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

Jovialis: So the figure 4 results and graphs used the Morocco_Iberomaurusian to proxy for all North African admixture?, which would be I guess from a period around 14,000 BC. Aren't there some Phoenician samples they could have used to capture North Africans contemporary with say Bronze age European Samples. Not only is Morrocco_LN different from the others, there is a significant gap in the time series of those 3 samples. So just from my cents, does Morocco samples serve as best proxies to capture Phoenician-Tunisian admixture or should those be both used. Historically, it was the Pheonicians who colonized Sardinia, Western Sicily and parts of Iberia although their trade routes did extend to the Straights between Spain and North Africa.
 
Based on Figure 4, there is small Iberomausian admixture in Sicily, but also some small amounts in French, Basque, Spanish and Sardinians. So some of this admixture as the article noted is older than the Pheonician. So how do we know from reading the paper how much was say from Pheonicians, much later, and of course, with ties the Levant (modern Lebanon, Northern Palestine, Syria, etc). If Look at the Tuscan and Sicilian graphs side by side, the colors (Orange, Purple, Blue, light Purple and Red) sort ofo trend along at close approximations, the only difference the small green (Iberomaurusian) admixture. Spanish, Basque, French look the same in terms of the first 5 colors, less Orange, but look fairly the same in terms of admixture groups. Sardinia same thing, but much less Blue (Steppe I guess).

So does this suggest that there was in fact very little Pheonician input and little from the Saracen period, or did the subsequent Norman period (and deportation of the 30,000 or so Saracens) just sort of reset Sicily back to its pre-Saracen invasion DNA admixture ratios, etc. Regardless, every study I have read puts the North African admixture at ranges from 6% in an earlier study to Di Gaetano et al 2009 (p.95) and more recently at 4.6% in Sazzini et al (2016, p.5) and about 4-5% in Raveane et al (2019, Figure 2, p.5) based on eyeball estimation. The paper above seems to put it at even less than that it seems. Regardless, while E-M81, the Berber marker has been found in Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, it seems that the Saracen invasion into Sicily had a more East North Africa to the Levant and Persian source, than Tunisia to the Maghreb since it was the Abbasid's based in Modern Baghdad (their HQ so to speak) who invaded Sicily. Their territory was from Modern Tunisia to Persia. In fact, the general who led the invasion, was Asad ibn al-Furat, who was described as a Mesopotamian, although his birth place is in fact in modern Turkey.[FONT=Linux Libertine, Georgia, Times, serif] [/FONT]Thus, a significant number of his 10,000 troops, were from the Levant-Persia, supported by Berbers and Arabs as well. Citing Di Gaetano et al (2009, p.94) again, along with E-81 (Berber marker at 2.12%) he finds J1-M267 at even higher rates 3.81%, and this would definetly be from the Levant I would think. Di Gaetano et al 2009 also found E-V22 (Northern Egypt, Levant, Western Ethiopia), EV-12 (Egypt) and E-65 is found in North Africa (Libya, Tunisia and Northern Morocco). The source for where those last 3 Y-Haplogroups are found was from Maciamo's article from May 2018.

So just from an historical point of view, as Angela indicates, it does in fact distort the actual history of Sicily for sure, and other extant research clearly points to North African admixture into Sicily from Tunisia to the East up to the Levant/Persia. For the record, my Ancestry DNA test shows 97% Italian and 3% Middle-East with Egypt to Turkey being the area highlighted in Green. My National Geno results show Asia Minor which they define as Northern Middle East (Levant, Syria, Lebanon) east to Iraq/Iran border and North to Turkey/Armenian border. So while my DNA is 1 modern sample, thus an anecdote, the samples to produce Figure 4 are interesting, but again, I think as Angela stated, distorts the actual history. But that is just my view, nothing more and nothing less.

One last question, will Jovialis, Maciamo, Duarte, etc be putting these Samples and the ones in the Reich team paper, which actually has a sample from where my Paternal Great Grandfather was born in Sicily, into the Ancient Dodecad spreadsheet.

Thanks in advance, Cheers.
 
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.

