Moots: Ancient Rome Paper

According to the rumors, it was the Imperial Romans who were South-Italian like.

Nope.

I have heard rumours saying that Rome was founded by Greeks and genetics will confirm this legend.

If those rumours were true, we should be seeing South Italian-like genetics already around 753 BCE.

Besides, according to Razib, South Italian-like genetics was mainly in the cities, not in the countryside. And Razib thought that after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, there was resurgence of the rural locals after the cities (where East Med influence had to be the strongest) died out, and subsequently became re-populated by peasants (with more native "Republican-Iron Age" genetics):

FNLbGlm.png


^^^
Rome's (city) population over time:

MYkUTeD.png
 
Is there a genetic difference between early Romans and Latins?

I do not think so. But rumours were saying that there would be a difference.

And that Romans would be Mycenaean-like genetically (= South Italian-like).

I saw people claiming that Rome was founded by the Greeks or Trojans, just like in one of legends about Aeneas:

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-myth-founding-of-rome-117754

Genetics proves that this is false and that the legend about local Latin founders (Romulus & Remus) is more true.
 
The J2b2-L283 that is found in Civitavecchia is from 700-600BC, and most likely has origin from the Croatian coast as it is under the same branch despite being near 1000 years younger.

Aeneas was a Dardanian, they are connected with Trojans, but not the same thing, so don't go discounting just yet. There could have been truth in the myth.
 
Nope. But those rumours were saying that there would be a difference.

And that Romans would be Mycenaean-like genetically (= South Italian).

I saw people claiming that Rome was founded by the Greeks or Trojans, just like in one of legends about Aeneas:

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-myth-founding-of-rome-117754

Genetics proves that this is false and that the legend about local Latin founders (Romulus & Remus) is more true.

We have been saying on this site for a long time of the possibility that the Republican Romans were shifted north and the imperial Romans were shifted south.
 
No, these samples range from 900 BCE to 27 BCE and genetic profile did not change much in that period. Rome was founded in 753 BCE. Median age of these samples is given as "320 BCE Roman Republic" (map):

The Iron age Latin samples are from Latin cities but not from Rome.

The J2b2-L283 that is found in Cittavechia is from 700-600BC, and most likely has origin from the Croatian coast as it is under the same branch despite being near 1000 years younger.

Aeneas was a Dardanian, they are connected with Trojans, but not the same thing, so don't go discounting just yet. There could have been truth in the myth.


When are you going to stop talking nonsense about the Etruscans? This study has shown that there are no significant differences between Etruscans and Latins. Bringing out the old theories of an eastern origin of the Etruscans is really inappropriate and ridiculous on the basis of a single Y-DNA that was in Croatia around 1500 BC.
 
I do not think so. But rumours were saying that there would be a difference.

And that Romans would be Mycenaean-like genetically (= South Italian-like).

I saw people claiming that Rome was founded by the Greeks or Trojans, just like in one of legends about Aeneas:

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-myth-founding-of-rome-117754

Genetics proves that this is false and that the legend about local Latin founders (Romulus & Remus) is more true.

I don't think I have seen anyone here claim that the Latins, who were early Romans; were Greek-like. Certainly, not I:

CWeUUhI.png


However, in the south, the people in the outskirts of the cities were Greek-like, since it used to be Magna Graecia. Thus, after the cities fell, it would be been repopulated largely be these kind of people there, in addition to the Italic-like people.

Also, you are wrong about Southern Italian DNA disappearing after repopulation. As a matter of fact it existed in central Italy in the Medieval period! :) Take a look at the PCA, they are yellow dots.

9F2cMqC.jpg
 
I don't think I have seen anyone here claim that the Latins, who were early Romans; were Greek-like. Certainly, not I:

CWeUUhI.png


However, in the south, the people in the outskirts of the cities were Greek-like, since it used to be Magna Graecia. Thus, after the cities fell, it would be been repopulated largely be these kind of people there, in addition to the Italic-like people.

Also, you are wrong about Southern Italian DNA disappearing after repopulation. As a matter of fact it existed in central Italy in the Medieval period! :) Take a look at the PCA, they are yellow dots.

9F2cMqC.jpg


What had disappeared where the people who were South of south Italians.

