Genetic and Cultural Differences between Jews and Greeks

[Ygorcs]

Yeah that is exactly what I am saying Ygorc, negligible. Any

detectable​

Levantine would probably have come by way of North African Berber influence via the Moors.

We also know that different parts of the south can be modeled differently. It doesn't matter what G25 says, because Raveane et al provides us with this:

Like I have been saying for a while now, North African ancestry is an indicator of this, since Levantines definitely have it in them from the Holocene. However, so did the Moors too, but I think the fact that the Moors arrived a lot more recently points to the fact that it is likely the source of it, demonstrating any previous Levantine contribution being negligible.

Sorry, but have you never noticed that this graph lacks ANY Levantine proxy, so it is OBVIOUS that any Levantine or heavily Levantine-admixed contribution to Italian populations will not appear in that graph and will instead be assigned to the closest alternatives by the genetic modelling software, probably most AN and some NAfrica1, IN and CHG. How the hell can you know there was negligible Levantine admixture if you don't test it as a potencial source? Unless you have some interest to tickle with the models to not include that possibiltiy, you will never know... You don't need to take the graphs and models in published genetic papers as gospel, and fundamentalist readings of the gospel at that. Interpret the data instead of just swallowing them uncritically. Sorry, but for now, considering how incomplete and simplistic some of those models by professional geneticists are (some even still use only the extremely basic 3-way model EEF+WHG+Yamnaya), I think I'll go with my own models interpreted in combination with published data as well as uniparental lineage evidences.

 

[Ygorcs]

Futhermore, according to this study, "continuity and Admixture in the last five millenia of levantine histori from ancient canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences.", Sardinian and north Italians share more alleles with ancient levantines among European populations (Sidon_B in the study) because they are ones with higher EEF. It is one study and might be wrong ( and something else looks wrong, at least to me, such as the admixture graph), but imo it falls well with the other results we have ( as Lazaridis 2017 found no statistical reasons to model Myceneans with post neolithic Levant, which suggests it was not a source of subsequent migrations ).

Well, isn't that obvious, since Southern Levantines and South Italians received more post-Neolithic flow aside from ANF-related sources? You're using a confusing anachronism in your reasoning: modern Levantines and Italians don't matter at all. We are talking about Levant_N or even Natufian-related admixture, populations that lived many millennia ago, and modern people aren't a good proxy for them. Those admixtures may not even have come to Italy straight from the Levant (at least not necessarily), but only indirectly through Levant_N-admixed populations in the Aegean, North Africa and so on. I think you guys are really confusing modern people with ancient admixtures, and you are also confusing people with genetic admixture. People do not need to have migrated from Lebanon or Syria straight to Italy in order for Italians to have acquired Levantine NEOLITHIC admixture (though some definitely did, why deny it?).

 

[Riverman]

Modeling the ancestry composition of ancient Italian samples

To obtain temporal insights into the emergence of the differences between Northern and Southern Italy in relation to SBA and ABA ancestries, we performed the same qpAdm analysis on post-Neolithic/Bronze Age Italian individuals (data file S4). Iceman and Remedello, the oldest Italian samples included here [3400 to 2800 Before Common Era (BCE)], were composed of high proportions of AN (74 and 85%, respectively). The Bell Beaker samples of Northern Italy (2200 to 1930 BCE) were modeled as ABA and AN + SBA and WHG. Although ABA estimates in these samples were characterized by large standard errors (SE), the detection of steppe ancestry, at approximately 14%, was more robust. In contrast, Bell Beaker samples from Sicily (2500 to 1900 BCE) were modeled almost exclusively as ABA, with less than 5% SBA (data file S4). Despite the fact that the small number of SNPs and prehistoric individuals tested prevents the formulation of conclusive results, differences in the occurrence of AN ancestry, and possibly also of Bronze Age–related contributions, are suggested to be present between ancient samples from North and South Italy. Differences across ancient Italian samples were also supported by their projections on the PCA of modern-day data (Fig. 2I). Remedello and Iceman clustered with European Early Neolithic samples, together with one of the three Bell Beaker individuals from North Italy, as previously reported (23), and modern-day Sardinians. The other two Bronze Age North Italian samples clustered with modern North Italians, while the Bell Beaker sample from Sicily was projected in between European Early Neolithic, Bronze Age Southern European, and modern-day Southern Italian samples (Fig. 2I). These results suggest a differentiation in ancient ancestry composition between different areas of Italy, dating at least in part back to the Bronze Age.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/9/eaaw3492.full

Well, but this is one BB individual with a specific genetic profile, its not the real solution to the problem for all of Italy or the Italian South, isn't it?

