Rome as a genetic melting pot: Population dynamics over 12,000 years.

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I think this makes sense:

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Only one Roman individual plots in the southernmost area of the TSI cluster in the leaked PCA

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In my opinion the average of the northernmost Romans would plot in the SCItaly1 cluster (Raveane paper).


eJnLMnR.jpg
 
Only one Roman individual joins the TSI cluster in the leaked PCA.

aEkdseq.jpg


In my opinion the average of the northernmost Romans would plot in the SCItaly1 cluster (Raveane paper).


eJnLMnR.jpg

I think your proposition is viable as well.
 
This can help to understand who the Romans are in the PCA, although it is updated to May 23, 2018. It comes from Hannah Moots' Prezi account.

One Roman sample is dated 9th century BCE Iron Age, when the Latial culture (the archeological facies of the proto-Latins) flourished in Latium vetus (the land of the Latins) and the Etruscans are in the Villanovan period. Four Romans samples are immediately after the mythical "founding" of Rome, other five belong to the Roman Republic. A much larger number of samples comes from the imperial age and after the fall of Rome.




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https://prezi.com/p/nybrerw9_l2d/rome-time-series/
 
Thanks very much, Pax.

The comment you made about the relationship between Etruscans, Latins and Romans (which I bolded) should be repeated every time people discuss the genetics of the "Romans". Well put.

Indeed, it's the same story which happened all over Europe, with Indo-European males and "local" women mixing, although in northern and central Europe we see more steppe mtDna, but the percentages are different in Southern Europe for that and other reasons we've discussed often. The yDna and mtDna reflect that. The Etruscans and, indeed, the Latins, if the reports are correct, and if the PCA reflects other analyses, have even a bit less steppe ancestry than the modern day Spanish and Northern Italians/Tuscans.

It is difficult to say how much steppe they had, but most likely the Etruscans had steppe, given that position in the PCA, despite speaking a pre-Indo-European language. And even this, if confirmed, would not be a surprise at all.


That Etruscan mtDna was always an important clue, but a lot of people refused to see the implications. Was it Barbujani who came to that conclusion? I always thought he was more on point than Piazza and his crew.

Barbujani and his crew are the only ones who have done the right thing: to analyze the Etruscan samples. While Piazza and his crew have never analyzed the Etruscans and have produced an incredible and embarrassing series of unsupported conclusions, founding in modern samples exactly what they're looking for. Only the DNA of the Etruscans can reveal who the Etruscans were genetically.


It will be interesting to compare the Etruscans and Latins to other ancient samples from Italy, like the Parma Beakers, for example, or even Otzi. For goodness sakes', if the Reich Lab and/or Johannes Krause is indeed working on Etruscan samples I hope they, unlike these shoemakers, have the sense to make some comparisons, and hopefully get some Terramare and other ancient dna as well so we can get a look at the changes over time.


Yes, I think it's true that Reich Lab is working with the Max Planck Institute (Johannes Krause) who in turn has been working for years with Barbujani and his crew, and it's plausible that Alissa Mittnik is the one who leads their study.
 
This can help to understand who the Romans are in the PCA, although it is updated to May 23, 2018. It comes from Hannah Moots' Prezi account.

One Roman sample is dated 9th century BCE Iron Age, when the Latial culture (the archeological facies of the proto-Latins) flourished in Latium vetus (the land of the Latins) and the Etruscans are in the Villanovan period. Four Romans samples are immediately after the mythical "founding" of Rome, other five belong to the Roman Republic. A much larger number of samples comes from the imperial age and after the fall of Rome.




TmnHwyG.png


https://prezi.com/p/nybrerw9_l2d/rome-time-series/

Thanks, Pax. Now we'll just have to see what the proto-Latin, "founder" Roman, and Republic Roman samples are like and compare them to the later samples, both "probably Roman", and perhaps "foreign".

There seem to be a lot more samples than appear on that PCA.
 
Thanks, Pax. Now we'll just have to see what the proto-Latin, "founder" Roman, and Republic Roman samples are like and compare them to the later samples, both "probably Roman", and perhaps "foreign".