There were migrations of people from exotic locations, that were not supplemented with continuous waves. Moreover, the lack of modern public works meant that their legacy would not have lasted. That is what Razib Khan said about these people.

The fact that more than half of the Central Italian population in the medieval to early modern period is slightly south of the of where it is today, should give you an idea of who repopulated it. While the people to the North of northern Italians, are obviously invaders.
 
The Iron age Latin samples are from Latin cities but not from Rome.




When are you going to stop talking nonsense about the Etruscans? This study has shown that there are no significant differences between Etruscans and Latins. Bringing out the old theories of an eastern origin of the Etruscans is really inappropriate and ridiculous on the basis of a single Y-DNA that was in Croatia around 1500 BC.


Im not claiming that L283 is native etruscan, i'm specifically saying it is not etruscan but illyrian, that assimilated with the locals. That is what the Aeneid describes.

Leonard Palmer mentions this process being present in mixed Illyrian / Etruscan / Italic names:

D_q4qOqXUAAYymg
 

So, most Republican Era Romans are pretty close to Northwestern Italians, with some drifting toward Tuscans? Close enough. :)

Basically what we've been saying here all along, as Salento has pointed out.

One is more Sardinian like, and one more Central Italian like.

The burial context is very important here. What are the class differences, if any?

The Neolithic people in the vicinity of Rome already had CHG or Iranian Neolithic like ancestry.

"Similar to early farmers from other parts of Europe, Neolithic individuals from central Italy project near Anatolian farmers in PCA (13, 14, 1719) (Fig. 2A). However, ADMIXTURE reveals that, in addition to ancestry from northwestern Anatolia farmers, all of the Neolithic individuals that we studied carry a small amount of another component that is found at high levels in Neolithic Iranian farmers and Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) (Fig. 2B and fig. S9). This contrasts with contemporaneous central European and Iberian populations who carry farmer ancestry predominantly from northwestern Anatolia (fig. S12). Furthermore, qpAdm modeling suggests that Neolithic Italian farmers can be modeled as a two-way mixture of ~5% local hunter-gatherer ancestry and ~95% ancestry of Neolithic farmers from central Anatolia or northern Greece (table S7), who also carry additional CHG (or Neolithic Iranian) ancestry (fig. S12) (14). These findings point to different or additional source populations involved in the Neolithic transition in Italy compared to central and western Europe."

So I said for 5 years, to much derision. There was Iranian and J2 in Italy in the Neolithic. I wonder if there was even more in the south?

Could this be Cardial versus Danubian? Yet, it doesn't show up in the Spanish Neolithic, which came from Cardial. Perhaps it's from a movement closer to the Copper Age, and via Northern Greece?

As to the yDna, could the R1b be V88? The J2's are definitely Caucasus like, yes?

For Iron Age Rome...


"
We collected data from 11 Iron Age individuals dating from 900 to 200 BCE (including the Republican period). This group shows a clear ancestry shift from the Copper Age, interpreted by ADMIXTURE as the addition of a Steppe-related ancestry component and an increase in the Neolithic Iranian component (Figs. 2B and 3B). Using qpAdm, we modeled the genetic shift by an introduction of ~30 to 40% ancestry from Bronze and Iron Age nomadic populations from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe (table S15), similar to many Bronze Age populations in Europe (10, 13, 14, 19, 22). The presence of Steppe-related ancestry in Iron Age Italy could have happened through genetic exchange with intermediary populations (5, 23). Additionally, multiple source populations could have contributed, simultaneously or subsequently, to the ancestry transition before Iron Age. By 900 BCE at the latest, the inhabitants of central Italy had begun to approximate the genetics of modern Mediterranean populations."

"Although we were able to model eight of the 11 individuals as two-way mixtures of Copper Age central Italians and a Steppe-related population (~24 to 38%) using qpAdm, this model was rejected for the other three individuals (p < 0.001; table S16). Instead, two individuals from Latin sites (R437 and R850) can be modeled as a mixture between local people and an ancient Near Eastern population (best approximated by Bronze Age Armenian or Iron Age Anatolian; tables S17 and S18). An Etruscan individual (R475) carries significant African ancestry identified by f-statistics (|Z-score|>3; fig. S23) and can be modeled with ~53% ancestry from Late Neolithic Moroccan (table S19). Together these results suggest substantial genetic heterogeneity within the Etruscan (n = 3 individuals) and Latin (n = 6) groups. However, using f-statistics, we did not find significant genetic differentiation between the Etruscans and Latins in allele sharing with any preceding or contemporaneous population (|Z-score|<2), although the power to detect subtle genetic differentiation is limited by the small sample size."

