celtic Urheimat?
I'm not saying Urnfield was Tyrsenian I'm saying that the Villanovan culture had more in common with the Balkans and Central Europe than with the late bronze age Aegean, there are zero similarities with the bronze age Aegean, so unless these sea peoples coming in the 12th century bc were ghosts there should be plenty of material finds proving their migration to Central Italy, but there isn't. We have plenty of material finds proving that the Phoenicians migrated to North Africa, or that the Greeks migrated to South italy, or that the Lombards migrated to Northen Italy, or the Anglo Saxons to England, where's the evidence from bronze age Aegean people migrating to Tuscany in the 12th century bc? not even one fragment of pottery, so I'm very skeptical, Villanovan material culture is pretty well known and it has no similarities with that of the late bronze age Aegean.
 
I'm not saying Urnfield was Tyrsenian I'm saying that the Villanovan culture had more in common with the Balkans and Central Europe than with the late bronze age Aegean, there are zero similarities with the bronze age Aegean, so unless these sea peoples coming in the 12th century bc were ghosts there should be plenty of material finds proving their migration to Central Italy, but there isn't.

That isn't true, but I agree the consensus is Urnfield origins. If Urnfield, though, wasn't Tyrsenian, what is the origin of Tyrsenian? Where did it come from - was it always in Italy? Does it date all the way back to Cardial Ware? The only major foreign influences on LBA Italy besides Central Europe were from the Aegean.
 
That's clearly different though, it doesn't reflect immediate origins like the Troy myth, which would be within the cultural memory of the early Romans. The world being created in 7 days obviously isn't within cultural memory.

Also regarding the Y DNA points - I've missed the obvious, and that's that the Sea People hypothesis would have people Minoan-like anyway. So they'd carry similar Y DNA to the Greeks. It appears though then that perhaps U152 came into Central Italy after J2 arrived.

Oh no, it wouldn't. Razib Khan once wrote a post about this issue, i.e. the short cultural memory of people about their origins if they happened more than about 1000 years earlier. There are many such examples around the world, and one of the problems modern genetics is encountering is exactly the resistance of some peoples to just accept that their foundation myths may have been just myths. Greeks of the classical era could not even associate their culture with that of the Mycenaeans, let alone remember their steppe origins, Indo-Aryans of the Iron Age never commented about their coming from the Central Asian steppes and strongly believed they were locals despite a few written evidences of population movements and ethnic conflicts in the Rigveda, and so on. It is far too much of a coincidence that Romans decided that their origins were precisely in the city that is the place of the most famous epic story of the Graeco-Roman world. Not from anywhere else, it had to be Troy, not a much less glorious and epic origin. The fact is that as far as I know there are no indications that early Romans, old Latins believed that, but it became common when Rome was the new power of the Mediterranean world, but it lacked some grand story and noble origin to enhance its legitimacy. I for one read any foundation myth of a people with several grains of salt if it is not supposed to have happened at the earliest some centuries before the story was written down.
 
Oh no, it wouldn't. Razib Khan once wrote a post about this issue, i.e. the short cultural memory of people about their origins if they happened more than about 1000 years earlier. There are many such examples around the world, and one of the problems modern genetics is encountering is exactly the resistance of some peoples to just accept that their foundation myths may have been just myths. Greeks of the classical era could not even associate their culture with that of the Mycenaeans, let alone remember their steppe origins, Indo-Aryans of the Iron Age never commented about their coming from the Central Asian steppes and strongly believed they were locals despite a few written evidences of population movements and ethnic conflicts in the Rigveda, and so on. It is far too much of a coincidence that Romans decided that their origins were precisely in the city that is the place of the most famous epic story of the Graeco-Roman world. Not from anywhere else, it had to be Troy, not a much less glorious and epic origin. The fact is that as far as I know there are no indications that early Romans, old Latins believed that, but it became common when Rome was the new power of the Mediterranean world, but it lacked some grand story and noble origin to enhance its legitimacy. I for one read any foundation myth of a people with several grains of salt if it is not supposed to have happened at the earliest some centuries before the story was written down.

Exactly so. Plus, the Romans were in conflict with Greece. Choosing the ancient enemies of Greece as their ancestors made sense.

