Population history of southern Italy during Greek colonization

Pax Augusta

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Population history of southern Italy during Greek colonization inferred from dental remains


First published: 21 October 2019
https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23937


Abstract

Objectives

We are testing competing scenarios regarding the population history of the ancient Greek colonization of southern Italy using dental phenotypic evidence.

Materials and Methods


We collected dental metric and nonmetric trait data for 481 human skeletons from six archaeological sites along the Gulf of Taranto, dating to pre‐colonial (900–700 BC) and post‐colonial periods (700–200 BC). We are evaluating scenarios through an individual‐level biodistance analysis using a three‐pronged approach: (a) by analyzing levels of mobility in pre‐ and post‐colonial periods under a model of isolation‐by‐distance; (b) by quantifying differences in group means and variances in pre‐ and post‐colonial periods utilizing permutational multivariate analysis of variance and Betadisper analyses; and (c) by identifying ancestries of post‐colonial individuals using naïve Bayes classification.

Results


Southern Italy during pre‐colonial times was characterized by low levels of mobility and marked differences in group means and variances. During post‐colonial times, mobility increased and there were no differences in group means and variances. About 18% of the people in post‐colonial times were of Greek ancestry and lived equally distributed across Greek colonies and indigenous villages. Nevertheless, the overall biological composition and variability of southern Italy remained relatively unchanged across pre‐ and post‐colonial periods.

Discussion


Our results support a scenario in which only few Greek colonists migrated to southern Italy and lived in smaller numbers alongside indigenous people in Greek colonies as well as in indigenous villages. Our results contradict a scenario in which large numbers of Greek invaders founded biologically isolated and substantially homogeneous colonial enclaves within conquered territories.


https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23937


ajpa23937-fig-0001-m.jpg
 
Maybe actual genetic analysis will show that was the case. I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm not going to base a conclusion like that on anthropologists examining teeth.

Also, the only way to be sure who is "indigenous" versus a migrant is to have isotope data from a couple of generations in the same spot, because the children of migrants raised in a new land are going to present as "natives".

This paper is by no stretch of the imagination of the caliber of the paper on the Langobards to which Patrick Geary contributed.

What I did find interesting is that the pre-colonial area was so heterogeneous. Had the steppe admixed "Italics" not mingled as of yet in certain areas with the prior Neolithic inhabitants and did so only under the pressure of a new migration?
 
I would be interesting to do a comparison between the smaller Greek colonies and the larger ones, i.e Syracuse, Taranto, etc as far as genetic influence on the local populations. Also Ancient Greek colonization vs medieval and post medieval migrations.

Couldn't they extract DNA from the teeth?
 
The geography of Southern Italy and especially this part of Italy has made difficult/nearly impossible any global mixing as described by some people.

What would be interesting is to have samples from Sybaris, Crotone and Calabria Ultra.

If you take samples from Sybaris you might want to compare them with Terranova di Sibari which is where the Sibari moved when the pirates came calling. It's where my wife's grandmother came from.
 
Very interesting, so the indigenous Southern Italians were just Greek-like, and not actually heavily impacted by Greek colonists. Who this paper says had a marginal, but respectable influence on the local population.
Those two statements are not necessarily contradictory, indigenous Southern Italians might have been Greek-like before the colonization and still be heavily impacted by Greek colonists after.
 
How can we claim Southern Italian Italic peoples were Greek like in light of the Latin and Etruscan samples? Seems a stretch to say that considering the heavy impact of the late Republican period and early imperial period.

Maybe there was more Eastern admixture but do we have autosomal results that support that to begin with?
 
How can we claim Southern Italian Italic peoples were Greek like in light of the Latin and Etruscan samples? Seems a stretch to say that considering the heavy impact of the late Republican period and early imperial period.

Maybe there was more Eastern admixture but do we have autosomal results that support that to begin with?

Iron age and Medieval samples; modern samples overlap. They seem pretty consistent, in staying roughly in the same place. Especially when Southern Italians are mostly similar to R437, a Latin.

5rT1g8u.png


Why more Eastern? The majority of the samples in the Imperial era were Greek/Cretan-like. The Near Eastern-tail, vanished from the cities after the fall of Rome.

FYI, I have had correspondence with Hannah Moots, and she believes R850 was Greek-like.
 
How can we claim Southern Italian Italic peoples were Greek like in light of the Latin and Etruscan samples? Seems a stretch to say that considering the heavy impact of the late Republican period and early imperial period.

