Sicilians pre-Greek colonization

I agree, that is exactly what I am saying. Where did I say something else? You obviously missed the substance of my post, ancient Greeks and Romans looked Southern European like, not like Danes/Swedes/Norwegians and English-Anglo Saxons.

I am still having trouble with the substance of your post. If your position is that the first Indo_European languages are from ancient Iran/Persia or Armenia, then that is a hypothesis that I think the so called Kurgen Hypothsis could "broadly support" but I will admit I don't know enough to have a definite opinion as to where the first Indo-European languages developed. I do know from some old Jesuit educated folks (I am Dominican educated in my K-8 years) that it was Jesuits from the 16th century that first noted a connection of European and Iranian and even ancient Indian type languages like Sanskrit seemed to be connected. So you could be correct that the first Indo-European languages came from ancient Iran/Armenia area. Still, I think most from what I have read, limited, suggest the earliest Indo-European languages were among the EHG in ancient Russia/Ukraine (Pontic-Caspian Steppe) which is the mainstream version of the Kurgan hypothesis.

Again I am not well versed enough in ancient Indo-European history so to speak so maybe someone else here can provide more information supporting your views. In terms of ancient ancestry, I think it is clear Iran-Neolithic type ancestry was in Sicily even before the Bronze Age. This new paper by VanDeLoosdrecht 2020 clearly documents this (Again See Post 152 and 156). So I am not arguing that point
 
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Palermo Trapani said:
Well who is the greatest geneticist is subjective, but yes Reich is one of the best. As to where Indo-European languages were first spoken, that is a matter of intense debate and if it turns out to be Armenia then hey no issue for me. Now more to the point on a personal level, the fact that the Mycenaean's can't be modeled as having significant EHG ancestry is something I have no issue with. In fact, it actually is something that internally makes me smile because it refutes long held blog, you tube and internet theories about who the ancient Greeks were. So if you are saying that the ancient Greeks did not look like modern Nordic/Germanic/English-Anglo Saxon type modern Northern Europeans then I am in agreement 100% as I have never said any such thing nor have I ever believed such a thing.
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He is saying that Mycenaean came from South Caucasus....it is a valid option that is gaining momentum....


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blevins13 said:
He is saying that Mycenaean came from South Caucasus....it is a valid option that is gaining momentum....


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Who is saying that? I am not saying that?

Edit, sorry, I see who you are referring. I haven't heard any such thing nor I have I seen a paper other than the Lazaridis et al 2017 study, which clearly did not say that. It clearly states that for both Minoans and Myceneans, 75% of their ancestry is from the first Neolithic Farmers from Anatolia and Aegean, the remainder from Caucus and Iran, but Myceneans have some additional EHG type ancestry, minimum of 4% but no more than 16% if I remember correctly from the paper.

So some South Caucus type ancestry and Iran Neolithic, that is documented in the Lazaradis et al study but not anything near the predominant source ancestry nor is it EHG from the Pontic-Steppe either. Why won't people accept the results of the study? If there are new samples that show different admixture proportions, then I guess the academics can add them to the current samples and re-calibrate their admixture models but until then, as the old saying goes "it is what it is."
 
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For goodness' sakes, even if Drews was correct and the Greek speakers left the steppe, crossed the Caucasus, traversed Anatolia, and then entered the Aegean and Greece, it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of their ancestry is not Caucasus related, although they have some, as they have steppe. By the time there was a "functioning" Mycenaean society, they were vast majority European farmer, no matter how much some people might want to make them Near Eastern foreigners.
 
Angela said:
For goodness' sakes, even if Drews was correct and the Greek speakers left the steppe, crossed the Caucasus, traversed Anatolia, and then entered the Aegean and Greece, it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of their ancestry is not Caucasus related, although they have some, as they have steppe. By the time there was a "functioning" Mycenaean society, they were vast majority European farmer, no matter how much some people might want to make them Near Eastern foreigners.
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I don't want to assume people having agendas but there seems to be a desire to exotify everything in Europe. I even read about East African/SSA admix in Mycenaeans recently.
 
Angela said:
For goodness' sakes, even if Drews was correct and the Greek speakers left the steppe, crossed the Caucasus, traversed Anatolia, and then entered the Aegean and Greece, it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of their ancestry is not Caucasus related, although they have some, as they have steppe. By the time there was a "functioning" Mycenaean society, they were vast majority European farmer, no matter how much some people might want to make them Near Eastern foreigners.
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Not that I want to make them Near Eastern.....but with their technological progress The Caucasian-Anatolian root makes more sense to me...I share Drews views....waiting for genetic to confirm it or prove them false.


