The Arrival of Steppe & Iranian Related Ancestry in Islands of West Mediterranean

Johane Derite

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The Arrival of Steppe & Iranian Related Ancestry in Islands of West Mediterranean

Abstract



A series of studies have documented how Steppe pastoralist-related ancestry reached central Europe by at least 2500 BCE, while Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 BCE. However, the spread of these ancestries into the western Mediterranean where they have contributed to many populations living today remains poorly understood. We generated genome-wide ancient DNA from the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Sardinia, increasing the number of individuals with reported data from these islands from 3 to 52. We obtained data from the oldest skeleton excavated from the Balearic islands (dating to ~2400 BCE), and show that this individual had substantial Steppe pastoralist-derived ancestry; however, later Balearic individuals had less Steppe heritage reflecting geographic heterogeneity or immigration from groups with more European first farmer-related ancestry. In Sicily, Steppe pastoralist ancestry arrived by ~2200 BCE and likely came at least in part from Spain as it was associated with Iberian-specific Y chromosomes. In Sicily, Iranian-related ancestry also arrived by the Middle Bronze Age, thus revealing that this ancestry type, which was ubiquitous in the Aegean by this time, also spread further west prior to the classical period of Greek expansion. In Sardinia, we find no evidence of either eastern ancestry type in the Nuragic Bronze Age, but show that Iranian-related ancestry arrived by at least ~300 BCE and Steppe ancestry arrived by ~300 CE, joined at that time or later by North African ancestry. These results falsify the view that the people of Sardinia are isolated descendants of Europe's first farmers. Instead, our results show that the island's admixture history since the Bronze Age is as complex as that in many other parts of Europe.



LINK: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10....4ytKboJsaiJK3WonMDDKDVcU3l-UXcERzb5c9-9fgyVjU
 
J2b-L283 found amongst the Nuragic Culture.
 
The Arrival of Steppe & Iranian Related Ancestry in Islands of West Mediterranean

Abstract



A series of studies have documented how Steppe pastoralist-related ancestry reached central Europe by at least 2500 BCE, while Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 BCE. However, the spread of these ancestries into the western Mediterranean where they have contributed to many populations living today remains poorly understood. We generated genome-wide ancient DNA from the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Sardinia, increasing the number of individuals with reported data from these islands from 3 to 52. We obtained data from the oldest skeleton excavated from the Balearic islands (dating to ~2400 BCE), and show that this individual had substantial Steppe pastoralist-derived ancestry; however, later Balearic individuals had less Steppe heritage reflecting geographic heterogeneity or immigration from groups with more European first farmer-related ancestry. In Sicily, Steppe pastoralist ancestry arrived by ~2200 BCE and likely came at least in part from Spain as it was associated with Iberian-specific Y chromosomes. In Sicily, Iranian-related ancestry also arrived by the Middle Bronze Age, thus revealing that this ancestry type, which was ubiquitous in the Aegean by this time, also spread further west prior to the classical period of Greek expansion. In Sardinia, we find no evidence of either eastern ancestry type in the Nuragic Bronze Age, but show that Iranian-related ancestry arrived by at least ~300 BCE and Steppe ancestry arrived by ~300 CE, joined at that time or later by North African ancestry. These results falsify the view that the people of Sardinia are isolated descendants of Europe's first farmers. Instead, our results show that the island's admixture history since the Bronze Age is as complex as that in many other parts of Europe.



LINK: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10....4ytKboJsaiJK3WonMDDKDVcU3l-UXcERzb5c9-9fgyVjU

Thanks, Johane. Good to see this paper is out.

I'll read it with interest. (There goes the complicated dinner I was going to make!) I want to see if they're talking about Sardinia wide ancestry or if they examine the ancestry on the isolated highlands and say the same thing about that area.
 