It's clear from looking at origin stories of different peoples that they're always choosing some glorious ancestry. Good grief, the French Kings claimed descent from Jesus through Mary Magdalen at some points. Top that! :)
 
Oh no, it wouldn't. Razib Khan once wrote a post about this issue, i.e. the short cultural memory of people about their origins if they happened more than about 1000 years earlier. There are many such examples around the world, and one of the problems modern genetics is encountering is exactly the resistance of some peoples to just accept that their foundation myths may have been just myths. Greeks of the classical era could not even associate their culture with that of the Mycenaeans, let alone remember their steppe origins, Indo-Aryans of the Iron Age never commented about their coming from the Central Asian steppes and strongly believed they were locals despite a few written evidences of population movements and ethnic conflicts in the Rigveda, and so on. It is far too much of a coincidence that Romans decided that their origins were precisely in the city that is the place of the most famous epic story of the Graeco-Roman world. Not from anywhere else, it had to be Troy, not a much less glorious and epic origin. The fact is that as far as I know there are no indications that early Romans, old Latins believed that, but it became common when Rome was the new power of the Mediterranean world, but it lacked some grand story and noble origin to enhance its legitimacy. I for one read any foundation myth of a people with several grains of salt if it is not supposed to have happened at the earliest some centuries before the story was written down.


The Indo-Aryans if I'm not mistaken believed the Aryans (their ancestors - they didn't imagine them as being different) came from the far North though. Anyway, the Trojan founding myth would have been less than 1000 years before Rome, if that's your cultural memory cut-off point.

What are some examples of commonly-held origin stories being obviously wrong? I'd guess that they're mostly correct - I think the same about Jewish origins in Mesopotamia.
 
That isn't true, but I agree the consensus is Urnfield origins. If Urnfield, though, wasn't Tyrsenian, what is the origin of Tyrsenian? Where did it come from - was it always in Italy? Does it date all the way back to Cardial Ware? The only major foreign influences on LBA Italy besides Central Europe were from the Aegean.
In late bronze age Tuscany or Northen Latium there are very few Mycenaean imports compared to South Italy, and there's evidence of Proto Villanovan culture extending from North to South, think of the Ausonian facies in Lipari for example which is associated with the violent destruction of the previous Milazzese settlements, rather than the opposite. As for the origins of the Tyrsenian language it's impossible to know from certain but it is first attested in 8th century inscriptions from Etruria. Whereas the LBA inscriptions from Western Anatolia are all Luwian hieroglyphs.
 
Exactly so. Plus, the Romans were in conflict with Greece. Choosing the ancient enemies of Greece as their ancestors made sense.

It's clear from looking at origin stories of different peoples that they're always choosing some glorious ancestry. Good grief, the French Kings claimed descent from Jesus through Mary Magdalen at some points. Top that! :)

Lol, always disliking my posts. Why does Augustus's documented blondism upset you? It doesn't shift Roman contributions to civilisation to the North. Greek and Roman civilisation is a purely Mediterranean accomplishment.
 
I don't see why it's too late, but I agree we can't know for sure that they belong to Y DNA Z2103. I'm just trying to figure out why Pontic Turks have more light types. One other thing - if Pontic Turks are in general the same colour as normal Turks but given they have more light types, it suggests a recent introduction of those light types. In any case, there's something different for Northern Turkey in terms of having individuals with light features at much greater rates than the rest of Turkey, and it correlates with Z2103.

Di you think the Circassians made a huge and fast genetic replacement in North Turkey in some 200 years and nobody noticed it? Also by the 19th century of course the population was even larger than it had been centuries earlier. You surely do not believe the Circassians were 100% Z2103, so they should have had a massive impact replacing most of the males in that large area, even though it is also known that they in fact migrated to all of Anatolia and even Syria and Lebanon, not overwhelmingly concentrating just in the Pontic area. That hypothesis would be like implying Circassians were an incredibly numerous population and had a massive advantage over the locals to become so prominent in less than 200 years. Hmm no. And there's the "small problem" that once again you are trying to figure things out by simply deciding on your own that something "must have been like this" even in the absence of any concrete hint (e.g. that Circassians were very rich in Z2103, or more upthread that Etruscan and Minoan were or rather must be Anatolian IE because, well, because it would fit your idea of a "simple explanation" for the genetic history of Southern Europe).

As for light features, please if you want to figure it out forget Y-DNA haplogroups for a moment and look for autosomal admixtures. You might also consider the possibility that they were already like that and became so simply via drift, local selection and lots of earlier admixture events followed by local selection pressures. Z2103 is not particularly associated with light features in the Caucasus anyways. Ingush people with all their J1 (or is it J2?) are much lighter than Armenians with all their Z2103. It might be that those things (genes for lighter features and male haplogroups) have a totally independent history. Correlation is not causation.
 