Maybe there was more Eastern admixture but do we have autosomal results that support that to begin with?

The Latin and Etruscan samples have nothing to do with Southern Italy. Now we do need a study that concentrated on southern Italy both on the interior and close to the Greek colonies.
 
We do need to get samples from a study specifically about southern Italy. Nevertheless, Southern Italians, from what I've seen do in fact have an affinity to R437-to-R850. I speculate we will get better fits, with future samples.

DhrXUxr.png


HDfuGJ4.png
 
Iron age and Medieval samples; modern samples overlap. They seem pretty consistent, in staying roughly in the same place. Especially when Southern Italians are mostly similar to R437, a Latin.

5rT1g8u.png


Why more Eastern? The majority of the samples in the Imperial era were Greek/Cretan-like. The Near Eastern-tail, vanished from the cities after the fall of Rome.

FYI, I have had correspondence with Hannah Moots, and she believes R850 was Greek-like.


our pca match
but I have more samples added

 
Iron age and Medieval samples; modern samples overlap. They seem pretty consistent, in staying roughly in the same place. Especially when Southern Italians are mostly similar to R437, a Latin.
I'm a bit out of the loop, where and when are those samples from? I thought we didn't have autosomal results from the remains found there?


Why more Eastern? The majority of the samples in the Imperial era were Greek/Cretan-like. The Near Eastern-tail, vanished from the cities after the fall of Rome.

FYI, I have had correspondence with Hannah Moots, and she believes R850 was Greek-like.
Eastern relative to Italy, between not-so-distant Myceneans, Anatolians and Levantines I think you are going to have an harder time distinguishing between a big Greek-like admixture or a minor Lebanese like one, not with the little evidence we have right one.

The Latin and Etruscan samples have nothing to do with Southern Italy. Now we do need a study that concentrated on southern Italy both on the interior and close to the Greek colonies.
How do they have *nothing* to do with Latins? Italic languages which have evident recent kinship have been spoken as far south as Calabria and *maybe* there were Italic speakers in Sicily too.
 
There you go again.

Italic languages spread from north to south. Like most migrations from the north I think it's a good bet that by the time you reach the toe of the peninsula and Sicily the percentage of total dna from the "Italic" newcomers is smaller. Look at Sicily Beaker.

Distance to:I4930_Bronze_Age_Beaker_Sicily
17.75790528Morocco_Jews
18.68690451Sephardic_Jews
20.97808233Italy_Calabria
21.34804441Ashkenazi
21.53729198Italy_Campania
22.10654428Ashkenazy_Jews
22.14209035Italy_Sicily
23.06039410France_Corsica
23.21633691Italy_Abruzzo
24.42997540Italy_Marche
24.76014943Greek_Crete
25.52503884Italy_Apulia
25.78033095Italy_Lazio
26.09522945Greek
26.45275033Italy_Romagna
27.37371002Cypriots
27.69570021Italy_Tuscany
28.93280683Italy_Emilia
29.16867275Italy_Liguria
29.84378662Greek_Cappadocia
31.19259556Italy_Lombardy
31.21225240Nusayri_Turkey
32.33615314Crimean_Tatar_Coast
32.69854890Italy_Piedmont
32.70471526Albanian_Kosovo

We have to wait for Neolithic and Bronze Age samples from Southern Italy, but could they be completely different?

So, we have to figure out what the Southern Italians after the arrival of the Italic speakers looked like autosomally. After that we can see, hopefully, with samples from both Greek settlement areas on the coasts versus the interior how much of an effect they had.

As for the Latins of the area around Rome, they, like the Etruscans, mostly land in a sort of no man's land between Spain and Northern Italy. There are two exceptions: R437 and R850. Both of them were modeled by the authors. R850 is Crete like. Didn't you read the paper?

So, either there were "Greek like" or "island Greek like" people in the Center who weren't yet absorbed by the "Italics", or, imo, the likeliest scenario is that this "Greek like" ancestry was moving north up the peninsula already by Republican times. It could have come directly from Greece or Anatolia, of course, or both might be true; we'll have to see. The "new" ancestry in these Latins didn't come from the Levant.

Now, there were Levant like samples in Rome in the Imperial period. That "Levantine tail" disappeared after the fall of Rome. That makes total sense. Rome was no longer the prosperous metropolis attracting merchants from all over the world that it once was. The wealth had shifted to Constantinople.