The Balearic islands:

"Mallorca_EBA dates to the earliest period of permanent occupation of the islands at around 2400BCE10,49 209 . We parsimoniously modeled Mallorca_EBA as deriving 36.9 ± 4.2% of her ancestry from a210 source related to Yamnaya_Samara; all fitting models require Steppe ancestry, whereas no Iranian211 related ancestry is required to achieve a fit (Fig. 4, Supplementary Table 9). We next used qpAdm212 to identify “proximal” sources for Mallorca_EBA’s ancestry that are more closely related to this213 individual in space and time, and found that she can be modeled as a clade with the (small) subsetof Iberian Bell Beaker culture associated individuals who carried Steppe-derived ancestry4 214 (p=0.442).215 This suggests that the movements of people that brought Steppe ancestry into Iberia may have216 been related to those that first settled the Balearic islands. However, archaeological evidence forthe Beaker complex in the Balearic islands during the 3rd millennium BCE is scarce9 217 , so it is possible218 that a related non-Beaker using group spread this ancestry.219 Our estimates of Steppe ancestry in the two later Balearic Islands individuals are lower than the220 earlier one: 26.3 ± 5.1% for Formentera_MBA and 23.1 ± 3.6% for Menorca_LBA (Supplementary221 Table 9), but the Middle to Late Bronze Age Balearic individuals are not a clade relative to non222 Balearic groups. Specifically, we find that f4(Mbuti.DG, X; Formentera_MBA, Menorca_LBA) is223 positive when X=Iberia_Chalcolithic (Z=2.6) or X=Sardinia_Nuragic_BA (Z=2.7). While it is tempting224 to interpret the latter statistic as suggesting a genetic link between peoples of the Talaiotic culture225 of the Balearic islands and the Nuragic culture of Sardinia, the attraction to Iberia_Chalcolithic is226 just as strong, and the mitochondrial haplogroup U5b1+16189+@16192 in Menorca_LBA is not227 observed in Sardinia_Nuragic_BA but is observed in multiple Iberia_Chalcolithic individuals. A228 possible explanation is that both the ancestors of Nuragic Sardinians and the ancestors of Talaiotic229 people from the Balearic Islands received gene flow from an unsampled Iberian Chalcolithic-related230 group (perhaps a mainland group affiliated to both) that did not contribute to Formentera_MBA."


"The IbizaPhoenician individual published in 50 232 is not consistent with forming a clade with any of the Bronze233 Age individuals from the Balaeric islands newly reported in this study, and indeed we find that she234 can not be modeled even with our least parsimonious model of 4 distal sources. However, when we235 add in a North African source of ancestry, we can fit her as a two-way mix of 18.8 ± 7.9%236 Anatolia_Neolithic and 81.2 ± 7.9% Morocco_LN ancestry (p=0.141) (Supplementary Materials). We237 also can fit the Ibiza Phoenician as two-way mixture of a variety of groups closer to her in time one238 of which is always Morocco_LN. While several of these models include a Balaeric Island Bronze Age239 source, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Ibiza Phoenician individual has no local Balaeric240 ancestry at all. Specifically, we find that we can fit her with models that do not have a Balaeric241 source and that instead have Balaeric Bronze Age individuals in the outgroups (e.g. (e.g. 17.1 ±242 3.5% France_Bell_Beaker and 82.9 ± 3.5% Morocco_LN, p=0.869) (Supplementary Table 11)."

So, we were right. A lot of the settlers during the "Phoenician" period were probably North African admixed.

Today's inhabitants interestingly can't be fit as a mix of the four sources:

Instead they fit as a mix of steppe, Iranian, and North African.

I find that odd.
 
The Ibizan Phoenician clustered with Levantines in the other paper though.
 
The Sardinians:

We analyzed 13 individuals from Sardinia dated to ~2200 BCE - 700 CE (Fig. 1, Online Table 1).249 In qpAdm, all eight Bronze Age Nuragic individuals fit as descending from the same two deep250 ancestral sources (Anatolia_Neolithic and WHG), but mixed in different proportions: 82.5 ± 1.1%251 Anatolia_Neolithic for the main Sardinia_Nuragic_BA cluster (p=0.265), and 85.4 ± 2.2% for the252 Sardinia_Nuragic_BA10365 outlier (p=0.064) (Supplementary Table 9). We find no working models253 when we consider chronological or geographically more proximal sources (e.g. Beaker complex254 associated individuals from Iberia, France, Czech Republic, Germany; or Chalcolithic Iberians and255 Neolithic Sicilians), although we do not have access to early Neolithic Sardinians for this analysis.256 Most Sardinians buried in a Nuragic Bronze Age context possessed uniparental haplogroups found in257 European hunter-gatherers and early farmers, including Y-haplogroup R1b1a[xR1b1a1a] which isdifferent from the characteristic R1b1a1a2a1a2 spread in association with the Bell Beaker complex4 258 . 259 An exception is individual I10553 (1226-1056 calBCE) who carried Y-haplogroup J2b2a (Online Table1), previously observed in a Croatian Middle Bronze Age individual bearing Steppe ancestry44 260 , 261 suggesting the possibility of genetic input from groups that arrived from the east after the spread262 of first farmers. This is consistent with the evidence of material culture exchange betweenSardinians and mainland Mediterranean groups15 263 , although genome-wide analyses find no significant264 evidence of Steppe ancestry so the quantitative demographic impact was minimal. qpAdm modeling265 of the ancestry of the Sardinia_Nuragic_BA10365 outlier with respect to sources potentially more266 closely related in space and time does infer some ancestry in this individual from an eastern source267 (either carrying Steppe ancestry or Iranian-related ancestry) that we do not detect by modeling268 with sources more distant in space and time, consistent with the hypothesis of eastern influence269 (Supplementary Table 12)."