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ratchet_fan said:
I don't want to assume people having agendas but there seems to be a desire to exotify everything in Europe. I even read about East African/SSA admix in Mycenaeans recently.
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that goes the other way too. people so desperately want to seperate "european" from "near eastern". those two are no valid genetic groups. also why do you think people immediately came with SSA, south asian, and additional natufian when talking about the difference between iran neo and modern iranians and not also with additional anatolian neolithic or steppe?

ratchet_fan said:
Honestly, I feel like people can manipulate their models depending on what they want for to be true.
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you immediately believe Dupidh when he claims that kurds on youtube have 10% south asian but when someone questions it, then it's because people just want to believe what they want? go look on youtube and tell me how many vids you find from kurds with 10% south asian and how many from people with less.
 
Ailchu said:
that goes the other way too. people so desperately want to seperate "european" from "near eastern". those two are no valid genetic groups. also why do you think people immediately came with SSA, south asian, and additional natufian when talking about the difference between iran neo and modern iranians and not also with additional anatolian neolithic or steppe?
you immediately believe Dupidh when he claims that kurds on youtube have 10% south asian but when someone questions it, then it's because people just want to believe what they want? go look on youtube and tell me how many vids you find from kurds with 10% south asian and how many from people with less.
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Pardon me, are you referring to my post? Are you denying that there has been changes to Iranians since the neolithic? Came up with what? SSA in post-middle ages is a fact. Natufian admixture into Iran is real.There are studies that prove what I said. Also, if you want to challenge what I said, why don't you be up front about it. Unless I am misunderstanding your post.
 
Ailchu said:
that goes the other way too. people so desperately want to seperate "european" from "near eastern". those two are no valid genetic groups. also why do you think people immediately came with SSA, south asian, and additional natufian when talking about the difference between iran neo and modern iranians and not also with additional anatolian neolithic or steppe?



you immediately believe Dupidh when he claims that kurds on youtube have 10% south asian but when someone questions it, then it's because people just want to believe what they want? go look on youtube and tell me how many vids you find from kurds with 10% south asian and how many from people with less.
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I actually agree with you on the first part. I think its weird people (especially those of predominantly West Eurasian ancestry) would rather ultimately have their lines come from East Eurasians than Middle Easterners. And yea I agree the biggest difference is the increase in Anatolian Neolithic which might actually have lead to a decrease in basal eurasian and AASI type components given Iran_N likely has those in greater degree.

With the second point I was referring to people trying to find weird things in ancient groups not with Kurds. I was specifically thinking of people trying to argue for East African ancestry in Mycenaeans.
 
ratchet_fan said:
I actually agree with you on the first part. I think its weird people (especially those of predominantly West Eurasian ancestry) would rather ultimately have their lines come from East Eurasians than Middle Easterners. And yea I agree the biggest difference is the increase in Anatolian Neolithic which might actually have lead to a decrease in basal eurasian and AASI type components given Iran_N likely has those in greater degree.

With the second point I was referring to people trying to find weird things in ancient groups not with Kurds. I was specifically thinking of people trying to argue for East African ancestry in Mycenaeans.
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Ailichu/ratchet fan: Since this thread is specifically about Sicilian DNA, I am going to maybe be a little more blunt, but hopefully in a respectful and civil manner and hope it is taken as such.

I think the statement that European and Near Eastern are not valid genetic groups is not entirely accurate. I think it is well known here on this site that West Eurasians were one group some 50,000 years ago, admixed with Neanderthals and then spread into various "distinct populations" but related in that they all stem from West Eurasians.

This first paper by Jones et al 2015 is one that I am aware of that measures the time of divergence among some of the populations that are discussed in the Lazaradis et al 2016 paper, which is also linked.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9912


Lazaridis et al 2016 Figure 1 lays it out. The term "Middle Eastern" is to me a specific term for modern Arab-Islamic culture, Arab being a language pretty much that developed in the early part of the first millennium AD. The term "Near Eastern" is a broad term that captures, as Figure 1 indicates below, Anatolian Farmers, Caucus Hunter Gather (CHG), Iran-Neolithic (IN), Levant Neolithic, Natufians and would also capture, although not ploted in Figure 1, peoples from the Arabian peninsula (Bedouins) who were nomadic peoples living across the deserts of modern Saudi Arabia and into deserts in Assyria during ancient times. Best I can tell, I have never seen any ancient DNA from this area. I think it is clear that those ancient populations were distinct enough to cluster separately, but of course related enough to cluster relatively in the same area code. I don't think anyone here who is of Italian, Greek or of ancestry from other countries on the Balkan peninsula denies they have significant ancestry from Anatolian-Europeans (EEF).