In the 2014 paper "Ancient Human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans", which Reich was part of, along with Lazaridis, Paabo, Krause, etc, the paper noted that Sicilians were fitted as > 100% (p.18) Early European Farmers (EEF). Even before I ever did my DNA, I new that was nonsense, even with the significant Greek and Anatolian and other Neolithic DNA sources being predominate in Sicily, as in other parts of Italy. Now this paper is modeling modern Sicilians without Greek influx. So To be honest, I am disappointed with Reich and his team here, mostly because I expect more from them given his position at Harvard. More personally, in the pre-print version (I have not had a chance to get the published version accepted by the editors), of the 8 samples for Sicily, one of them is where my Paternal Great Grandfather was born. Sorry I did not see this earlier but again, but very sloppy work by a bunch of talented people, at least that is what it appears to me.
 
Sardinia_Chalcolithic15940: For the Chalcolithic Sardinian outlier with North African ancestrywe used mostly a set of Neolithic sources, but added some Bronze Age populations to serve as proxyfor specific ancestries. To be able to model North African ancestry we moved Morocco_LN from the“Right” to the “Left” to use it as a source, and also included the Iberian Bell Beaker individual withNorth African ancestry from Camino de las Yeseras, near Madrid (Iberia_Bell_Beaker_o, I4246)57.Iberia_Chalcolithic, Sicily_MN, Iberia_MN, France_MN, Italy_MN_Iceman.SG, Croatia_Sopot_MN, Hungary_MN, Sardinia_Neolithic, Mallorca_EBA, Anatolia_EBA, Morocco_LN, Jordan_EBA, Iberia_Bell_Beaker_oEven before model competition we found no valid fits for p>0.05. The 1-way model with I4246, however, gave p=0.034, suggesting a clade with this individual at a more permissive P-valuethreshold. We obtained a single good fit when we replaced Morocco_LN by Morocco_EN and aftermodel competition were able to model Sardinia_Chalcolithic15940 as 74.2 ± 5.1%Iberia_Bell_Beaker_o and 25.8 ± 5.1% Morocco_EN (p=0.802).
source:
https://static-content.springer.com...0/MediaObjects/41559_2020_1102_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

page: 42
 
Thanks KingJohn for the link:

From page 33 of the supplemental materials you linked

"We were able to model modern Sicilians with a 4-way model that included 23.2 ± 4.2%Anatolia_Neolithic, 19.9 ± 1.4% Yamnaya_Samara, 10.0 ± 2.6% Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic, and 46.9± 5.6% Morocco_LN (p=0.522) (Supplementary Table 14)."

So Morocco_LN was used to model modern Sicilians, but I don't remember who posted it, this sample plotted further East I think. Due to my perhaps getting to excited about this study and not reading carefully, I misunderstood what Moroccan sample was used in the Modelling of Modern Sicilians, and it looks like it produces similar North African admixture rates that the prior literature has found. Nevertheless, I still think them not using any Greek samples that have been studied was a "Weak effort" on their part. Oh, well, I am going to get to work today and print out the paper and materials and read through it carefully for myself.

Thanks again
 
Sardinia_Chalcolithic15940: For the Chalcolithic Sardinian outlier with North African ancestrywe used mostly a set of Neolithic sources, but added some Bronze Age populations to serve as proxyfor specific ancestries. To be able to model North African ancestry we moved Morocco_LN from the“Right” to the “Left” to use it as a source, and also included the Iberian Bell Beaker individual withNorth African ancestry from Camino de las Yeseras, near Madrid (Iberia_Bell_Beaker_o, I4246)57.Iberia_Chalcolithic, Sicily_MN, Iberia_MN, France_MN, Italy_MN_Iceman.SG, Croatia_Sopot_MN, Hungary_MN, Sardinia_Neolithic, Mallorca_EBA, Anatolia_EBA, Morocco_LN, Jordan_EBA, Iberia_Bell_Beaker_oEven before model competition we found no valid fits for p>0.05. The 1-way model with I4246, however, gave p=0.034, suggesting a clade with this individual at a more permissive P-valuethreshold. We obtained a single good fit when we replaced Morocco_LN by Morocco_EN and aftermodel competition were able to model Sardinia_Chalcolithic15940 as 74.2 ± 5.1%Iberia_Bell_Beaker_o and 25.8 ± 5.1% Morocco_EN (p=0.802).
source:
https://static-content.springer.com...0/MediaObjects/41559_2020_1102_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

page: 42
Basically he was a Spanish Beaker not a North African, only partially...do we know is haplogroup?