That's clear as mud and not at all convincing. They can't tell if this slight shift toward the east is the result of Iranian or steppe ancestry. So, what says it's steppe? Who says the J2b in the Croatian sample with steppe ancestry came from the steppe. Who says it couldn't have arrived with ancestry from the Near East which carried not only Anatolian ancestry but Iranian like ancestry. After all, there was J2b in the Anatolian Neolithic, wasn't there?

I'm starting to feel not terribly hopeful about this paper or the ones coming up. The South Asian paper was a disappointment and maybe these will be too.

Southern Europe and South Asia aren't as simple to decipher as Central and Northern Europe. Things are a lot more complicated. Some admixed samples that turn up may not have had a big effect on the genetics of modern populations. You can't assume that.

Just look at what they say in the next section.

"We detect definitive evidence of Iranian-related ancestry in an Iron Age Sardinian I10366 (391-209271 calBCE) with an estimate of 11.9 ± 3.7.% Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic
related ancestry, while272 rejecting the model with only Anatolian_Neolithic and WHG at p=0.0066 (Supplementary Table 9).273 The only model that we can fit for this individual using a pair of populations that are closer in time274 is as a mixture of Iberia_Chalcolithic (11.9 ± 3.2%) and Mycenaean (88.1 ± 3.2%) (p=0.067). This275 model fits even when including Nuragic Sardinians in the outgroups of the qpAdm analysis, which is276 consistent with the jhypothesis that this individual had little if any ancestry from earlier Sardinians."

This person was 88% Mycenaean, so 11% or so Iran Neo makes perfect sense. It didn't occur to them that given the trade ties with the Aegean this is basically a Greek buried in Iron Age Sardinia? Who says there were thousands and thousands of Greeks on Sardinia who entirely changed the genome?

Am I being too hard on them?

"In the Sardinian_LateAntiquity group (the earliest dating to 256-403 calCE), we detect even higher278 proportions of Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic-related ancestry: an estimated 29.6 ± 4.6.% (p=0.000001279 for rejection of the alternative model that attempts to model its eastern ancestry as entirely280 Yamnaya-related, Supplementary Table 9). One possibility is the Iranian-related ancestry began to be introduced in the Phoenician period, a scenario that is not only consistent with the historical282 evidence and our finding of this ancestry type in the Iron Age Sardinian, but is also supported by283 previously published mitochondrial DNA which has documented haplotypes in ancient Phoeniciancolonies in modern Sardinians51 284 . In modeling using source populations that are temporally more285 plausible, this individual is consisten with being a clade with both Myceanean (p=0.241) or286 Ibiza_Phoenician (p=0.145); importantly, both these models works with Nuragic Bronze Age287 Sardinians included in the outgroups."

"In a dataset of 27 modern Sardinians for whom we have genotyping data at about 600,000 SNPs45 294 , 295 we obtain a fit for a model of 61.4 ± 1.6% Anatolia_Neolithic, 9.5 ± 1.0% WHG, 19.1 ± 1.9%296 Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic and 10.0 ± 1.6% Yamnaya_Samara related ancestry and definitivelyreject models without all four ancestries.

". Even the four-way model is not comprehensive for modern Sardinians,however, as when we add Late Neolithic North Africans from Morocco to the outgroup set52 301 , wereject the four-way mixture model (p<10-12 302 ) (adding the Neolithic Moroccans to the outgroup set303 does not cause model rejection for any of the ancient samples in our dataset, showing that it may304 reflect events taking place after the times our individuals lived; Supplementary Table 9). Modeling305 modern Sardinians with this fifth sources produces a fit with an estimate of 16.1 ± 8.4%306 Morocco_LN-related ancestry (p=0.235). Our signal of North African-related mixture in Sardiniansmay reflect the same process that introduced sub-Saharan African ancestry into Sardinians53–55 307which was argued in 56 308 to reflect North African-related admixture with an average date of ~630 CE."