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19310

The well cited Raveane et al 2019 paper states clearly all modern Italian Regions have significant Anatolian Neolithic ancestry, ranging from 56% (SItaly1 sample) to 72% (NItaly4 sample). Other ancestries identified in that paper include Western Hunter Gather (WHG), Caucus Hunter Gather (CHG), Iran-Neolithic (IN), Eastern Hunter Gather (EHG) and some North African (likely from Phoenician period and again Saracen period) in Sicily. I think what some people take issue with, I am in this group, is that when "middle eastern" is used that means I am being told that I am ethnically "Arab-Bedoiun" or ethnically Levantine. I am not, not that those are all great civilizations, some of the greatest civilizations were in the Levant (ancient Pheonicians) and the nearby civilizations near the Euphrates (Summeria, etc) which is where the Levant's border ends. And for the record, just because the Normans ruled Sicily in middle ages and Vandals in 4th/5th century AD doesn't make me a Viking or German. I am neither of those as well.

In my experience there are 2 types of people who use "middle eastern" in ways that suggest agendas, 1) one is based on making themselves the I guess standard of Modern Europeans, those tend to be more of those with Nordicist views and argue Northern Europeans are the standard for who Europeans are. The other are again, in my experience, 2) use it to argue against strict border enforcement for illegal migrants from modern Middle East countries. The first one is nonsense. Europe is Europe, Northern Europeans can be Northern Europeans, Eastern Europeans can be Eastern Europeans, NW Europeans in the British Isles can be NW Europeans, Central Europeans can be Central Europeans and by damn Southern Europeans can be Southern Europeans. The 2nd point is more of a political issue that is one that I agree with, border controls are needed, immigration needs to be legal and be a 2 way street for both host country and immigrant. But that is a political issue that is more for the political board (Ailichu and I have had private conversations on this political issue).

Since this thread was about Sicilian DNA, that is what I am interested in. What explains how I got to be what I am and how Sicily got to be what it is and how it relates to other populations in Italy from other regions historically such as how close did the DNA source populations from Mesolithic to bronze age in Sicily mirror the same period in Southern Italy, in Rome/Lazio, Central to Northern Italian Alps (i.e. Otzi the Iceman, who I just found out via MTA Chroma analysis I share DNA segments with). So I personally want source populations correctly identified as to what they are and what they are not. Lumping all those populations documented in Lazaradis et al Figure 1 is just not correct.

That is my honest take on it, Cheers.
 
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blevins13 said:
Based on, that Lazaridis did not confirm steppe ancestry for Mycenaean and left the door open for Anatolian route.
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Drews argues that the proto-Greeks came from the steppe (or forest steppe) to south Caucasus and from there to Greece.

The only reason Armenia is a potential source in the Lazaridis paper is because it has 'steppe ancestry'.
 
Palermo Trapani said:
I agree, that is exactly what I am saying. Where did I say something else? You obviously missed the substance of my post, ancient Greeks and Romans looked Southern European like, not like Danes/Swedes/Norwegians and English-Anglo Saxons.

I am still having trouble with the substance of your post. If your position is that the first Indo_European languages are from ancient Iran/Persia or Armenia, then that is a hypothesis that I think the so called Kurgen Hypothsis could "broadly support" but I will admit I don't know enough to have a definite opinion as to where the first Indo-European languages developed. I do know from some old Jesuit educated folks (I am Dominican educated in my K-8 years) that it was Jesuits from the 16th century that first noted a connection of European and Iranian and even ancient Indian type languages like Sanskrit seemed to be connected. So you could be correct that the first Indo-European languages came from ancient Iran/Armenia area. Still, I think most from what I have read, limited, suggest the earliest Indo-European languages were among the EHG in ancient Russia/Ukraine (Pontic-Caspian Steppe) which is the mainstream version of the Kurgan hypothesis.

Again I am not well versed enough in ancient Indo-European history so to speak so maybe someone else here can provide more information supporting your views. In terms of ancient ancestry, I think it is clear Iran-Neolithic type ancestry was in Sicily even before the Bronze Age. This new paper by VanDeLoosdrecht 2020 clearly documents this (Again See Post 152 and 156). So I am not arguing that point
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As I said there could be certainly different migrations in different periods, what do you think about: https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_T_Y-DNA.shtml

Kura-Araxian expansion during the Bronze Age

The P77 and CTS6507 branch underwent a major expansion during the Early Bronze Age, from approximately 2500 BCE. The phylogeny suggests that this expansion took place from the South Caucasus region, including the Armenian Highlands, and spread in various directions around the Middle East and Europe. The European branch appears to have propagated through a Mediterranean route to Greece, Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia) and Iberia. Historically the Kura-Araxes culture is the best match for this expansion. While the Proto-Indo-Europeans (haplogroups R1a and R1b) were expanding from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe to central and northern Europe and Central Asia, the Kura-Araxes people, on the other side of the Caucasus, also developed a contemporary Bronze Age culture that expanded across West Asia, and possibly as far east as Pakistan and India. The Minoans, Europe's oldest proper civilisation (as opposed to archeological culture), could be an offshoot from that Kura-Araxes expansion. Kura-Araxian men would have belonged primarily to Y-haplogroup J2a1, but also to a lower extent to G2a-L293, G2a-M406, J1-Z1828, L1b, T1a-P77, and R1b1-L278.
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The interesting thing is that it says this haplogroup has the highest frequency in the south-west Iran where ancient Elam was located.