There seem to be a lot more samples than appear on that PCA.

Yes, obviously the PCA that was published months ago in a forum and does not come from a study, we must not forget it, if it is not a fake, will be one of the many PCA that have been made in recent months at Stanford.

Ah, of course, samples from the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age are more difficult to find, since incineration/cremation was the most common funerary rite among both the Proto-Etruscans, the Etruscans in the early phase and the Proto-Latins.
 
What exactly is Razib khan saying?

1) No difference between Etruscans and Latins.

Are the Etruscans South-Shifted (Center-Italy), or are the Latins North-Shifted (Tuscany)?


2) Massive shift toward ‘Eastern’ affinity during the Imperial Period.

“Massive” meaning that many plotted more East or South-East than South-Italians and Sicilians?

3) shift ‘back’ after the Late Antique Period.

Basically, I think it is in line with work which suggests large fractions of non-natives in *cities*. When cities declined this genetic imprint diminished and Medieval cities were repopulated from rural areas ...

Is he talking about only the big Cities, or the entire Italian Peninsula?
 
What exactly is Razib khan saying?

1) No difference between Etruscans and Latins.

Are the Etruscans South-Shifted (Center-Italy), or are the Latins North-Shifted (Tuscany)?


2) Massive shift toward ‘Eastern’ affinity during the Imperial Period.

“Massive” meaning that many plotted more East or South-East than South-Italians and Sicilians?

3) shift ‘back’ after the Late Antique Period.

Basically, I think it is in line with work which suggests large fractions of non-natives in *cities*. When cities declined this genetic imprint diminished and Medieval cities were repopulated from rural areas ...

Is he talking about only the big Cities, or the entire Italian Peninsula?

I haven't seen what he's seen, so I can't be sure, but in the PCA we have the Etruscan samples plotting near southern Spaniards, northern Italians, and northern Tuscans (a bit more toward the Sardinians than those samples). If there's no difference between the Latins and the Etruscans, the Latins must plot there too, yes? That isn't where the northernmost "Romans" plot on the leaked PCA, except for one sample in southern Toscana and perhaps two in northern Lazio?

We just don't know if that's the last, official PCA. Maybe it isn't, since there's a lot more samples than appear on that PCA.

We're just going to have to wait for the paper.

By massive shift towards the east, I think he just means that the samples buried in Imperial Era Rome are more like Southern Italians, with some even more "eastern", or even "southeastern", in the words of the leaks, heading toward the Levant, i.e. that "tail" they were talking about.

As I've tried to point out numerous times, if those easternmost/southeasternmost samples are from Ostia, or even if they're not, but the burial context, names, grave goods etc. show they're foreigners resident in the area of Rome perhaps for business, I don't see how that's supposed to give us a lot of information "necessarily" about the genetics of people in the rural, inland Campania of the time, for example, or in interior Apulia of that time, much less in the Po Valley or somewhere like that, although it might tell us about the people in the merchant enclaves of other port cities. It also doesn't tell us whether these people buried in Rome considered themselves or were identified by others as "Romans", or whether they were just foreign residents. You can't just assume that they all, and their children, stayed for the rest of their lives and blended into the population.

That brings me to the third point.

This shift back in the Late Antique Period may mean that the samples plot just as southern Italians, with that tail toward the Levant having disappeared. Well, the Jews had been exiled from Rome, so that may be part of it, or, as Khan suggests, as Rome declined, the population shifted back to a more Italic centered one.

I don't see how these questions can be answered without the paper in front of us. I'm not particularly inclined to value their interpretations, however, given that they don't seem to know any of this, and when questioned, one of the researchers says, in effect, well, we're really just looking at the changes in the population in the city of Rome. Well, then, why go back to hunter-gatherers? If you're going to do an analysis of ancient Italian dna, then you need all the relevant time periods, and from rural areas as well as big cities, and certainly not just Rome, and particularly not a sample heavily weighted toward the port city of Rome. This is not an example of clear, focused, reasoned thinking about the issues.

All in my opinion, of course. I don't speak for anyone else, and never have...
 