Well, there's a bit of a surprise in terms of one of the Etruscans? Someone took a foreign bride? :) Too bad three of the Etruscans are female.

Odd using an Iberomaurusian for comparison. Surely they could use someone more contemporaneous, or even modern?

I really have to dig into the burial contexts, if they provide enough data. It's important. It seems all of the imperial samples are from the port area. Yes, I get that they may be second generation or something, going by isotopes, but this is a specific group, not necessarily representative of all Italian Imperial Romans.
Hell, it's like some archaeologist from the future finding a big bunch of samples in Flushing who are East Asian.

I'm also highly skeptical that the big northern shift in Late Antiquity is from Lombards and Goths, for God's sake. There were too few of them, especially by the time they got to Rome, and where is there a sign of sufficient I1 or U-106 to make that big a change? The samples just don't come from a "Little Levant".

Maybe I'll feel differently after I go through the whole supplement and check the context for each sample, but it just seems to me there's a lot of sheer speculation here.

I do think it's funny that they maintain the shift is to the north in Antiquity. Remember that paper that said, based on modern samples, and using a dating tool, that in Antiquity there was a huge movement of Byzantine Anatolians and Levantines into Italy. I even wrote to them and said if there was a shift in Antiquity it would be north, because of the Barbarian invasions. They said that wasn't what their data showed. I responded that maybe they had their locals and intruders mixed up. All the usual suspects joined on that band wagon. Guess it was wrong. :)
 
What had disappeared where the people who were South of south Italians.

There were migrations of people from exotic locations, that were not supplemented with continuous waves. Moreover, the lack of modern public works meant that their legacy would not have lasted. That is what Razib Khan said about these people.

The fact that more than half of the Central Italian population in the medieval to early modern period is slightly south of the of where it is today, should give you an idea of who repopulated it. While the people to the North of northern Italians, are obviously invaders.

First they saddle us with the ravings of the people at anthrogenica, and then they misinterpret the map.

You're exactly right: the people who disappeared are the more East Med and Levantine people. I was sort of joking a few weeks ago when I said maybe they disappeared because they went to the Rhineland. Who knows? Many died during Antiquity, or moved away to better areas for trade, as early as when Constantinople was established, and maybe some indeed went north.

They can speculate all they want about all this northern ancestry making its way into Rome and accounting for the disappearance of East Med like samples. Did it never occur to them that they just left, or were killed (yes, I know, they give a bow to that)? As I've asked before, where is all the I1 and U-106 in Rome today, enough to account for this big change? Even in the Veneto and Piemonte, where Lombards did settle, they're very much a minority.

When the large cities in Italy started to decline people left. They were repopulated by people from the countryside. I think it may be as simple as that, although I'm keeping an open mind. I'm hoping for better things from the Reich group.
 
The Neolithic people in the vicinity of Rome already had CHG or Iranian Neolithic like ancestry.

"Similar to early farmers from other parts of Europe, Neolithic individuals from central Italy project near Anatolian farmers in PCA (13, 14, 1719) (Fig. 2A). However, ADMIXTURE reveals that, in addition to ancestry from northwestern Anatolia farmers, all of the Neolithic individuals that we studied carry a small amount of another component that is found at high levels in Neolithic Iranian farmers and Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) (Fig. 2B and fig. S9). This contrasts with contemporaneous central European and Iberian populations who carry farmer ancestry predominantly from northwestern Anatolia (fig. S12). Furthermore, qpAdm modeling suggests that Neolithic Italian farmers can be modeled as a two-way mixture of ~5% local hunter-gatherer ancestry and ~95% ancestry of Neolithic farmers from central Anatolia or northern Greece (table S7), who also carry additional CHG (or Neolithic Iranian) ancestry (fig. S12) (14). These findings point to different or additional source populations involved in the Neolithic transition in Italy compared to central and western Europe."