Well, Georgewalley and his crew will be pleased if that's correct. :) Someone beat the Portuguese in terms of North African ancestry.

"We could parsimoniously model our modern Sardinian sample as311 a 2-way mixture of 13.6 ± 3.4% Sardinia_Nuragic_BA and 86.4 ± 3.4% Sardinia_LateAntiquity12221. 312 It is striking that most of the ancestry in modern Sardinians is inferred in this analysis to come from313 a Sardinia_LateAntiquity12221-related group, which can itself be modeled as closely related to314 Mycenaeans or Phoenicians with no evidence of specific shared ancestry with Bronze Age Sardinians.315 The group of modern Sardinians we are modeling has often been interpreted as an isolated lineage316 that derives from early Sardinian farmers with little subsequent immigration into the islands. Our317 finding that a large fraction of this group’s ancestry is consistent with deriving from a group that318 was present in Sardinia in Late Antiquity and that had no evidence of a contribution from earlier319 Sardinian groups is therefore surprising (although we caution that this inference is tentative."

What if those late antiquity samples were from the coast, though, and didn't change the ancestry of the interior. How would the Sardinians of the interior be modeled if you didn't include the late antiquity samples and just the Nuragic ones? All of those ancestries overlap.

Well, lots of surprises if they're right.

Would love to know what some of the other labs think about this "really". :)
 
The Sardinians:
That's clear as mud and not at all convincing. They can't tell if this slight shift toward the east is the result of Iranian or steppe ancestry. So, what says it's steppe? Who says the J2b in the Croatian sample with steppe ancestry came from the steppe. Who says it couldn't have arrived with ancestry from the Near East which carried not only Anatolian ancestry but Iranian like ancestry. After all, there was J2b in the Anatolian Neolithic, wasn't there?
I dont know if i would call it anatolia, but there is a 10000 year old basal J2b near the caspian. After that we see J2b in Hajji firuz south of the caucasus 8000 years ago. then 4000 years ago we find it crossing the caucasus into the steppe/caucasus piedmont. Later, 4000-3000 years ago, we see it(including steppe admixture) in bronze age croatia and armenia. Based on these finds acontinental(or maybe northern black sea shore) route is most likely, and not a route through anatolia or the mediterranean.

The sample in sardinia 3000 years ago is most likely just a balkan or italian J2b-l283 which was absorbed into some non-IE culture. The proof that its original autosomal dna is diluted is to be found in the fact that the sample has neither iranian related nor steppe related ancestry. All other J2bs in ancient Dna has either Iranian related ancestry or steppe(iran+ehg). The earlier samples with iran, while later samples with steppe.

This points towards a scenario where the J2b-L283 migration to sardinia was a very small one, which didn't have a huge genetic impact on the island.
 
I dont know if i would call it anatolia, but there is a 10000 year old basal J2b near the caspian. After that we see J2b in Hajji firuz south of the caucasus 8000 years ago. then 4000 years ago we find it crossing the caucasus into the steppe/caucasus piedmont. Later, 4000-3000 years ago, we see it(including steppe admixture) in bronze age croatia and armenia. Based on these finds acontinental(or maybe northern black sea shore) route is most likely, and not a route through anatolia or the mediterranean.

The sample in sardinia 3000 years ago is most likely just a balkan or italian J2b-l283 which was absorbed into some non-IE culture. The proof that its original autosomal dna is diluted is to be found in the fact that the sample has neither iranian related nor steppe related ancestry. All other J2bs in ancient Dna has either Iranian related ancestry or steppe(iran+ehg). The earlier samples with iran, while later samples with steppe.

This points towards a scenario where the J2b-L283 migration to sardinia was a very small one, which didn't have a huge genetic impact on the island.

Thanks. Yes, I know about that, but I thought I remember a J2, perhaps with no further clarification? in Analtolia proper. I'll have to look it up.
 