Some paragraphs later they write:

Clusters from the Caucasus and North-West Europe were identified for many Italian clusters as best proxies for the admixing sources in agreement with previous studies (21), while Middle Eastern and African groups were detected for Southern Italy and Sardinia

This is particularly important:

Overall, these results supported a scenario in which gene flow mostly occurred between Italian and African/other Eurasian populations. SBA and ABA ancestries were detected in Italian and non-Italian best proxies (Figs. 2D and 3 and data file S5), which suggests that part of these ancestries arrived from outside Italy in historical times (21), but also that these components were already present in Italian groups at the time of these admixture events.

So this ABA-like component was present before, Southern Italy was already more Greek-like, but most likely this East Mediterranean ancestral component was further renewed and increased with more recent, historical admixture events.

 

[Ygorcs]

Also, if you use Italians in the G25, you can actually disprove a lot of false ideas about Italians, because what the runs really show is that Italy is diverse and not that exotic at all. So if people come up with some strange concepts about Italian origins, you can check them in a minute and falsify them. If you are not that happy with the current sample from Western Sicily, believe me, 99 percent of the people would have no problem with an improved sample in their data bases, neither academics nor amateurs. If you can collect one with scientific quality, everybody would be happy to get a larger and more representative sample from Sicily. This is no conspiracy to make the region of Sicily look more exotic...

Indeed, I for one will be very happy to run tests on new Italian DNA samples with G25 coordinates. That's much needed for such a relatively diverse country with lots of substructure.

And if those who made G25 really cherry-picked samples to make South Italians and G25 appear much more exotic than they are, well, they were very ineffective in that endeavor, because if you use good enough models with all the realistic possible sources of gene flow into South Italy and Sicily, the fact is that you clearly draw a conclusion that they are mostly composed of the very same admixtures present in other parts of the Central-Eastern Mediterranean Europe, very similar to some aDNA samples from Italy and Greece, and only need some small percents of extra Levantine and North African. Totally consistent with the geographical location and history. So, what's the "conspiracy" about? If it exists, it failed by their own doing.

 

[Angela]

It's funny because Sicily faced major changes in it's regions even thousands years ago, the Carthaginian colonies were mostly wiped, if ones takes Roman historians literally, and even nowdays Sicilians have grandparents from many different parts of the island. So it's really ignorant to look Sicily with a Classical age map, and believe East Sicilians=Greeks, West Sicilians=Levantines, many people do.

That's exactly correct. There's been a lot of movement within Sicily itself especially since the 1800s.

Just as another example, which I've pointed out before, Messina was totally destroyed by earthquakes within the last 150 years, and I mean leveled. Many of the people who resettled it came from right across the Straits from Calabria and they moved down toward Catania as well.

Then there's the obvious problem that most of the "private" samples collected are from Italian Americans who have only the faintest of clues about their actual ancestral areas. My husband told me for years that his paternal grandfather came from Reggio Calabria, but someone went there and looked in the phonebook and no one of their name was still there. Leaving aside the fact that the name was misspelled at Ellis Island, it turns out they thought the grandfather meant the CITY of Reggio Calabria, when he actually meant the province, and not only was his last name spelled incorrectly, but his first name was changed from Florio to Larry, which they all thought meant Lorenzo. YIKES!

Once I found out his real first name and Italianized the last name and had the date of immigration from Ellis Island, I was able to find out he came from Ionic Calabria, found the town itself as a matter of fact, and got documents from the church, and I also discovered that they didn't have ancestry from Bari; the grandfather was just trying to explain that his town was in the direction of Bari, not in the city of Reggio Calabria itself.

How on earth can you do scientific genetic research on samples with this kind of information as to origin? It's insane.

 

[Riverman]

Indeed, I for one will be very happy to run tests on new Italian DNA samples with G25 coordinates. That's much needed for such a relatively diverse country with lots of substructure.

