Genetic study The origin and legacy of the Etruscans through a 2000-year archeogenomic time transec

[Ralphie Boy]

The ancient Greek results seem to be trickling in from colonies, and if I interpret right they were Mycenaean-like (except for possible admixture with locals). As we know, the rumor is that classical Greeks were heterogenous, which would not be surprising given their separation into city-states and constant warfare against each other. Wish the rumor-knower would provide some details, but the person seems to be cagey or evasive, when asked.

The Greek Dark Age holds a lot of significance, to see if there were big population changes, or if the re-emerging Greeks of the Archaic era were more or less the same as their Mycenaean predecessors. Did the Dorians come from central Europe, like some speculate, or were they mostly locals, like the Mycenaeans?

 

[Salento]

… Take a tour of Washington DC, … Alexander would be proud, (Augustus too)

The admiration for the Greeks and the Romans is obvious.

 

[Angela]

More like an Anthrogenica fantasy. Ever wondered why some of them are bothered by this East Med ancestry being significantly a product of slavery? (not that I'm implying) Or why they assume all or the "bulk" of Near Easterners were hellenized ethnically when they clearly were not?
Some East Med profiles existed in Magna Graecia before the Imperial Rome, but I still think the genetic body remained broadly Mycenaean-like with some East-Med and West-Med outliers.
Since I can no longer post in there, talk about West Med (from the natives of Italy) admixture in Classical Greeks of Southern Italy, let's see what they have to say.:grin:
I see some intermediate samples between Italics and Greeks in Pax's reported PCA from the regions nearby coast (while the vast majority seem to have preserved their Italic profile after the Great Greek exodus in Campania). Some Greeks probably plotted there and maybe some of those "East Med" shifted Italian outliers might just be West Med shifted Greeks.

If any one thinks that Levantines were significantly Hellenized ethnically that person either doesn't know the history of that era, or for some bizarre reason chooses to deny it.

Most Jews of the time, in particular, hated and vehemently opposed Hellenization in all its forms, even culturally. Does no one know who the Maccabees were and why they rebelled? Philo was, it was true, influenced by Hellenic ideas, but his brand of Jewish thought died out, as did the influence of the Sadducees who wanted to at least try to accommodate the Greeks and Romans. It was the Pharisees who won out, people, and formed the Judaism of the future.

As for intermarriage, I think it's unlikely that there was much of it as far as Jews were concerned. In the Alexandria of that time, the Jews and Greeks wouldn't even live in the same part of the city, and neither of them wanted to live with the Egyptians. They were all indeed racist, and despised each other. The city was in a constant uproar because of continuous riots between the different groups, each of whom lived in a separate part of the city. The Romans despaired of ever being able to keep order among them. It was like gang warfare in "West Side Story", or like the Jerusalem of today with the Palestinians vs the Jews.

In my own university days, a close friend of mine married outside the religion, and the family sat shiva, i.e. held a mourning ritual as for one dead. The only way to make it ok is for the gentile partner to convert, and even in the present day, it has to be under the supervision of an Orthodox rabbi, not a Conservative or Reformed one, or you can forget about being given the "Right of Return" in Israel. You're just not a "real" Jew. It was no different then. If it was a man, he had to be circumcised as an adult, which would have horrified Greeks, who would have considered it a mutilation of the body. With Gentile women it would have been easier, However, once Christianity became the official religion, Jews were forbidden to marry Christians under pain of death, and they were likewise forbidden to proselytize, again under penalty of death.

I also can't believe that people, even people from the Balkans, know so little about ancient Greek history. Athenians couldn't even legally marry Greeks from other city states, much less non-Greeks, at least in early periods, if my memory serves. Any children of such unions could not become citizens of the polis. Anyone NOT Greek was by definition a "Barbarian" with a capital B. Do people not know that there was opposition to Alexander marrying non-Greeks, although, given his proclivities, I always wondered why they made such a fuss over it. Had he not died, he might have had real problems. Certainly, the Macedonians/Greeks who ruled the various parts of the Empire didn't go around marrying locals. The Ptolemies married only each other. Nothing like keeping it in the family. Cleopatra, indeed, was the first member of her family to even bother learning how to speak Egyptian. Now, were there such unions? Yes, there were, doubtless, but if anyone thinks that all the "Syrians" of the Levant, which is what they would have been called, the people of the Decapolis, for example, were heavily Greek admixed they haven't been looking at samples like the "Near Eastern" samples of Antonio et al. They're Levantine pure and simple.