In late bronze age Tuscany or Northen Latium there are very few Mycenaean imports compared to South Italy, and there's evidence of Proto Villanovan culture extending from North to South, think of the Ausonian facies in Lipari for example which is associated with the violent destruction of the previous Milazzese settlements, rather than the opposite. As for the origins of the Tyrsenian language it's impossible to know from certain but it is first attested in 8th century inscriptions from Etruria. Whereas the LBA inscriptions from Western Anatolia are all Luwian hieroglyphs.

But what about the Pelasgians, they weren't Luwian or Mycenaean and Tyrsenian has been linked to a greater Aegean language family after all.
 
Di you think the Circassians made a huge and fast genetic replacement in North Turkey in some 200 years and nobody noticed it? Also by the 19th century of course the population was even larger than it had been centuries earlier. You surely do not believe the Circassians were 100% Z2103, so they should have had a massive impact replacing most of the males in that large area, even though it is also known that they in fact migrated to all of Anatolia and even Syria and Lebanon, not overwhelmingly concentrating just in the Pontic area. That hypothesis would be like implying Circassians were an incredibly numerous population and had a massive advantage over the locals to become so prominent in less than 200 years. Hmm no. And there's the "small problem" that once again you are trying to figure things out by simply deciding on your own that something "must have been like this" even in the absence of any concrete hint (e.g. that Circassians were very rich in Z2103, or more upthread that Etruscan and Minoan were or rather must be Anatolian IE because, well, because it would fit your idea of a "simple explanation" for the genetic history of Southern Europe).

As for light features, please if you want to figure it out forget Y-DNA haplogroups for a moment and look for autosomal admixtures. You might also consider the possibility that they were already like that and became so simply via drift, local selection and lots of earlier admixture events followed by local selection pressures. Z2103 is not particularly associated with light features in the Caucasus anyways. Ingush people with all their J1 (or is it J2?) are much lighter than Armenians with all their Z2103. It might be that those things (genes for lighter features and male haplogroups) have a totally independent history. Correlation is not causation.

Why would it have to be huge and fast genetic replacement? They would just blend in - just like the Irish have in Britain in recent times. Common estimations put millions of Turks as having Circassian ancestry, most of those in the Pontic region.

I don't think they were 100% Z2103, obviously. As to criticism of my speculative thinking - I do come to conclusions when I don't see other alternatives, but don't most? If there are alternatives I'm missing, then suggest them. Until then, a best-guess is the best hypothesis ipso facto. And I don't associate haplogroups with lightness universally - it was just in the case of Pontic Turks that I was speculating the cause of higher Z2103 was associated with increases in light features. Maciamo does the same with R1b and rufosity.
 
The Indo-Aryans if I'm not mistaken believed the Aryans (their ancestors - they didn't imagine them as being different) came from the far North though. Anyway, the Trojan founding myth would have been less than 1000 years before Rome, if that's your cultural memory cut-off point.

What are some examples of commonly-held origin stories being obviously wrong? I'd guess that they're mostly correct - I think the same about Jewish origins in Mesopotamia.

The Rigveda suggests a cold homeland, but Indo-Aryans never interpreted that as a homeland outside of South Asia. They always saw themselves as locals and tended to interpret their homeland as somewhere near or in the Himalayas or something like that. The Rigveda was composed by a culture much earlier and very unlike the Indo-Aryan kingdoms and empires of the Iron Age.

Well, the ludicrous recent NYT piece on David Reich presented the case of the Tuvalu myths being "disrespected" by the findings of ancient DNA. The Exodus probably did not happen, not in that way exactly, though I think it broadly tells us much about the yoke of Egyptian rule in LBA Canaan. The Poles clinged for a long time on their supposed Sarmatian origins. The Hungarians often still insist they and their language directly comes from the Huns.

Anyways, the Troy story would perhaps make some sense for Etruscans, but not for Romans, unless Romans somehow remembered the origin of their Etruscan forefathers but forgot the roots of their own Latin ethnicity. Strange.
 
The Rigveda suggests a cold homeland, but Indo-Aryans never interpreted that as a homeland outside of South Asia. They always saw themselves as locals and tended to interpret their homeland as somewhere near or in the Himalayas or something like that. The Rigveda was composed by a culture much earlier and very unlike the Indo-Aryan kingdoms and empires of the Iron Age.

