On Anthrogenica some have started again to talk about Etruscans and some have earnestly dusted off old nordicist theories, just because they've read a short abstract that on the face of it seems to confirm what the other paper about Rome showed. Time will tell if they will turn out to be right, but I doubt it.
Indeed. The usual chatter of the clueless. Only very very few users on Anthrogenica show that they have grown over the years, the rest is the usual uneducated nonsense. I take this opportunity to respond to Richard Rocca who writes this "
However, I think it premature to not take into account the "diverse individuals of central European, northern African and Near Eastern Ancestry" they found across the first millennium BCE. As we know, the Etruscans are sometimes seen as an elite that displaced the Umbrians. While some may balk at that, it is the history that was written (granted, by the Romans) and the IE speaking Romans themselves were ruled by non-IE speaking Etruscans."
There are people far more knowledgeable than you who have already taken into account it. Maybe it really is time to start studying these topics seriously too. In etruscology studies the scenario reported does no longer exist. The idea that Etruscans are an elite that displaced the Umbrians was rejected many many many many years ago by archaeology. All Greek accounts on the origins of the Etruscans are no longer considered accounts that contain true events.
Archaeologically, it has been known for over 50 years the presence of foreigners in Etruria: Celts, Greeks (from any part of the Greek worlds), Sardo-Nuragics, Sardo-Punics, Levantine and people from other areas of Italy and Europe. Etruria was for centuries one of the richest regions of Europe, and given the importance of trade in the Etruscan world, it is yet another discovery of hot water that there were foreigners in Etruria. But no scholar with a deep knowledge of the subject relates these foreigners to the origin of the Etruscans. For years. The relationship between the Etruscan and Rhaetic worlds dates back to prehistoric times. Not by chance, the copper of Otzi's axe came from the mines of southern Tuscany. It's quite incredible that everyone talks about Etruscans in 2021 and no one has read a single reference text, and they always repeat the same obsolete and outdated concepts.
These texts in English may help to understand. Studying is not bad for health. Those of you who don't speak Italian are in luck, because today there are excellent texts in English. As an Etruscologist ironically said, be careful about talking nonsense and gibberish about the Etruscans, because the Etruscans will get you back.
- "The Etruscan World", edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, Abingdon: Routledge, 2013
- De Grummond, Nancy T. "Ethnicity and the Etruscans". In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). "A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean". Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422, 2014
- Smith, Christopher. "The Etruscans: A Very Short Introduction", Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014
- "A Companion to the Etruscans", edited by S. Bell and A. Carpino, Wiley-Blackwell, 2016
- "Etruscology", edited by Alessandro Naso, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2017
- Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. "The Etruscans", in Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.), "The Peoples of Ancient Italy". Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672, 2017
- Shipley, Lucy. "The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations", London: Reaktion Books, 2017