And if those who made G25 really cherry-picked samples to make South Italians and G25 appear much more exotic than they are, well, they were very ineffective in that endeavor, because if you use good enough models with all the realistic possible sources of gene flow into South Italy and Sicily, the fact is that you clearly draw a conclusion that they are mostly composed of the very same admixtures present in other parts of the Central-Eastern Mediterranean Europe, very similar to some aDNA samples from Italy and Greece, and only need some small percents of extra Levantine and North African. Totally consistent with the geographical location and history. So, what's the "conspiracy" about? If it exists, it failed by their own doing.

And many people forgot what the real "stories" from some corners of the American political spectrum were. Like Southern Italians and Sicilians being heavily Subsaharan African admixed. I guess people have a short memory span sometimes. Because that story is now dead and buried below the very data we got in the last years, including from amateurs. Probably we still remember the famous scene with Christopher Walken, just search for "True Romance - The Sicilian Scene" if you don't know it.

 

[Angela]

Indeed, I for one will be very happy to run tests on new Italian DNA samples with G25 coordinates. That's much needed for such a relatively diverse country with lots of substructure.

And if those who made G25 really cherry-picked samples to make South Italians and G25 appear much more exotic than they are, well, they were very ineffective in that endeavor, because if you use good enough models with all the realistic possible sources of gene flow into South Italy and Sicily, the fact is that you clearly draw a conclusion that they are mostly composed of the very same admixtures present in other parts of the Central-Eastern Mediterranean Europe, very similar to some aDNA samples from Italy and Greece, and only need some small percents of extra Levantine and North African. Totally consistent with the geographical location and history. So, what's the "conspiracy" about? If it exists, it failed by their own doing.

Maybe you could ask Davidski to use the academic publicly available modern sample from Emilia. That's the only sample from that paper which he didn't include.

If you wish, you might also suggest that it's not a particularly good idea to use modern Italian samples in his calculators which were chosen by that skin head Sizzi. He was on record for a long time that he thought Lombardia should secede to get away from all those "Africans" south of Rome. God knows what criteria he would have used for choosing his samples from those areas.

 

[Leopoldo Leone]

Well, isn't that obvious, since Southern Levantines and South Italians received more post-Neolithic flow aside from ANF-related sources? You're using a confusing anachronism in your reasoning: modern Levantines and Italians don't matter at all. We are talking about Levant_N or even Natufian-related admixture, populations that lived many millennia ago, and modern people aren't a good proxy for them. Those admixtures may not even have come to Italy straight from the Levant (at least not necessarily), but only indirectly through Levant_N-admixed populations in the Aegean, North Africa and so on. I think you guys are really confusing modern people with ancient admixtures, and you are also confusing people with genetic admixture. People do not need to have migrated from Lebanon or Syria straight to Italy in order for Italians to have acquired Levantine NEOLITHIC admixture (though some definitely did, why deny it?).

I do not see why take the idea that Italians have acquired extra post-neolithic Levantine neolithic admixture (apart from North african gene flow, located principally in Sicily) as a personal matter, but that's besides the point: All the reasons why I hold your models (and similar) to be wrong is that they go against the findings of the literature about one of the most studied population in Europe; is that a point that maybe I overemphasise? Yet I feel it is important to note that, because I think it's unlikely that no researcher up to now tried to model Italians with Levant neolithic, or populations that carried it. Lazaridis tried to model Myceneans with Levant-neolithic, but discarded that because the fits weren't the best, but as for the other studies I don't know if something similar was done. I feel that the discussion might be getting heated for no reasons, so I'll try to be more specific: we all agree about what the results of the literature are, but we disagree about their validity; it's better that we don't relie on our models, so I propose that we discuss whether any post-neolithic Levant gene flow was found in/used to model Aegeans or more generally Greeks ( which is a crucial point for this thread) and about the precise unilateral markers that would support such events. I think it's fair to discuss on those conditions.

 

[Ygorcs]

This has been my point from the beginning and why I think the models, like the models for the Etruscans, are wrong. If you have more EEF you have more Levantine, because the EEF were almost a third Levantine Neolithic.

