Indeed. I was just kidding when I suggested he could be Venetian, even if the guy had shared ancestry with Iberians rather than being Iberian properly.
MTA results shouldn't be taken literally anyway, as I myself pointed out in this thread. For example, the Illyrian as my closest pop may be useful as a clue, but the distance suggested by the tool must be just "accidental", after all, even if Illyrian and I share ancestry, Veneto was influenced by several other different people in the last millennia, including Romans (South Italians). So... I'm certainly not an Illyrian living fossil.
On the other hand, Venetians must be related to them in a significant way, compared to many other Italians. I wonder, in Venetian context, if it has something to do with Adriatic Veneti bringing this type of ancestry from Balkans?
Soon we'll have more Etruscans, Romans etc. samples. It'll be interesting to see how we're related to them according to MyTrueAncestry.
As for wanting Romans to be more Northern (Italian?) or Southern, well... It is what it is, as you always say. I think "knowing" how it likely was is better than "what" it was per se. I.e., the biggest pleasure is mostly in having an answer imo. Any, as long as we know it must be close enough to the truth. But of course, when our own ancestry is well explained, it's even better, 'cause the intellectual curiosity tend to be higher here. Normal. I'm particularly happy in knowing Italian genetic history is being studied more deeply.
Plus, If I understand right the leak, even if the first Latins to reach Latium were North Italian-like, they soon became South Italian-like. So the "glory" of Rome would have correlated to a "Southern" autosomal, yes? If I'm not missing something, they did what they did, achieve what they achieve, already as Southerners, in the fashion of Greeks.
@Duarte
Do you have by any chance info on this Cisalpine Gaul individual? I confess I didn't know abt. the existance of such sample.