So I said for 5 years, to much derision. There was Iranian and J2 in Italy in the Neolithic. I wonder if there was even more in the south?

Could this be Cardial versus Danubian? Yet, it doesn't show up in the Spanish Neolithic, which came from Cardial. Perhaps it's from a movement closer to the Copper Age, and via Northern Greece?

As to the yDna, could the R1b be V88? The J2's are definitely Caucasus like, yes?


BQ5EoGy.png


I noticed these Neolithic people in the vicinity of Rome are just as south, but further west of Southern Italians.
 
Can we please stop with Herodotus and the Aeneid? We have better tools now.

The Etruscans, with the exception of the one with "foreign" maternal ancestry, and the Latins were similar autosomally. The Etruscans didn't come, during the first millennium BC, from Lydia in Anatolia or from Troy by way of the Balkans.

I'm sorry, but the Etruscans weren't Semites, despite the foreign bride, and they certainly weren't Albanians. J2b seems to have been pretty widespread. Who knows precisely how and when it arrived in Italy, although it may have been via the Balkans.

Give it a rest, people.

Find your ethnic validation in your own ancestors.
 
Straw man. I commented nothing on the Etruscans being Illyrians. They are two seperate things. I clearly stated that the L283 sample has Illyrian origin. This is hard to argue against since it is in the same branch of the 1000 year older coastal Illyrian sample. There is an Illyrian movement to Rome, and I'm not claiming anything about Etruscans or Italics, but the Illyrians, which are neither of those.
 
BQ5EoGy.png


I noticed these Neolithic people in the vicinity of Rome are just as south, but further west of Southern Italians.

From Central Italian-Southern Italian.

Year ago, when Otzi's genome came out, Dienekes did some analyses that showed that after the Sardinians, Southern Italians were pretty close to him too. Northern Italians and Tuscans have a lot of EEF too.

When push comes to shove, and all this talk of all these migrations, Central and Southern Italians haven't moved all that far.

I misspoke a bit. There are three "outlier" Iron Age Romans. One is still Sardinian like (different burial?), one is Central Italian like, and one is Southern Italian like.

The authors never address the fact that some of this movement into Rome could have been from Southern Italy, which is a big problem.

Well, after all is said and done, the Etruscans and the "original" Romans were Southern Europeans, not Germans or Scandinavians or Slavs.

They also seem to be pretty close to Northwestern Italians. My father must be crying with joy. :)

@Johane,
Perhaps, or perhaps both the Etruscans and Illyrians got it from a similar ancestor population. There is absolutely no way of knowing at the present time, no matter the wishful thinking.
 
I misspoke a bit. There are three "outlier" Iron Age Romans. One is still Sardinian like (different burial?), one is Central Italian like, and one is Southern Italian like.

The 11 Iron age individuals include 7 Roman/Latins (R851, R1, R1016, R1021, R435, R437, R850) and 4 Etruscans (R1015, R474, R473, R475). The three outliers are two Roman/Latins (R437, R850) and one Etruscan (R475).
 
The Iron age Latin samples are from Latin cities but not from Rome.




When are you going to stop talking nonsense about the Etruscans? This study has shown that there are no significant differences between Etruscans and Latins. Bringing out the old theories of an eastern origin of the Etruscans is really inappropriate and ridiculous on the basis of a single Y-DNA that was in Croatia around 1500 BC.

Well said
And also etruscans ruled over romans for nearly 200 years....there was a lot of mixing
 
I bet the Iranian farmer like genes in Neolithic farmers who were in what is now Rome is part of why southern Italians are close to Mycenaeans bc im sure Neolithic Greeks had this Iranian component as well and obviously Mycenaeans descend from these farmers.
 
I bet the Iranian farmer like genes in Neolithic farmers who were in what is now Rome is part of why southern Italians are close to Mycenaeans bc im sure Neolithic Greeks had this Iranian component as well and obviously Mycenaeans descend from these farmers.

I agree with that. Also the amount of Iranian-like ancestry in the Iron age samples, are comparable to the Steppe.

GujLQyx.png
 

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