That's why you have to use proximate sources if you want to show if and how much actual "Levantine" gene flow "remained" in Southern Italy from migrations during the Republic and Empire.

Whatever the final number is will be perfectly alright with me. I have absolutely no prejudices in that direction; in others, perhaps yes if I'm honest.

You can't be a literal thinker if you want to understand this topic; you have to think globally.

What's the source of the claim that the EEF were almost 1/3 Levant_N? I always understood it was actually the opposite: Levant_N received a lot of Pinarbasi (Anatolian_HG) or even directly ANF input on the former Natufian-like genetic pool. Also, if the genetic models using both Anatolia_N and Levant_N (a distinction that I regret the majority of genetic papers don't do even in their supplementary material) detect no or negligible Levant_Neverywhere else but in Southeastern Europe and Central-South Italy, which are precisely the parts of Europe closest and more historically connected to the East Mediterranean coastal zones, then I think there is definitely something different in those regions hat will explain that, even if it's not what we may have thought initially. It's almost certainly not the extra CHG and Iran_N admixtures, which were too divergent from ANF and Levant_N to cause that.

 

[Ygorcs]

Maybe you could ask Davidski to use the academic publicly available modern sample from Emilia. That's the only sample from that paper which he didn't include.

If you wish, you might also suggest that it's not a particularly good idea to use modern Italian samples in his calculators which were chosen by that skin head Sizzi. He was on record for a long time that he thought Lombardia should secede to get away from all those "Africans" south of Rome. God knows what criteria he would have used for choosing his samples from those areas.

I don't use his "ready-to-use" calculators, actually I trust none of these calculators with very broad clusters like "Italian", "Iberian" and so on. They almost always confuse much more than they enlighten, and they are nearly always based on modern populations with insufficient sample sets (besides the possible biases of those who made them, as you stress).

 

[Ygorcs]

I do not see why take the idea that Italians have acquired extra post-neolithic Levantine neolithic admixture (apart from North african gene flow, located principally in Sicily) as a personal matter, but that's besides the point: All the reasons why I hold your models (and similar) to be wrong is that they go against the findings of the literature about one of the most studied population in Europe; is that a point that maybe I overemphasise? Yet I feel it is important to note that, because I think it's unlikely that no researcher up to now tried to model Italians with Levant neolithic, or populations that carried it. Lazaridis tried to model Myceneans with Levant-neolithic, but discarded that because the fits weren't the best, but as for the other studies I don't know if something similar was done. I feel that the discussion might be getting heated for no reasons, so I'll try to be more specific: we all agree about what the results of the literature are, but we disagree about their validity; it's better that we don't relie on our models, so I propose that we discuss whether any post-neolithic Levant gene flow was found in/used to model Aegeans or more generally Greeks ( which is a crucial point for this thread) and about the precise unilateral markers that would support such events. I think it's fair to discuss on those conditions.

As a personal matter? How ridiculous. If you're going to take the discussion in that direction, I won't reply your comments anymore. Actually I think those who are really angry and find it nearly (if not literally) offensive that there is a mere objective discussion about why some models are showing even MINOR Levantine admixture in the Italians that are indeed closest to the East Mediterranean area (which includes the Levant, did you notice it? lol) are those who are really taking it personally, particularly considering that, "coincidentally" (oh yeah, of course), they all without exception have Italian origins. But no, they aren't taking it personally at all, and they are all perfectly fine with having some Levantine ancestors. Indeed.

Considering the majority of the studies you are talking about don't even try to differentiate between Anatolian and Levantine ancestral components and do not even include any Levantine proxy in the models they test, OF COURSE you will find no relevant mention of Levant_N admixture in most of them. But you know what's funny? At the same time I see many of you claiming South Italians and Sicilians are very rich in ABA-related ancestry. Well, didn't you take notice that ABA did have Levantine ancestry, too? Well, well, well... it seems it's not so bad if you can make it come from Anatolia or from the Balkans, not from those Arabs' lands of the Levant.

 

[Angela]

Well, but this is one BB individual with a specific genetic profile, its not the real solution to the problem for all of Italy or the Italian South, isn't it?

Some paragraphs later they write:


This is particularly important:


So this ABA-like component was present before, Southern Italy was already more Greek-like, but most likely this East Mediterranean ancestral component was further renewed and increased with more recent, historical admixture events.