Elami in Sicily:

ktiw_elami.jpg


Elam in the south-west Iran:

veoo_elam.png


I have written some articles regarding Elam and Indo-Europeans, like this one: https://www.academia.edu/41141910
 
Philjames100 said:
Drews argues that the proto-Greeks came from the steppe (or forest steppe) to south Caucasus and from there to Greece.

The only reason Armenia is a potential source in the Lazaridis paper is because it has 'steppe ancestry'.
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Not steppe ancestry but EHG (East European Hunter-Gatherer) ancestry which dates back to 7000 BC.

hbwe_7000-bc-gene-map-s.jpg
 
Shahmiri said:
I have written some articles regarding Elam and Indo-Europeans, like this one: https://www.academia.edu/41141910
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Dear Mojtaba,

I see you introduce yourself as "I am an academic historian from Iran, specialist in the history of western Iran from the 3rd to 1st millennium BC."
Well, I think you still have some way to go before you become a tiger.

Re: your paper on Nin.Shushinak
You have to know that in Old Sumerian NIN means either "Lord" or "Lady", it's only in younger Sumerian that NIN tends to apply only to women or goddesses.
Next, you ask "what does the suffix “ak” or “nak” mean?" Simple, this is the full Genitive marker of Sumerian, usually reduced to just -a. Thus, Nin.Shushinak clearly means "Lord of Shushi(n)".
You can compare with a name of Venus NIN.SI4.AN.NA "Mistress of the light of the sky" => AN "sky", AN.NA "of the sky".

If you want to become for real what you claim to already be, you need to work more of some relevant topics.
Stay well, my little beetle :rolleyes:
And learn some Sumerian.
 
Deird said:
Dear Mojtaba,

I see you introduce yourself as "I am an academic historian from Iran, specialist in the history of western Iran from the 3rd to 1st millennium BC."
Well, I think you still have some way to go before you become a tiger.

Re: your paper on Nin.Shushinak
You have to know that in Old Sumerian NIN means either "Lord" or "Lady", it's only in younger Sumerian that NIN tends to apply only to women or goddesses.
Next, you ask "what does the suffix “ak” or “nak” mean?" Simple, this is the full Genitive marker of Sumerian, usually reduced to just -a. Thus, Nin.Shushinak clearly means "Lord of Shushi(n)".
You can compare with a name of Venus NIN.SI4.AN.NA "Mistress of the light of the sky" => AN "sky", AN.NA "of the sky".

If you want to become for real what you claim to already be, you need to work more of some relevant topics.
Stay well, my little beetle :rolleyes:
And learn some Sumerian.
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As you read in my article, the important question is that the names of ancient cities were from the names of gods or vice versa? Is it really possible that first Elamites built a city with the name of Susa and then Sumerians gave a name to Elamite god from the name of their city and then Elamite worshipped this god?!

Anyway the name of god is Insus/Inshush, not Ninshush, compare to Proto-Germanic *ansuz "god, deity" from Proto-Indo-European *h₂énsus "god, vital force", from *h₂ens- (“to engender, beget”): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/ansuz#Etymology

i4x0_hensus.jpg


Learn some Indo-European.
 
ratchet_fan said:
I'm pretty sure the southern steppe ancestry is from CHG not even Iran_N to begin with. CHG is just related to Iran_N. There's too much ANE, ENA and AASI in Iran_N for it to exist in most Europeans.
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The overlap between CHG and Iran Neo is so large, or, to put it another way, the differences are so minor, that to make a big deal of it is quibbling, imo. It's just that some hobbyists and bloggers can't bear the idea that the ancient ancestors they choose to glorify, the Indo Europeans, should have any ancestry which by its very name advertises that it's from the Near East.

Problem is, the genetics doesn't lie. CHG is vast majority Iran Neo. We've known this for a long time, and the most recent papers confirm it. That's why, imo, it's so difficult to distinguish the two in modern people, and why I have an issue with some of the modeling.

2b3pjUS.png
 
blevins13 said:
Based on, that Lazaridis did not confirm steppe ancestry for Mycenaean and left the door open for Anatolian route.


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That's completely wrong.

This is a direct quote from the abstract of the paper as published in Nature. As in everything he writes, it couldn't be more clear.

3gYZd1T.png


https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318862250_Genetic_origins_of_the_Minoans_and_Mycenaeans

So, as I've said dozens of times over the years, whether the Greek speakers came via the Balkans, or from the steppe through the Caucasus and across Anatolia, as with the Drews hypothesis, of course they have some steppe.
 
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