Well, the ludicrous recent NYT piece on David Reich presented the case of the Tuvalu myths being "disrespected" by the findings of ancient DNA. The Exodus probably did not happen, not in that way exactly, though I think it broadly tells us much about the yoke of Egyptian rule in LBA Canaan. The Poles clinged for a long time on their supposed Sarmatian origins. The Hungarians often still insist they and their language directly comes from the Huns.

Anyways, the Troy story would perhaps make some sense for Etruscans, but not for Romans, unless Romans somehow remembered the origin of their Etruscan forefathers but forgot the roots of their own Latin ethnicity. Strange.

True, but the Tuvalu would have been a small primitive disunited tribe so cultural memories wouldn't hold as well. The Polish point idk if it was believed by the majority, but the Hungarian thing is true - they thought their ancestors were Mongolian-looking and blended in heavily to become White, so that's fair enough. Still, it probably isn't that far from the truth, as the Hungarian language must have come from well further East.

Also, I believe in the Exodus story - there are multiple links which I looked into a while ago, including very old inscriptions from deep inside Egyptian territory that are basically the same as certain Bible passages.

As for the Troy story not making sense for the Romans - if I'm not mistaken it was only concerning the founding of Rome, which the Etruscans likely played the main role in.
 
Why would it have to be huge and fast genetic replacement? They would just blend in - just like the Irish have in Britain in recent times.

I don't think they were 100% Z2103, obviously. As to criticism of my speculative thinking - I do come to conclusions when I don't see other alternatives, but don't most? If there are alternatives I'm missing, then suggest them. Until then, a best-guess is the best hypothesis ipso facto. And I don't associate haplogroups with lightness universally - it was just in the case of Pontic Turks that I was speculating the cause of higher Z2103 was associated with increases in light features. Maciamo does the same with R1b and rufosity.

The problem is not with your conclusions, it is that you invent evidences that do not exist to substantiate your conclusions. You state some premises to reinforce your conclusions, but you do not care to look if thise premises make sense or even exist in the first place. It is best to just say "my hunch is this and this, but we lack evidences to claim anything". I make that all the time, but I do not say "I believe this happened" to fit my hypothesis if there are evidences on the contrary or if there is absolutely no clue to make me hold that belief. But your willingness to try to speculate and devise some explanations to what the data and evidences show us is very welcome. You should just not be way too fond of those hypothesis, because until later and better evidences they are just fun speculations.

I meant it had to be a huge and fast genetic replacement because that region has a reasonably high Z2103 proportion, it had to blend in and grow in frequency mostly in the last 200 years, and they would have surely brought other haplogroups besides Z2103, so let's say a growth of 20% in the percentage of Z2103 would mean a 40% genetic replacement by a population half Z2103. I think that is most unlikely.

in my opinion the high Z2103 may be a cumulative effect of many IE and non-IE but IE-related migrations followed by a higher preservation of the Y-DNA pool of that region due to its mountainous nature, relatively cut off from mass migrations. Turks, Kurds, Assyrians, many peoples seem to have settled mainly in parts of Turkey south of that region. What if a higher proportion of Z2103 is not a recent thing, but rather a mire preserved genetic pool from a time when Anatolia was mainly IE and Caucasian?
 
The problem is not with your conclusions, it is that you invent evidences that do not exist to substantiate your conclusions. You state some premises to reinforce your conclusions, but you do not care to look if thise premises make sense or even exist in the first place. It is best to just say "my hunch is this and this, but we lack evidences to claim anything". I make that all the time, but I do not say "I believe this happened" to fit my hypothesis if there are evidences on the contrary or if there is absolutely no clue to make me hold that belief. But your willingness to try to speculate and devise some explanations to what the data and evidences show us is very welcome. You should just not be way too fond of those hypothesis, because until later and better evidences they are just fun speculations.

I meant it had to be a huge and fast genetic replacement because that region has a reasonably high Z2103 proportion, it had to blend in and grow in frequency mostly in the last 200 years, and they would have surely brought other haplogroups besides Z2103, so let's say a growth of 20% in the percentage of Z2103 would mean a 40% genetic replacement by a population half Z2103. I think that is most unlikely.

in my opinion the high Z2103 may be a cumulative effect of many IE and non-IE but IE-related migrations followed by a higher preservation of the Y-DNA pool of that region due to its mountainous nature, relatively cut off from mass migrations. Turks, Kurds, Assyrians, many peoples seem to have settled mainly in parts of Turkey south of that region. What if a higher proportion of Z2103 is not a recent thing, but rather a mire preserved genetic pool from a time when Anatolia was mainly IE and Caucasian?