I have no issue with that. It's just we can't figure out the percentages or the time periods without having the appropriate ancient samples. It's that simple.

You people did the same thing when modeling Tuscans. You were wrong, wrong, wrong. Now all of a sudden there's this teeny amount of Iran Neolithic and Levant in Tuscans.

Honestly, just have a little humility for goodness' sakes, and admit that we don't yet know..

 

[Ygorcs]

And many people forgot what the real "stories" from some corners of the American political spectrum were. Like Southern Italians and Sicilians being heavily Subsaharan African admixed. I guess people have a short memory span sometimes. Because that story is now dead and buried below the very data we got in the last years, including from amateurs. Probably we still remember the famous scene with Christopher Walken, just search for "True Romance - The Sicilian Scene" if you don't know it.

Indeed, I actually will not be surprised to find that some of them vote proudly for people and political/ideological groups who strongly believed in those ideas in the past (if not even now)...

 

[Riverman]

As a personal matter? How ridiculous. If you're going to take the discussion in that direction, I won't reply your comments anymore. Actually I think those who are really angry and find it nearly (if not literally) offensive that there is a mere objective discussion about why some models are showing even MINOR Levantine admixture in the Italians that are indeed closest to the East Mediterranean area (which includes the Levant, did you notice it? lol) are those who are really taking it personally, particularly considering that, "coincidentally" (oh yeah, of course), they all without exception have Italian origins. But no, they aren't taking it personally at all, and they are all perfectly fine with having some Levantine ancestors. Indeed.

Actually very minor Levantine admixture is there up to Germany and Britain. It regularly pops up in people without recent admixture history. Its really, really low, but for some cases I could verify it, because practically all people from a limited space had it. And guess how it got there? In most cases its associated with ancient Roman, Greek or Jewish people moving there. I know I'm repeating myself and some disagree, but there is also a correlation with Imperial_Roman as a source. Like in German regions with known Roman colonisation and the appearance of Imperial_Roman as a potential source, you are also more likely to find very minor Levantine admixture. It was spread throughout the Empire and who should wonder, we had the samples from Britain, from Germany. But oh no, Italy was spared. If at all, only some bad neighbourhoods in Rome got it, but it never went any further. I don't think that's realistic at all and talking about the scientific literature and papers, especially the two quoted recent ones, they both mention the possibility of East Mediterranean/Near Eastern admixture in historical times as a possibility.

@Angela: Yes, we don't know the details. I never claimed I do and most others didn't either. But we know some very basic stuff almost for certain by now, because we can cross-check with various data. And one of this is, which was at the start of this thread, that Ashkenazi Jews have actual Greco-Roman ancestry. That's really out of question. Then there was this debate about AJ having probably up to one quarter Eastern European ancestry, based on a study with insufficient samples. That's how the debate started, we shouldn't forget that. Again, this study on AJ population history was ok, it opened up some new windows in the genetic history of these people, but it had some major flaws, especially because of the bad reference populations. And there we are talking about G25, which constantly improves and adds new populations, including from recent scientific papers, at the same or higher rate than most scientific papers. I'd say that's an achievement and its good that its available. That doesn't mean every run done by some amateur is correct, or that every output can be correct, even if applied correctly, but its good its there and its a useful tool.

In the end everything is about good reference populations, otherwise the tools are fine if not dealing with extremely closely related people.

 

[Angela]

As a personal matter? How ridiculous. If you're going to take the discussion in that direction, I won't reply your comments anymore. Actually I think those who are really angry and find it nearly (if not literally) offensive that there is a mere objective discussion about why some models are showing even MINOR Levantine admixture in the Italians that are indeed closest to the East Mediterranean area (which includes the Levant, did you notice it? lol) are those who are really taking it personally, particularly considering that, "coincidentally" (oh yeah, of course), they all without exception have Italian origins. But no, they aren't taking it personally at all, and they are all perfectly fine with having some Levantine ancestors. Indeed.

Considering the majority of the studies you are talking about don't even try to differentiate between Anatolian and Levantine ancestral components and do not even include any Levantine proxy in the models they test, OF COURSE you will find no relevant mention of Levant_N admixture in most of them.