What Antonio et al failed to incorporate into their thinking is the fact that you can't assume that every body buried in an international metropolis belongs to locals or even to people who decided to stay and settle and whose progeny mixed with that of the locals.

I'm sure some did. I'm equally sure some did not. I doubt that all the the Northern European samples we find in their set stayed and became ancestors of the Romans of the Medieval period. Why assume that all the Levantines did?

One also has to factor in the incredible de-population suffered by the citizens of the large urban centers with the Germanic invasions through war itself, but also through disease and starvation. Then the Gothic War which was as bad if not worse. Country people always survive better, and the people who lived in the mountains. I grew up on stories of the people of La Spezia being bombed to smithereens and burned, or strafed as they fled the city, only to fall prey to hunger and disease. The canny country people had carved out half the hillsides for food storage to save it from both the Germans and the partisans, to be honest.

That ancient period in Italy must have been like hell on earth.
 
There you go again.

Italic languages spread from north to south. Like most migrations from the north I think it's a good bet that by the time you reach the toe of the peninsula and Sicily the percentage of total dna from the "Italic" newcomers is smaller. Look at Sicily Beaker.
Thanks!

That's true but for Southern Italians to have been Greek like there must have been some hard genetic border in the middle of Italic Italy, otherwise how do you reconcile Southern Italic being like to 13-14% Steppe Mycenean Greek and not 25% Steppe Latins?


We have to wait for Neolithic and Bronze Age samples from Southern Italy, but could they be completely different?
Weren't Copper Age and early Bronze age Latins Sardinia-like?
On the nMonte Runner by Poi the main Bell Beaker samples from Italy are like 30% Steppe, which is incredibly high
Are they the same as the one from Sicily? Doesn't seem so.

As for the Latins of the area around Rome, they, like the Etruscans, mostly land in a sort of no man's land between Spain and Northern Italy. There are two exceptions: R437 and R850. Both of them were modeled by the authors. R850 is Crete like. Didn't you read the paper?
I didn't directly read the Roman paper, but now I get what you mean, I just was confused where the samples came from.

So, either there were "Greek like" or "island Greek like" people in the Center who weren't yet absorbed by the "Italics", or, imo, the likeliest scenario is that this "Greek like" ancestry was moving north up the peninsula already by Republican times. It could have come directly from Greece or Anatolia, of course, or both might be true; we'll have to see. The "new" ancestry in these Latins didn't come from the Levant.
Depends on the exact dating, R850 is too early and would have during the kingdom period, it's most likely a Greek migrant, which we know have existed as a minority considering the general orientalizing period and evidence of Greek influence in the region(don't trust me on that though, it's just what I remember). The site where the remains where was afterall Ardea which is coastal, was it even under Roman jurisdiction?

Palestrina Selciata, the site of R437(which is from 400-200 BCE) is inland, so it could be indeed good starting evidence of more regular intermingling, but the 200 years time gap is just too much, we can't say or even theorize if it was international migration, enslavement or already internal Roman migration.

Now, there were Levant like samples in Rome in the Imperial period. That "Levantine tail" disappeared after the fall of Rome. That makes total sense. Rome was no longer the prosperous metropolis attracting merchants from all over the world that it once was. The wealth had shifted to Constantinople.
My theory is that continental slavery must have played a role as well, afterall within the city of Rome slaves were more prominent and freemen less AFAIK.

What Antonio et al failed to incorporate into their thinking is the fact that you can't assume that every body buried in an international metropolis belongs to locals or even to people who decided to stay and settle and whose progeny mixed with that of the locals.
I agree, though there must have been an impact in rural lands as well, the slave rebellions, displacement of the proletari and plantations show that a genetic shift through movement of slaves could have played a role outside the cities too, although not so much as to make Italians Levant-like.

I think the peninsular population at large couldn't have almost East Anatolian or Levantine especially considering that the northern Italian, Gallic or Germanic input needed to offset the East Med influence would have so big that we would either be speaking of a fully Gallo-Italian speaking peninsular Italy or even Germanic and obvious neither happened nor was close to happening.
Plus the existence of the Papal states, Venice and Byzantine holdings shows that such a replacement would have been unlikely, even areas completely lost by the Byzantines in the Balkans had at most like 50% Slavic input, Germanic paternal markers also don't show that.