Do they have Copper Age samples from Northern Sardinia as opposed to Ozieri? If L51 did have a Middle Eastern origin, this would be a brilliant test for the hypothesis that it spread West across the Mediterranean

Differently from the people of the contemporary Ozieri cultures of the rest of Sardinia, the people of the Arzachena cultures were organized in an aristocratic and individualistic society focused on pastoralism rather than farming agriculture . [5] the aristocratic groups buried their dead in megalithic monuments in the shape of a circle, with central chamber containing a single individual, [6] while on the rest of the island the dead people in their collective dead hypogeum tombs called Domus de Janas . [5]
 
On the wikipedia page for palaeo-sardinian language, they write about a sea people tribe named 'Sherden' which settled in sardinia around 1200-900 BC. There are multiple theories about where Sherden came from, but one the theories is that they were of illyrian origin.
That theory gains some leverage now that a J2b-L283 pops up in Sardinia just around the same time that Sherden came to Sardinia.
Its interesting that the indo-european words in palaeo-sardinian are so close to albanian IE words.

From the wiki page:
Illyrian hypothesis[edit]

According to Alberto Areddu[8] the Sherden were of Illyrian origin, on the basis of some lexical elements, unanimously acknowledged as belonging to the indigenous substrate. Areddu asserts that in ancient Sardinia, especially in the most interior area (Barbagia and Ogliastra), the locals supposedly spoke a particular branch of Indo-European. There are in fact some correspondences, both formal and semantic, with the few testimonies of Illyrian (or Thracian) languages, and above all with their theorized linguistic continuation, Albanian. The correlations include various central toponyms and microtoponyms; for instance Areddu offers the following correlations:

  • Sardinian: eni, enis, eniu 'yew' = Albanian: enjë 'yew, juniper'
  • Sardinian: rethi 'tendril' = Albanian dial. rrypthi 'tendril'[9] (although, this is an overt derivative of rrip ~ rryp ‘leather strip; belt, strap’)
  • Sardinian: àlase 'holly' (in Sard.: laruspinosu 'thorny laurel') = Albanian: halë 'thorn; lisp; corn beard; pine needle; black pine', halëz 'thorn; ear'
  • Sardinian: lothiu 'muddy', (top.) Lotzorai, Lothorgo, Loceri, Lotzeri = Albanian: lloç ‘muddy slush; mortar’ (however, this is a loanword from Macedonian ločka (лочка) ‘puddle; mud hole’)[10]
  • Sardinian: duri 'tree trunk, with branches shortened because it serves as a hanger' = Albanian: druri 'wooden, stick, pole'
  • Sardinian: dròb(b)alu 'bowels, gut of pigs' = Albanian: droboli ‘entrails, intestines’ (however, this is a loanword from Macedonian drebolija (дреболиjа) ‘odds and ends, bits and bobs’ ~ dial. Bulgarian drobolina (дроболина) ‘sliced, chopped intestines’)[11]
  • Sardinian: urtzula 'clematis', top. Orthullè = Albanian: (h)urth, hurdh 'ivy'
  • Sardinian: amadrina 'doe, hind' = Albanian: drenje, drenushe 'doe'
  • Sardinian: élimu 'rancor, resentment' = Albanian: helm 'displeasure, poison'
  • Sardinian: tzìrima, tzérrima 'rancor, insult, resentment' = Albanian: çirrma ‘shrill threats, insults’, çirrmë ‘loud scream, shrill yell’ (although, this is an overt derivative of çirr ‘to scream’)
  • Sardinian: càstia 'net to collect straw' = Albanian: kashtë 'straw, chaff'
  • Sardinian: thùrgalu 'creek, stream' = Albanian: çurg 'stream'
  • Sardinian: thiòccoro, ittiòccoro, isciòccoro 'bristly oxtongue (Helminthia echioides)' = Albanian: hith 'sour, harsh, bitter'
  • Sardinian: madérria 'grandeur, haughtiness' = Albanian: madhëri ‘majesty, grandeur’
  • Sardinian: theppa, tzèppara 'stony peak', top. Zeppara = Albanian: thep 'top, peak'
  • Sardinian: Òrol- item that is found in a good number of mountain microtoponyms, and is correlated by Areddu with Thracian Òrolos 'eagle'
 
Sicily from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age:

"In the Middle Neolithic, Sicilians harbored ancestry typical of early European farmers, well modeled326 as a mixture of Anatolia_Neolithic and WHG (Fig. 2, Fig. 4, Supplementary Table 9).327 Steppe ancestry arrived in Sicily by the Early Bronze Age. While a previously reported Bell Beakerculture-associated individual from Sicily had no evidence of Steppe ancestry4 328 , a result we confirm329 by more than tripling the number of sequences for this individual who previously had marginal330 quality data, we find evidence of Steppe ancestry in the Early Bronze Age by ~2200 BCE. In distal331 qpAdm, the outlier Sicily_EBA11443 is parsimoniously modeled as harboring 40.2 ± 3.5% Steppe332 ancestry, and the outlier Sicily_EBA8561 is parsimoniously modeled as harboring 23.3 ± 3.5% Steppe333 ancestry (Fig. 4a, Supplementary Table 9)."

All the way down the boot by 2200? Then they posit from Iberia? What? Directly to Sicily? Didn't think they were sea farers that early. Maybe the same ancestry also came into Italy by way of the Balkans? Is that possible?

"The main Sicily_EBA cluster also can only be fit with334 Steppe ancestry albeit at a lower proportion of 9.1 ± 2.3%, and models without Steppe ancestry can335 be rejected (p=0.001) (Supplementary Table 9). The presence of Steppe ancestry in Early Bronze336 Age Sicily is also evident in Y chromosome analysis, which reveals that 4 of the 5 Early Bronze Age337 males had Steppe-associated Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a2. (Online Table 1). Two of these were Y338 haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a2a1 (Z195) which today is largely restricted to Iberia and has beenhypothesized to have originated there 2500-2000 BCE57 339 . This evidence of west-to-east gene flow340 from Iberia is also suggested by qpAdm modeling where the only parsimonious proximate source for341 the Steppe ancestry we found in the main Sicily_EBA cluster is Iberians (Supplementary Table 14)."

"
We detect Iranian-related ancestry in Sicily by the Middle Bronze Age 1800-1500 BCE, consistent343 with the directional shift of these individuals toward Mycenaeans in PCA (Fig. 2b). Specifically, two344 of the Middle Bronze Age individuals can only be fit with models that in addition to345 Anatolia_Neolithic and WHG, include Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic. The most parsimonious model for346 Sicily_MBA3125 has 18.0 ± 3.6% Iranian-related ancestry...the most parsimonious model for348 Sicily_MBA4109 has 14.9 ± 3.9% Iranian-related ancestry."

"
This inference is also supported by qpAdm using sources350 closer in geography and time that always identify a parsimonious model with Minoan_Lassithi as a351 source for these two individuals (Supplementary Table 15). We also found evidence of Iranian352 related ancestry in Sicily in an individual of the Early Bronze Age cluster, I11442, who could only be353 fit in a 3-way model with Iranian-related ancestry (19.3 ± 3.8%)

They're more cautious about the latter.

"it is possible that this389 ancestry first spread west in substantial amounts during the Late Helladic period of the Mycenaeanexpansion when strong cultural interactions between Sicily and the Aegean are documented18,60–62 390 . 391 However, if our signal of such ancestry in an Early Bronze Age Sicilian individual is correct then392 some of this spread began even earlier.

This is exactly the sequence of events which the Boattini group found, i.e. Anatolian Neolithic, Steppe, then Caucasus ancestry. It's what I always said would be the case, although I thought Early Bronze. I also often said maybe it came from the direction of Minoan Crete. Maybe it went all the way up to the area of modern Tuscany?

"The modern southern Italian Caucasus-related signal identified in 58 358 is plausibly related to the same Iranian-related spread of ancestry into Sicily that we359 observe in the Middle Bronze Age (and possibly the Early Bronze Age)."

"For the Late Bronze Age group of individuals, qpAdm documented Steppe-related ancestry,361 modeling this group as 80.2 ± 1.8% Anatolia_Neolithic, 5.3 ± 1.6% WHG, and 14.5 ± 2.2%362 Yamnaya_Samara (Fig. 4b, Supplementary Table 9). Our modeling using sources more closely363 related in space and time also supports Sicily_LBA having Minoan-related ancestry or being derived364 from local preceding populations or individuals with ancestries similar to those of Sicily_EBA3123365 (p=0.527), Sicily_MBA3124 (p=0.352), and Sicily_MBA3125 (p=0.095) (Supplementary Table 15).

OK, so there may be continuity from Early Bronze through Late Bronze.