Well, now you've insulted me Ygorcs, which I'm sorry about. No, I'm not Southern Italian, but my husband is, and I couldn't give a you know what if he turned out to be a quarter Jewish or Syrian or Palestinian or whatever, and neither could he. Not that he doesn't have his own prejudices. All he said is don't tell me I've got German or French. Not PC, but that's what he said. As for the claims that people make about Southerners having some Palestinian blood or whatever, all he says is too bad, they're the ones not sitting on any oil, right?

The obsessions that drive people on sites like theapricity and even anthrogenica don't drive everyone.

I'm tired of everyone pretending that this whole obsession with finding and quantifying the amount of Levantine ancestry in Southern Italians and Sicilians didn't stem from outright racism on boards like Stormfront, theapricity, forumbiodiversity, and even anthrogenica, and that the whole genesis of it was to prove Southern Italians and Sicilians weren't European.

I'm tired of the general amnesia and denial, denial of all the things Davidski said and all his Polish buddies and the Iberians who came on this thread to spout it too. As to the latter maybe they felt it took the heat off them.

Why else should Poles, and Russians, and Iberians, and Brazilians, and French people be so obsessed with the ancestry of Italians? Why don't they concentrate on the admixture in their own ancestry?

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the general amnesia everyone is now claiming. Now I'm out of the discussion.

Oh, and did it ever occur to you that if the fit for southern Italians is really good WITHOUT using a LEVANT NEOLITHIC source, then maybe it's because that ancestry is already accounted for in, say, the Anatolian Bronze ancestry? Or are all these academics on a mission to negate Levantine ancestry in Italians too. If you think that about Italian academics then you know nothing of Italian academia.

 

[Jovialis]

Sorry, but have you never noticed that this graph lacks ANY Levantine proxy, so it is OBVIOUS that any Levantine or heavily Levantine-admixed contribution to Italian populations will not appear in that graph and will instead be assigned to the closest alternatives by the genetic modelling software, probably most AN and some NAfrica1, IN and CHG. How the hell can you know there was negligible Levantine admixture if you don't test it as a potencial source? Unless you have some interest to tickle with the models to not include that possibiltiy, you will never know... You don't need to take the graphs and models in published genetic papers as gospel, and fundamentalist readings of the gospel at that. Interpret the data instead of just swallowing them uncritically. Sorry, but for now, considering how incomplete and simplistic some of those models by professional geneticists are (some even still use only the extremely basic 3-way model EEF+WHG+Yamnaya), I think I'll go with my own models interpreted in combination with published data as well as uniparental lineage evidences.

Easy, Levantine has North African, CHG/IN, and AN, so where is the North African outside of Sicily? Only in a negligiable amount in SItaly1.

I will ask you to keep this conversation civil.

 

[Palermo Trapani]

Ok, as I have said numerous times, all of my ancestors immigrated to the USA between 1890-1905 from Sicily. One Grandparent was born there. I don't think my personal DNA results are different from the the population distribution of those whose ancestors came from Sicily. The only other person that I know who did a DNA test is my first cousin on my fathers side (My Father her Mother are siblings). Her results mirror mine (81% Italian, 14% Broadly Southern European/Greek) 3.5% West Asian_North African, and the rest (1.5%) Neanderthal (she did 23 and Me, which I am not familiar with). As I have disclosed upteen times, I have used Ancestry and NAT GENO. My Ancestry Results mirror her 23 and Me, 97% Italian, 3% Middle East. MY NAT GENO to estimate ancestry from 500 years ago to 10,000 years ago, 71% Italic, 14% West Med, 8% Asia Minor and 7% North Western Euro. Her Father is from a town in Palermo province, not where any of my family comes from in Palermo (all my Mothers family from Palermo Province, rural towns). Our Grandparents come from rural towns stretching from Trapani, Palermo, to Agrigento. So while this is anecdotal, there is no reason to believe that she and I and our admixture is purely due to some local effect related to some isolated town or village in Sicily. Just in the last 150 years, there are too any towns that are part of her ancestry and mine.

So following what Jovialis posted, here is my Dodecad 12B fit using only the Iron Age Samples from Antonio et al 2019.