utilizzando Tapatalk
 
Basically he was a Spanish Beaker not a North African, only partially...do we know is haplogroup?

utilizzando Tapatalk

yes but remember they used the outlier bell beaker from spain who had some north african ancestry
and with combination here with morocco early neolithic ....
well ....

his haplogroup
y dna= e1b1b1a-m78
mtdna =m1a1b1


 
Well, I just spent two plus hours plowing through every word of the Supplement, two hours I'll never get back, and I regret it.
........................................


As suspected from the mtDNA and Y chromosome data, KEB samples do not cluster with IAM and are placed in an intermediate position between IAM and TOR. We further explored the genetic structure of these samples using the program ADMIXTURE (22) (SI Appendix, Supplementary Note 7). At K = 5, TOR is composed of the component associated with the European Early Neolithic and IAM is composed of the North African component observed in Mozabites. KEB is placed in an intermediate position, with ∼50% each of European Early Neolithic and North African ancestries. It is worth mentioning that, compared with current North African samples, IAM and KEB do not show any sub-Saharan African ancestry in the MEGA-HGDP ADMIXTURE analysis, suggesting that trans-Saharan migrations occurred after Neolithic times. This could be in agreement with the analysis of present-day genome-wide data from Morocco, which estimated a migration of western African origin into Morocco only ∼1,200 y ago (11).
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6774

I don‘t understand what this study mean by that? Didn‘t both IAM and KEB have SSA admixture the former more and the latter similar to modern North Africans?

 
Thanks KingJohn for the link:

From page 33 of the supplemental materials you linked

"We were able to model modern Sicilians with a 4-way model that included 23.2 ± 4.2%Anatolia_Neolithic, 19.9 ± 1.4% Yamnaya_Samara, 10.0 ± 2.6% Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic, and 46.9± 5.6% Morocco_LN (p=0.522) (Supplementary Table 14)."

So Morocco_LN was used to model modern Sicilians, but I don't remember who posted it, this sample plotted further East I think. Due to my perhaps getting to excited about this study and not reading carefully, I misunderstood what Moroccan sample was used in the Modelling of Modern Sicilians, and it looks like it produces similar North African admixture rates that the prior literature has found. Nevertheless, I still think them not using any Greek samples that have been studied was a "Weak effort" on their part. Oh, well, I am going to get to work today and print out the paper and materials and read through it carefully for myself.

Thanks again

They didn't use Neolithic Levantine or Canaanite samples either.
 
I don‘t understand what this study mean by that? Didn‘t both IAM and KEB have SSA admixture the former more and the latter similar to modern North Africans?


From the original paper it does look like they have a smidgeon of it. See Admixture chart D
4wwNlko.png


If I'm reading that extremely confusing chart correctly, it's not anywhere near modern North African levels in the KEB, but it's there.

They used a Gambian source. The authors of the subject paper say they used MEGA HGDP analysis. Is that the difference?

Surely they should have addressed the findings of the prior paper?

Boiling it all down it seems to me the authors here used a sample (Moroccan LN) which is half European farmer and half "local" ancestry, which half is ultimately, however, from the Levant, with a bit of West African.

I think that's a fair assessment.

They seem to be looking at a source for this Morocco LN in modern Sicilians in the Moorish invasions, yes? Who knows, maybe they have a sample which they're not ready to release yet. However, if those "Moors" were not very much like Morocco LN, then they've just muddied everything up.

Using a Levant Neolithic source would also muddy things up if there was indeed a large influx of Morocco LN into Sicily, because half of that ancestry is Levant like.

This is why, if you want to understand human history as well as percentages of ancient groups, you should be using only proximate sources.
 
Moors are berbers than became arabanized......there is a paper on this.....berbers who did not "convert" remained berbers.....there are no moors prior to the arab invasions circa 7th century AD
 
They didn't use Neolithic Levantine or Canaanite samples either.