I'm sure some did. I'm equally sure some did not. I doubt that all the the Northern European samples we find in their set stayed and became ancestors of the Romans of the Medieval period. Why assume that all the Levantines did?
The Germanic-like samples probably did but they need not have been that many and like you said before already admixed with Italians as they got to the South.

That ancient period in Italy must have been like hell on earth.
It was a bad time for Europe as whole, the climated in the early 6th century was bad, people underestimate the effect of climate on the lives of pre-modern people, the Pax Romana would have been hard to maintain under the sort of climatic regime of the 6th century, it's not all political stability or political peace.
 
^^

Briefly, if you had read the paper carefully instead of just pulling out the dates of R437 and R850 you would know that other than the Parma Beakers we don't have Bronze Age samples from northern and southern Italy. Hopefully some will be published, but the number will be limited because some of the groups burned their dead.

As to the Parma Beakers, one had a lot of steppe, one had almost none, and one was in the middle. So, you are misinformed.

That is indeed different from Sicily, which is precisely my point.

Given the dearth of U-106 and I1 in Italy a substantial "Germanic" input in us is, imo, impossible, and in most of the south didn't exist at all, unless you want to consider Sicily, where you might have a little input in a small area. As for the Gauls, all the evidence suggests it was not in any way a "replacement". Plus, the Gauls migrated into Italy before the Empire.

We've known that there's a break in the Italian genetic cline just south of Rome for years and years, at least since the time of Novembre et al, and there was no wall, just rule by different entities. I'll decide whether I think there was a break in the cline at the time of the Republic when I see some samples from Bronze and Iron Age Southern Italy. IF there is a difference in ancestry at that time it was not because of the slavery practiced during the Empire.

I'm quite aware that the Germanics poured into the Empire because they were terrified of the Huns and fleeing from them, and that they were also experiencing hunger etc. The Goths had the sense to leave some of the infrastructure in place and leave Italians to run things, but the Gothic War resulted in mass destruction, famine, and disease. Then the Langobards, illiterate, completely unused to Roman civilization, moved in and destroyed the rest. There is no comparison. Italy was a wasteland.
 
Sicily stayed Byzantine until the traitor Euphemius handed it over to the Arabs. Then the Normans came, and left some R-U106 and I1 while completing the Latinization of the island, which had formerly been majority Greek speaking.
 
Sicily stayed Byzantine until the traitor Euphemius handed it over to the Arabs. Then the Normans came, and left some R-U106 and I1 while completing the Latinization of the island, which had formerly been majority Greek speaking.

I believe R-U106 and I1 came to south Italy via the Lombards.........normans would be a mix of danish ( vikings) and french markers through english markers and then to southern italy .......and IIRC some parts of albania
 
^^

Briefly, if you had read the paper carefully instead of just pulling out the dates of R437 and R850 you would know that other than the Parma Beakers we don't have Bronze Age samples from northern and southern Italy. Hopefully some will be published, but the number will be limited because some of the groups burned their dead.

As to the Parma Beakers, one had a lot of steppe, one had almost none, and one was in the middle. So, you are misinformed.

That is indeed different from Sicily, which is precisely my point.

Given the dearth of U-106 and I1 in Italy a substantial "Germanic" input in us is, imo, impossible, and in most of the south didn't exist at all, unless you want to consider Sicily, where you might have a little input in a small area. As for the Gauls, all the evidence suggests it was not in any way a "replacement". Plus, the Gauls migrated into Italy before the Empire.

We've known that there's a break in the Italian genetic cline just south of Rome for years and years, at least since the time of Novembre et al, and there was no wall, just rule by different entities. I'll decide whether I think there was a break in the cline at the time of the Republic when I see some samples from Bronze and Iron Age Southern Italy. IF there is a difference in ancestry at that time it was not because of the slavery practiced during the Empire.

I'm quite aware that the Germanics poured into the Empire because they were terrified of the Huns and fleeing from them, and that they were also experiencing hunger etc. The Goths had the sense to leave some of the infrastructure in place and leave Italians to run things, but the Gothic War resulted in mass destruction, famine, and disease. Then the Langobards, illiterate, completely unused to Roman civilization, moved in and destroyed the rest. There is no comparison. Italy was a wasteland.

there is still some ostrogoth in italy especially their capital of ravenna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogothic_Ravenna


and this style
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Gothic_architecture




[/URL]
 

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