Target: PalermoTrapani Distance: 1.9985% / 1.99852535 | ADC: 0.25x
56.8	R437_Iron_Age_Palestrina_Selicata
24.6	R850_Iron_Age_Ardea
13.6	R474_Iron_Age_Civitavecchia
5.0	R475_Iron_Age_Civitavecchia

MDLP16 using Iron Age Sample Coordinates provided by Jovialis and Eupedia team, distance 2.55

Target: PalermoTrapani Distance: 2.5587% / 2.55868865 | ADC: 0.25x
42.8	R850_Iron_Age_Ardea
39.8	R437_Iron_Age_Palestrina_Selicata
8.0	R1015_Iron_Age_Veio_Grotta_Gramiccia
6.4	R475_Iron_Age_Civitavecchia
3.0	R1016_Iron_Age_Castel_di_Decima

Even using Eurogenes K13, I get a distance of 4.16

Target: PalermoTrapani Distance: 4.1679% / 4.16785390 | ADC: 0.25x
58.6	R437b_Lazio_Rome_Roman_Republic
19.6	R850_Lazio_Rome_Italy_Iron_Age
12.4	R475b_Civitavecchia_Etruscan._Iron_Age
9.4	R1_Abruzzo_Teramo_Late_Bronze_Age_Italy

So again, I can be fitted quite well using only Iron Age samples from Antonio et al. 2019 using 3 different calculators, including the one from Eurogenes (K13). And again, I do not think my DNA admixture is a Statistical outlier. No way in hell that is the case. I don't if my Italian is structurally proper but I think it will get the job done

Io finito con questo, basta, Good Lord

 

[Riverman]

Why else should Poles, and Russians, and Iberians, and Brazilians, and French people be so obsessed with the ancestry of Italians? Why don't they concentrate on the admixture in their own ancestry?

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the general amnesia everyone is now claiming. Now I'm out of the discussion.

Actually I think its not just about modern Italians, probably even less so, but what happened in ancient Rome and which consequences it had for his city, the state and civilisation. Also, there is the question of whether or not ancestry was spread in the Empire, and I always said yes, I think it was on a non-negligible level. Many people which live in countries which had a Roman occupation, which became a Roman province, have actual Roman ancestry in the sense of migratory movements taking place within the Empire. If you use ancient sources, Western Germans, Swiss Germans, Austrians and Alsatians, for example, they get it in some runs. Interestingly Eastern Germans, Poles and Czechs, as another example, don't (not at all or trace levels). Now this is again about playing around with tools I don't handle perfectly, but its interesting to note nevertheless. So Rome is kind of all European's history and a lot of Europeans ancestry. Its not just modern Italians, its part of "the DNA" (culturally and probably even genetically) of occidental Europe.

 

[Ygorcs]

Well, now you've insulted me Ygorcs, which I'm sorry about. No, I'm not Southern Italian, but my husband is, and I couldn't give a you know what if he turned out to be a quarter Jewish or Syrian or Palestinian or whatever, and neither could he. Not that he doesn't have his own prejudices. All he said is don't tell me I've got German or French. Not PC, but that's what he said. As for the claims that people make about Southerners having some Palestinian blood or whatever, all he says is too bad, they're the ones not sitting on any oil, right?

It wasn't my intention to insult you, Angela. Sorry if it came across as that personally. I don't actually think you deny Levantine connections in Italians (ancient or modern ones) not nearly as strongly as some others, though I do think you sound perhaps a little too scarred by the previous discussions with racist and white supremacist members, so you sometimes jump in the conversation already taking as an a priori certain assumption that every discussing Italian ancestry and mentioning anything that is not present in the majority of Europeans to the north of Italy are part of some longlasting conspiracy to deny the "Europeanness" of Italians.

Some people just need to calm down, and instead of tackling those racists and xenophobes by playing their game say what I, for one, say when people comment that white Brazilians are not reeeally white because they usually have some Amerindian and African ancestry, too. I won't deny that, I simply say something like: "yeah, so what? We're all the much better and more unique for it, or do you think we'd care about it? It's true, but you're stupid if you think that's a bad thing." Period.