Again, I am not sure why they did what they did. Were they only trying to model modern populations using the admixtures from the samples they were studying in the paper. Anyway, the Marcus et al. 2020 paper "Genetic History from middle neolithic to present on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia" on Figure 4 now makes more sense. Morocco_LN looks very similar to Minoan_BA and Mycenean_BA with respect to about 85% admixture. So, that I guess is how they are trying to capture both Greek and North African/Levant admixture. So the Comparison of Modern Tuscans and Sicilians looks relatively the same except for the small North African admixture in the modern Sicilians which looks consistent with what has been reported in every study I have read going back 10-12 years.

As for not using Neolithic Levantine, I do think that would be a better sample to model modern Sicilians or mainland Italian as well (Moots paper shows some low Levant ancestry in Imperial Lazio as well) as the Phoenicians were no doubt from the Levant (Modern Lebanon, Northern Palestine, etc) and other than the E-M81 Berber marker, and I think the one that shows up in Sicily is from Tunisia (again Phoenician), all of the other ones either from Pheonician times or Saracen invasion period trend East of modern Tunisia to the Levant. Di Gateano et al 2009 paper documented that very clearly and in fact, the J1-M267 Y Haplogroup Percentage was larger than the E-M81 Berber marker.

With that said, with respect to the Sicilians (modern), the Morocco_LN relative to the other two ancient Moroccan samples was the best alternative among IMHO, a poor sample to draw from to model modern Sicilians. I assume, unless noted otherwise, as the case with some of the Sardinian sample where they put at * and used Morroco_EN, they also used Morocco_LN to get the results for other modern populations that have some low levels of North African admixture (Sardinian, Spanish) and also modern Basque and French. People forget the Muslim invasion into Spain by the Umayyad Caliphate from the Maghreb also resulted in them getting into France several times between starting in 720 AD and then again in 732AD, being defeated by Charles Martel (The Hammer). Who knows what would have happened had Martel not stopped them, France and the rest could have been fighting wars of reconquest the same way Spain had to for 700 years. Just my two cents.
 
Real Expert: I unfortunately to not have access to the paper (my lets say work institution has it, but when I try to get the PDF it is blurred so can't read it nor can I download or print it yet). With respect to the Moroccan samples used in the Marcus et al 2020 and Fernandes et al 2020 paper, is one of these samples the same one used by Antonio/Moots et al 2019 in the Ancient Rome: A genetic crossroads of Europe and Mediterranean. They used I think a Moroccan_Hunter Gather to model the North African ancestry in one the Romans who lived on the coastal area of Rome that was thought to be a port city with trade with Sardinia, etc. (I think R850 is the one, but I could be wrong).
 
So we know what we're looking at...
26k8bKM.png

f96bQ8f.png


b17tQoM.png


If I were going just by these methods, I'd say that the Ibiza "Phoenician" is very much like some Late Bronze Age Greek samples, and after that some Anatolian Bronze, and not very Levantine at all. I'd say the same for Sicily Late Bronze Age.

As for modern Sicilians versus Late Bronze Age Sicilians, the Iran Neolithic has perhaps doubled, but so has the WHG. For the latter I think they should have been looking at the Northern Italian input in the Middle Ages. If they don't have a sample, modern Lombards could have been used. The North African was starting to make an appearance in the Late Bronze and did increase a bit when you get to modern Sicilians, but the percentages are tiny.

I have to say they haven't clarified for me the actual effect of the Moorish invasions on Sicily. Maybe they can revisit it when they have contemporaneous Phoenicians/Carthaginian and North African samples.
 
So we know what we're looking at...
26k8bKM.png

f96bQ8f.png


b17tQoM.png


If I were going just by these methods, I'd say that the Ibiza "Phoenician" is very much like some Late Bronze Age Greek samples, and after that some Anatolian Bronze, and not very Levantine at all. I'd say the same for Sicily Late Bronze Age.

As for modern Sicilians versus Late Bronze Age Sicilians, the Iran Neolithic has perhaps doubled, but so has the WHG. For the latter I think they should have been looking at the Northern Italian input in the Middle Ages. If they don't have a sample, modern Lombards could have been used. The North African was starting to make an appearance in the Late Bronze and did increase a bit when you get to modern Sicilians, but the percentages are tiny.

I have to say they haven't clarified for me the actual effect of the Moorish invasions on Sicily. Maybe they can revisit it when they have contemporaneous Phoenicians/Carthaginian samples.