Finally, when we model modern Sicilians, we find that they require not only Steppe and Iranian367 related ancestries but also North African ancestry, confirming the ample historical and368 archaeological evidence of major cultural impacts on the island from North Africa after the Bronze369 Age (Supplementary Materials)."

Where does that leave the Greek influx of the first millennium BC? Were they so similar it didn't make any difference, or did it make them more Aegean like?

All I can say is WOW.
 
Last edited:
Thanks. Yes, I know about that, but I thought I remember a J2, perhaps with no further clarification? in Analtolia proper. I'll have to look it up.
Yes i think there was a J2a or just a J2* somewhere in the aDNA there.
 
Didn't they say something about Sicily having Steppe ancestry before the Bronze Age? I don't see that here, maybe that's coming out in a later update?
 
Do they have Copper Age samples from Northern Sardinia as opposed to Ozieri? If L51 did have a Middle Eastern origin, this would be a brilliant test for the hypothesis that it spread West across the Mediterranean

Differently from the people of the contemporary Ozieri cultures of the rest of Sardinia, the people of the Arzachena cultures were organized in an aristocratic and individualistic society focused on pastoralism rather than farming agriculture . [5] the aristocratic groups buried their dead in megalithic monuments in the shape of a circle, with central chamber containing a single individual, [6] while on the rest of the island the dead people in their collective dead hypogeum tombs called Domus de Janas . [5]


Based on hundreds of YDNA samples we have so far, still nothing indicates R1b as arriving from the Middle East. What does seem clear is that the early Epigravettian descended branch R1b-V88 became Neolithicized by incoming farmers to the point where he looked identical to them. We seem him spread with Cardium pottery (likely via the Balkans or Italy) to Spain and now confirmed in Nuraghic Sardinia. This is the only branch which appears to be "Middle Eastern" in character, and it may have entered Africa sensationally with the Sherden, or alternatively an older spread east with Cardium potters in Lebanon and the Levant.
 
As an alternative theory, we have tons of R1b in BA Iberia, I wonder what this implies for the Etruscans, whom I imagine were similar in autosomes? Yet another non-IE people but with Yamnaya ancestry? We really need to see the aDNA of mainland Italy. I'm particularly interested in the North/North-Central cluster relative to R1b rich regions of west-central Europe.
 
Wow, Nelly, did anyone notice this yet????

"As with the Balearic individuals we could not model modern Sicilians using a threshold of558 p>0.05, or even with a more permissive p>0.01 threshold. There is clearly also a North African559 influence, however, as we identify a working model for the 4-way model with 24.8 ± 4.3%560 Anatolia_Neolithic, 12.1 ± 3.1% Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic, 19.8 ± 1.4% Yamnaya_Samara, and 43.3561 ± 6.1% Morocco_LN (p=0.334)."

I knew there would be North African, but THIS MUCH?

I don't think the y Dna would support that, would it? I was expecting perhaps 15%.

Could qpAdm be a little wonky or is this legit?

Why not use a North African sample closer to the present? Or use a Levantine sample for the Phoenicians, or maybe the "Phoenician" woman from Ibiza?

Plus, this is all done without any Greek migration era samples. Would everything have to be redone based on those samples???
 
so, it looks like Anatolian ancestry arrived in the western Mediterranean rather late
to Sicily with Myceneans ca 3.6 ka
to Sardegna with Greeks 2.4 ka
to the Balears even later
it looks that the El Argar were central European BB people after all and Iberic languages were some Iberian neo/chalcolithic languages
 
Wow, Nelly, did anyone notice this yet????

"As with the Balearic individuals we could not model modern Sicilians using a threshold of558 p>0.05, or even with a more permissive p>0.01 threshold. There is clearly also a North African559 influence, however, as we identify a working model for the 4-way model with 24.8 ± 4.3%560 Anatolia_Neolithic, 12.1 ± 3.1% Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic, 19.8 ± 1.4% Yamnaya_Samara, and 43.3561 ± 6.1% Morocco_LN (p=0.334)."

I knew there would be North African, but THIS MUCH?

I don't think the y Dna would support that, would it? I was expecting perhaps 15%.

Could qpAdm be a little wonky or is this legit?

Plus, this is all done without any Greek migration era samples. Would everything have to be redone based on those samples???

That is an insane number, I doubt it's correct.
 
Where's the Iron age Sardinian sample from? And why does he lack steppe admixture?
 

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