May the Marathon mainland Greek be a bit more Levantine shifted than, say, Empuries? Perhaps so. Perhaps Anatolian Iron Age is a bit more Levantine shifted than Anatolian Bronze Age, and so the Greeks of the eastern Aegean and western Anatolia were a bit more Levant shifted. We'll have to wait and see. Perhaps there was some variation in the Classical Greeks, depending on the polis and the time period. The paper on Campania may shed some light on the matter, as would getting more samples from the Classical period of Greece from both the mainland and the islands.

All of this is a far cry from the fairy tales they spin on anthrogenica. Do some of our members not know how abysmally wrong they've been about so many things?

Honestly, I expected better from people here who have had the data pointed out and explained to them.

 

[Pax Augusta]

… Take a tour of Washington DC, … Alexander would be proud, (Augustus too)

The admiration for the Greeks and the Romans is obvious.

I sometimes get the feeling it's more of an obsession than a simple admiration that of the Americans, and even the British, for the Greek and Roman worlds.

 

[Archetype0ne]

I really do think some people will be very outraged when new samples come out. I mean the rumors are leaving publicly on fora at this point, one just has to follow the right leads. Since to many it will not make sense. To others it will be just a footnote.

Also I wonder, both in the Hellenic Polis as well as Roman cities, what was the ratio of citizens to non citizens, serfs and slaves? Surely even if the elite, I am assuming super minority, the cream of the crop if you will, would not be allowed to marry... the rest would be having an orgy if they wanted. I mean if they weren't too tired from toiling all day. Certainly some mixing was going on.

I can barely wait to use AC-BC calcs between me and the L283 North Albania sample, to see what pull happened. Also curious what subclade it is. But I am leaning towards some Hoti clan type clade, upstream of course. Depending on the age, I would be delighted if it is mine. But who knows what surprises can arise. But yeah, even comparing the plots of the 3 Balkan BA L283 would be interesting. See what variations etc.

I am sure fellow fora members feel the same, about the Magna Grecia and other upcoming papers.

I feel like these papers are long overdue. But judging by how even Max Plank, Reich etc are recieved by whomever gets blindsided... no wonder they drag on forever before publishing.

 

[Salento]

I sometimes get the feeling it's more of an obsession than a simple admiration that of the Americans, and even the British, for the Greek and Roman worlds.

… Greece and Rome symbolize the foundation of our way of life, of thinking, and the recognition of our collective history.

 

[Angela]

… Greece and Rome symbolize the foundation of our way of life, of thinking, and the recognition of our collective history.

Amen, brother.

 

[Salento]

Amen, brother.

Thanks Angela

 

[Angela]

I really do think some people will be very outraged when new samples come out. I mean the rumors are leaving publicly on fora at this point, one just has to follow the right leads. Since to many it will not make sense. To others it will be just a footnote.

Also I wonder, both in the Hellenic Polis as well as Roman cities, what was the ratio of citizens to non citizens, serfs and slaves? Surely even if the elite, I am assuming super minority, the cream of the crop if you will, would not be allowed to marry... the rest would be having an orgy if they wanted. I mean if they weren't too tired from toiling all day. Certainly some mixing was going on.

I can barely wait to use AC-BC calcs between me and the L283 North Albania sample, to see what pull happened. Also curious what subclade it is. But I am leaning towards some Hoti clan type clade, upstream of course. Depending on the age, I would be delighted if it is mine. But who knows what surprises can arise. But yeah, even comparing the plots of the 3 Balkan BA L283 would be interesting. See what variations etc.

I am sure fellow fora members feel the same, about the Magna Grecia and other upcoming papers.

I feel like these papers are long overdue. But judging by how even Max Plank, Reich etc are recieved by whomever gets blindsided... no wonder they drag on forever before publishing.

Well, Archetype, I don't know what the rumors are...maybe Eurogenes has an "inside" source, if he's the one spreading the rumors. Or maybe it's the same situation as when barely a week before the paper on the Mycenaeans came out he was claiming that the Mycenaeans would turn out to be blonde, blue-eyed Corded Ware people, or when all those rumors about the Antonio et al paper turned out to be incorrect.