I haven't seen what he's seen, so I can't be sure, but in the PCA we have the Etruscan samples plotting near southern Spaniards, northern Italians, and northern Tuscans (a bit more toward the Sardinians than those samples).

There are no academic samples of northern Tuscans, those are the usual HGDP and TSI. The rumours said there was no difference between the Etruscans and the Italics. Perhaps Razib deliberately used Latins instead of Romans. We just need to wait that papers are out.
 
Thanks Angela and Pax :)
 
There are no academic samples of northern Tuscans, those are the usual HGDP and TSI. The rumours said there was no difference between the Etruscans and the Italics. Perhaps Razib deliberately used Latins instead of Romans. We just need to wait that papers are out.

I'm aware, but they don't all plot in the same precise spot. The Tuscan cluster covers quite a bit of area.
 
I'm aware, but they don't all plot in the same precise spot. The Tuscan cluster covers quite a bit of area.

Because TSI is the largest Italian sample in that PCA. I don't know they've all used them, but it's made up of a hundred individuals. The other Italian regional samples are composed of about ten, and even fewer, individuals. Italian Bergamo has 13 individuals and represents the whole of northern Italy.

If each Italian region was represented in that PCA by a hundred individuals, in every region not all the individuals would plot in the same precise spot. Furthmore the position of the ancient samples would be clearer, even if ancient samples would also keep the same trends.
 
Also it could be that the e1b1b they found was anlaysed only to m215-m35 level so they could still be e-v13.....
 
What exactly is Razib khan saying?

1) No difference between Etruscans and Latins.

Are the Etruscans South-Shifted (Center-Italy), or are the Latins North-Shifted (Tuscany)?


2) Massive shift toward ‘Eastern’ affinity during the Imperial Period.

“Massive” meaning that many plotted more East or South-East than South-Italians and Sicilians?

3) shift ‘back’ after the Late Antique Period.

Basically, I think it is in line with work which suggests large fractions of non-natives in *cities*. When cities declined this genetic imprint diminished and Medieval cities were repopulated from rural areas ...

Is he talking about only the big Cities, or the entire Italian Peninsula?

the Latins are the main founding tribe of Rome
but the other founding tribes, the Samnites et al were probably genetically similar to the Latins
Razib says the shift happened later in Rome, mainly during the imperial period
the shift back is probably due to admixture coming from the north
 
500 BC Founding Romans were more North Italian like
500 BC - 0 They slowly become more Southern Italian like
0 - 400 AD Levantine admixture increases
400 - 1000 AD Cities are population sinks-low reproduction, population reverts back to the 500 BC state by repopulation from rural areas

Caveat: I read rumors that some Samnites were Cypriot like, if that's true founding Romans may be more mixed or even more Southern like.
 
Caveat: I read rumors that some Samnites were Cypriot like, if that's true founding Romans may be more mixed or even more Southern like.

Where did you read these rumors? Samnites were an Italic tribe like Latins, Umbrians, Sabines and Oscans. How do they can be Cypriot like?
 
The other founding tribes of Rome were the Sabines, not the Samnites. They are two distinct tribes located in two different areas (the Sabines lived near Rome, east of Rome, the Samnites in the region known as Sannio, in southern Italy) although it is believed that their names derive from the original ethnonym -Safin, assumed to be the oldest name of all the Osco-Umbrian speaking tribes.
 
the Latins are the main founding tribe of Rome
but the other founding tribes, the Samnites et al were probably genetically similar to the Latins
Razib says the shift happened later in Rome, mainly during the imperial period
the shift back is probably due to admixture coming from the north

More wisdom from anthrogenica?

Problem is that the amount of U-106 and I1 of the German variety is tiny.
 
The other founding tribes of Rome were the Sabines, not the Samnites. They are two distinct tribes located in two different areas (the Sabines lived near Rome, east of Rome, the Samnites in the region known as Sannio, in southern Italy) although it is believed that their names derive from the original ethnonym -Safin, assumed to be the oldest name of all the Osco-Umbrian speaking tribes.

right, I was confusing both
 
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