Saying that I believe something doesn't mean I'm claiming it was a fact (like OM). And fair point about the Z2103, I'm not sure then.
 
The Rigveda suggests a cold homeland, but Indo-Aryans never interpreted that as a homeland outside of South Asia. They always saw themselves as locals and tended to interpret their homeland as somewhere near or in the Himalayas or something like that. The Rigveda was composed by a culture much earlier and very unlike the Indo-Aryan kingdoms and empires of the Iron Age.

Well, the ludicrous recent NYT piece on David Reich presented the case of the Tuvalu myths being "disrespected" by the findings of ancient DNA. The Exodus probably did not happen, not in that way exactly, though I think it broadly tells us much about the yoke of Egyptian rule in LBA Canaan. The Poles clinged for a long time on their supposed Sarmatian origins. The Hungarians often still insist they and their language directly comes from the Huns.

Anyways, the Troy story would perhaps make some sense for Etruscans, but not for Romans, unless Romans somehow remembered the origin of their Etruscan forefathers but forgot the roots of their own Latin ethnicity. Strange.

Here's the Exodus thing I was referring to - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script#Wadi_el-Hol_inscriptions

This is in Central Egypt, by the way - around 2000 BC.

There's another thing which I can't find, but basically it was something from Numbers and really old.
 
But what about the Pelasgians, they weren't Luwian or Mycenaean and Tyrsenian has been linked to a greater Aegean language family after all.
Unfortunately the name Pelasgian was used by ancient historians in an extremely vague manner and these "Pelasgians", whatever they were, were assigned dozens of different homelands so it's pretty much impossible to say what these Pelasgians even were, let alone if they had anything to do with the Etruscans, it might have originally been an umbrella term to designate any non Greek ethnicity though that's just a hypothesis. There are those few controversial inscriptions from Lemnos, but those are from the late 6th century bc while tue first Etruscan ones are from two centuries before. If there was a migration from the Aegean, it must have occurred very late, because the Villanovan culture which persists in Etruria until at least 700 bc is very different from the Aegean cultures, so this migration of Etruscans to Tuscany, if it ever happened, wasn't connected to the sea peoples' movements which took place in the early 12th century bc, when the Proto Villanovan culture had just started to develop in Etruria.
 
That isn't true, but I agree the consensus is Urnfield origins. If Urnfield, though, wasn't Tyrsenian, what is the origin of Tyrsenian? Where did it come from - was it always in Italy? Does it date all the way back to Cardial Ware? The only major foreign influences on LBA Italy besides Central Europe were from the Aegean.

Considering the huge extent of Urnfield and the patchwork pattern of settlements of much earlier BB and things like that, I wouldn't be surprised if, just like Basques and Castillians were not that different in terms of material culture in the late Middle Ages AFAIK, Urnfield still included people who kept their EEF language (perhaps in anither mountainous area like the Alps) as well as the IE-derived continuum of Northwestern IE languages, one of which would become Celtic (and possibly another one Italic). That kind of multilingual sutuation in culturally similar area probably happened with BB, with late Sumer and Akkadia, etc.

I confess not knowing much about Urnfield, but maybe someone here can enlighten me: to what extent is Urnfield a homogeneous culture or actually a broad cultural horizon with several regionally distinctive cultures?
 
Considering the huge extent of Urnfield and the patchwork pattern of settlements of much earlier BB and things like that, I wouldn't be surprised if, just like Basques and Castillians were not that different in terms of material culture in the late Middle Ages AFAIK, Urnfield still included people who kept their EEF language (perhaps in anither mountainous area like the Alps) as well as the IE-derived continuum of Northwestern IE languages, one of which would become Celtic (and possibly another one Italic). That kind of multilingual sutuation in culturally similar area probably happened with BB, with late Sumer and Akkadia, etc.

I confess not knowing much about Urnfield, but maybe someone here can enlighten me: to what extent is Urnfield a homogeneous culture or actually a broad cultural horizon with several regionally distinctive cultures?

Urnfield was very expansionist though, which seems unlikely if they spoke two completely separate languages (rather than in the case of the Basques, which is just trading with neighbours).
 

This thread has been viewed 40350 times.

Back
Top