Why don't you stop being coy and passive aggressive and just spit it out.

I'm always completely direct and upfront about what I think and why. I wish more people would follow suit. The why is always based on genetics and actual history data, not, forgive me, what sound like juvenile fantasies along the line, of: I bet people were having orgies with all and sundry. It's not what I would consider persuasive historical evidence.

I'll just add that I haven't been wrong in any of my major predictions yet, and that includes about the Mycenaeans, the Etruscans, the fact that the amount of steppe Eurogenes was "modeling" for Northern Indians and even Afghans was absurd, the fact that Corded Ware would have people in it who were mostly EHG and would also show a resurgence of WHG, with very little of the CHG/Iran Neo of the Yamnaya (the rumors about the upcoming paper say precisely that), that the modern Spaniards would have admixture from the east and North Africa which would move them away from people like the French Basques, that Beaker would have two "versions", one based in Spain and one steppe admixed, and that the steppe admixed Beakers would have more EEF than Corded Ware, that Iran Neo probably entered the Central Mediterranean at least by the Bronze Age or even the Neolithic, that Albanians were not the descendants of Turks, that I2a was not "native" to the Balkans but was brought by Slavs, that Balkan people would have Slavic input, but just as much local EEF and Caucasus like ancestry, and on and on. I won't bore you with all of it.

How much of it did you predict? How much did the people of anthrogenica get right, or Eurogenes, for that matter? That's a rhetorical question, because in almost all of those cases they were wrong and I was right. You can find the proof all over this site. I don't have the power to erase all the posts and threads where I was wrong, unlike people on other sites. Even if I could, I wouldn't do it, because it would be dishonest and dishonorable.

It took years for me to be proven correct for some of these issues, but that's how it turned out in the end.

On the other hand, maybe it's time for me to be wrong for once. That's ok too. No one's infallible.

However, don't ever imply that I play fast and loose with the data, whether genetic or historical. I follow the data. Everything I post can be checked. If I think a paper is wrong, or parts of it are wrong, and I have done often in the past, I say so and I document why I disagree. Some of these young population geneticists are also poorly educated in history, and sadly lacking in common sense and logic sometimes, imo.

I also find it a little rich that you would lecture me on being objective, don't you agree? When have you ever been objective about anything concerning Albania, or the Greeks? You should take a lesson from I hype, if you don't mind my saying so. The only fora members whom I can guarantee agree with you are other Albanians, who are not universal favorites on here, I assure you.

As for being upset by the idea that there is "East Med" in Italians, or Levantine, for that matter, it's ludicrous. I know that it's a cliche, but in my case it's true that most of my closest friends are Jews. My closest female friend, closer to me than my own brother and any of my cousins, was Jewish, and I love her to this day, and miss her every single day. I see her children as my own. Hell, my husband's partner is Jewish as well, and Orthodox on top of it, and his closest friend as well. I've gone to more Bar Mitzvahs than Communions and Confirmations. Do you think I would be insulted to carry some of their ancestry? America is a very different world from the one with which you're familiar. My husband has lots of "East Med" and Anatolian in him, showing up even in 23andme, and he's the love of my life. When are you people going to get it that not every one on pop gen sites is a closet Nordicist?

I'll close by saying again, if you've heard "rumors", stop trying to play games and spit them out. I'd be most interested to hear them. Who knows? I might even agree.

 

[real expert]

Sorry, I don't think this paper is a shining example of the good science they do at Max Planck if you meant to agree with all their conclusions in it.

As to their surrendering to our modern, western version of China's Cultural Revolution, that quoted statement would indicate that they have.

David Reich put his foot in the water about it all and those forces almost bit it off, starting with the New York Times.

I doubt he'll try it again any time soon.

Of course, this is coming from a woman who by European standards would probably be considered far right. By American standards I'm what used to be called a RINO or a Republican in name only, i.e. a Northeast liberal in the old fashioned sense suburban Republican. By woke standards now I should probably be sent to a re-education camp.

Au contraire. I second your and Pax's assessment of this study. My point was, that although the data is what counts, we should carefully and critically examine the conclusions of the involved scientists. Sometimes the suggestions the researchers make can be biased or even misleading.

