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, 17–19) (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.