I'm tired of the general amnesia and denial, denial of all the things Davidski said and all his Polish buddies and the Iberians who came on this thread to spout it too. As to the latter maybe they felt it took the heat off them.

Why else should Poles, and Russians, and Iberians, and Brazilians, and French people be so obsessed with the ancestry of Italians? Why don't they concentrate on the admixture in their own ancestry?

Well, I don't speak for anyone else, but in my case (and I guess that of other Eupedia members too) I think you know me well enough to have already seen me participating in discussions on the ancestry of populations all over the world. It just happens that Italians and Italy are particularly important as a nation in Europe and as the source of a lot of the most impressive portions of European (and actually all Mediterranean Basin's) history, so we all should indeed be interested in its genetic history.

You shouldn't find that offensive. Not all people are Davidski and those stupid, you know. Now that's what I think is an insult: no one can dare say something about Italian ancestry here that he or she is immediately and a priori accused of being a pal of Davidski, Sikeliot and whatnot.

I must say that has become really tiresome and disappointing. Should we simply ignore Italy and Italians for good in this forum, leave it only to the people of Italian background, and, as you say, just concentrate on our own nations? (about that, by the way, I thought population genetics was something that interested everyone who likes History, not just a hobby for people who want to strengthen their individual or national ethnic identity, but maybe I got it wrong and I am actually a tiny minority in forums like these).

Oh, and did it ever occur to you that if the fit for southern Italians is really good WITHOUT using a LEVANT NEOLITHIC source, then maybe it's because that ancestry is already accounted for in, say, the Anatolian Bronze ancestry? Or are all these academics on a mission to negate Levantine ancestry in Italians too. If you think that about Italian academics then you know nothing of Italian academia.

Have you missed all my comments in this and other threads reminding other Eupedia members that Levant_N-related admixture is not the as Levantine people and in fact Levant_N may have and probably did arrive in Italy indirectly via previously strongly Levant_N-admixed populations in the East Mediterranean and North Africa, not straight from the Levant? Have you also missed my repeated comments that people are always confusing Levantine-N-related ancestry with similarity to modern Levantines, who are actually less than 50% Levant_N in average (IIRC), so not good proxies for them at all? I honestly don't get this contradiction: you all are willing to say South Italy and Sicily seems to have a strong connection with ABA, and at the same time deny any non-negligible Levantine_N admixture in them. Those two statements negate each other.

So, yes, I did occur to me, and I've actually been saying that for a long time, though I also do think a little direct Levantine contribution (either Levant_N, Levant_BA or Levant_IA, maybe several minor migration waves accumulated over time) did also take place.

 

[Ygorcs]

Easy, Levantine has North African, CHG/IN, and AN, so where is the North African outside of Sicily? Only in a negligiable amount in SItaly1.

I don't know what samples they used for NorthAfrican1, but ANF and Levant_N were much closer to each other than Levant_N to Morocco_EN/Taforalt, because of the latter's much higher SSA-related (in fact ANA) ancestry, while Levant_N had only a heavly diluted diminished Natufian admixture (only ~25-30% of which was Taforalt-like, the remaining ~70-75% already quite ANF-like, and even Taforalt itself was already itself ~55% Dzudzuana-like West Eurasian) coupled with mostly ANF-like admixture. So, the vast majority of genetic models on populations with Levantine ancestry will pick Anatolia_N instead of anything rich in indigenous North African admixture.

Target	Distance	GEO_CHG	IRN_HotuIIIb_Meso	Levant_Natufian	TUR_Pinarbasi_HG
Levant_PPNB	0.04391318	2.4	0.0	57.4	40.2
Levant_PPNC	0.05624110	0.0	0.0	61.0	39.0
TUR_Barcin_N	0.04806958	3.8	0.0	4.8	91.4
TUR_Boncuklu_N	0.03010102	3.8	3.8	0.0	92.4

Finally, it's easy to solve that mystery: geneticists should try and analyze models distinguishing ANF and Levant_N as much as they can using their advanced tools. Why should they be afraid of doing so if that will enlighten the genetic history of the entire Mediterranean Basin much more?

I will ask you to keep this conversation civil.

As long as you guys don't keep accusing people of some hidden racist/xenophonic motivations for their interpretations of genetic data without any evidence at all except your own disagreements, that will remain so.