Indeed, it seems to me the the Ibiza sample is basically a Mycenaean-like person (They even cluster pretty close together) with a small amount of "exotic" admixture. I seriously doubt the sample is representative of Phoenicians, or at least what I would have expected.
 
It sort of reminds me of the Last Kingdom, a character like Uhtred, who is a Saxson, that arbitrarily thinks of himself as a Dane. Perhaps this individual was a Greek who arbitrarily identified in Phoenician culture. Racheal Dolezal, Elizabeth Warren, and Eminem are contemporary examples. Strange, but perhaps plausible; humans are weird.
 
From the paper by Zalloua et al 2018 (I am sure many here have already read the paper before) "Ancient DNA of Phoenician remains indicates discontinuity in the settlement history of Ibiza" published in Scientific Reports. The paper points out that the overall genome has a significant Eastern Mediterranean component, which to me is consistent with the origins of the Phoenicians. This Eastern Component was largely Male which I would think is consistent with Male Phoenician seamen/Sailors from Levant setting up sea ports in modern Tunisia, and then migrating to Ibiza. As for the Ibiza Sample being a Mycenaean like person, is it possible for some Anatolian ancestry moving slightly Southward into the North Levant? thus some Pheonicians were Levant/Anatolian admixed? Maybe I am off base. Regardless, I still think the North African-Levant Input, which is very small, despite Phoenicians setting up ports and trade centers on the West Coast of Sicily circa 800 BC and the Saracen Invasion has not really significantly altered Sicilian DNA, yes it is there, but 4-5%? And this admixture in my view is still from Tunisia to the East towards Lebanon/Syria/Persia, again, in my humble opinion.

[h=2]Abstract[/h]Ibiza was permanently settled around the 7th century BCE by founders arriving from west Phoenicia. The founding population grew significantly and reached its height during the 4th century BCE. We obtained nine complete mitochondrial genomes from skeletal remains from two Punic necropoli in Ibiza and a Bronze Age site from Formentara. We also obtained low coverage (0.47X average depth) of the genome of one individual, directly dated to 361–178 cal BCE, from the Cas Molí site on Ibiza. We analysed and compared ancient DNA results with 18 new mitochondrial genomes from modern Ibizans to determine the ancestry of the founders of Ibiza. The mitochondrial results indicate a predominantly recent European maternal ancestry for the current Ibizan population while the whole genome data suggest a significant Eastern Mediterranean component. Our mitochondrial results suggest a genetic discontinuity between the early Phoenician settlers and the island’s modern inhabitants. Our data, while limited, suggest that the Eastern or North African influence in the Punic population of Ibiza was primarily male dominated.
 
So we know what we're looking at...
26k8bKM.png

f96bQ8f.png


b17tQoM.png


If I were going just by these methods, I'd say that the Ibiza "Phoenician" is very much like some Late Bronze Age Greek samples, and after that some Anatolian Bronze, and not very Levantine at all. I'd say the same for Sicily Late Bronze Age.

As for modern Sicilians versus Late Bronze Age Sicilians, the Iran Neolithic has perhaps doubled, but so has the WHG. For the latter I think they should have been looking at the Northern Italian input in the Middle Ages. If they don't have a sample, modern Lombards could have been used. The North African was starting to make an appearance in the Late Bronze and did increase a bit when you get to modern Sicilians, but the percentages are tiny.

I have to say they haven't clarified for me the actual effect of the Moorish invasions on Sicily. Maybe they can revisit it when they have contemporaneous Phoenicians/Carthaginian and North African samples.

If the authors claim only ~56-62% of the modern Sardinian genetic makeup is explained by ancient Sardinian EEF up to the Iron Age, then I wonder why they are still overwhelmingly EEF (ANF+WHG) in ancestry (the samples they modelled as shown in the picture above are less so, but still the vast majority is made up of ANF+WHG). Does that mean that all the foreign inputs were also very rich in ANF and/or WHG, so that they added "exotic" admixtures, but mostly extra ANF and WHG from a different and already somewhat drifted source? If that be what really happened, then I would guess most of the input was from people similar to Mycenaeans and Minoans and/or modern North Italians and Central Italians.
 

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