Plus, the fact, that the prestigious Max Planck institute blindly jumped on the BLM bandwagon makes them look like spineless conformists who go with the flow to keep the funding. BLM is a professional grievance organization with unhinged and radical leaders that can be described as an anti-white and anti-male organization. The founders and leaders of BLM don‘t make a secret about the fact, that they are Marxists and their goal is to overturn America and remake it as a Marxist communist nation. They use the death of black men that were killed by white cops as a PR stunt to raise money. Anyway, there is this misconception that scientists are strictly objective when doing science since they typically have liberal progressive views.

 

[Jovialis]

@Archetype0ne:

Here is the abstract of the coming paper:

Abstract #: 3776EXPLORING THE GENETIC DIVERSITY OF MAGNA GRAECIA – THE CASE OF CAMPANIA

Alissa Mittnik1,2, Alfredo Coppa3,4,5, Alessandra Sperduti6,7, Luca Bondioli6,8, Melania Gigante8, Claudio Cavazzuti9,10, Alessandra Modi11, David Caramelli11, Ron Pinhasi12, David Reich13,2,14,151 Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA2 Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA and 07745 Jena, Germany3 Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy4 Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA5 Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria6 Bioarchaeology Service, Museum of Civilization, 00144 Rome, Italy7 Department of Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, 80121 Naples, Italy8 Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Padua, 35139 Padua, Italy9 Department of History Cultures Civilizations, Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, 40124, Bologna, Italy10 Durham University – Department of Archaeology, Durham DH1 3LE, UK11 Department of Biology, University of Florence, 50122, Florence, Italy12 Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria13 Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard Univeristy, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA15 Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USAPage 1 of 2

Starting in the 8th century BCE, coastal Campania in Southern Italy became a melting pot of various cultures and peoples when Etruscan and Greek colonizers joined local Italic tribes. By establishing cities and trade posts, the contact networks of Campania were further expanded across the Mediterranean and inland.We generated ancient genomes from Campania, spanning the 8th to 3rd century BCE, i.e. the Orientalizing, Archaic and Hellenistic-Roman period in this region. While most individuals can be attributed to a genetic ancestry that arose on the Italian mainland, we also discover descendants of migrants from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Most notably, an individual dated to the 8th century at the first Greek settlement, Pithekoussai, a site that also yielded the earliest example of writing in the Euboean alphabet, was genetically of Aegean origin, and we find that this type of ancestry persisted at the site for several centuries. We compare the genetic composition of these descendants of Greek settlers to the local Campanians represented by individuals from the site San Marzano and Etruscan immigrants from Pontecagnano.We integrate a thorough analysis of the associated material culture and, where available, strontium isotopes to establish temporal and cultural patterns of mobility, ancestry and admixture that shaped the genetic landscape of Campanian Magna Graecia.

Keywordsmobility, Magna Graecia, ancient DNA, migration, bioarchaeologyNote/comment

What exactly are we supposed to be outraged and blindsided about?

"Starting in the 8th century BCE, coastal Campania in Southern Italy became a melting pot of various cultures and peoples when Etruscan and Greek colonizers joined local Italic tribes. ...While most individuals can be attributed to a genetic ancestry that arose on the Italian mainland, we also discover descendants of migrants from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean...Most notably, an individual dated to the 8th century at the first Greek settlement, Pithekoussai, a site that also yielded the earliest example of writing in the Euboean alphabet, was genetically of Aegean origin, and we find that this type of ancestry persisted at the site for several centuries."

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Greeks mixed with Italics, and there were some easterly-people, most likely from Anatolia. So what? What here is not consistent with what we have all been saying. I dislike this strawman you are creating to basically pretend like you were some insightful member all along. You are just regurgitating what people on another site have been saying.[/FONT]

What did someone take a leaked sample, and use some poor modeling skills with G25 to make these samples like 50% Levantine/SSA/Gypsy/Cooty-People? I see you model yourself as about 14% Levantine. Do you believe that Albanians have that much Levantine in them? I guess the Reich paper on the Balkans was wrong according to you because there isn't enough Levantine considered.

Frankly, I feel this is why we cannot get along. Who do you think you are anyway, acting so high handed and presumptuous about our expectations? Just because some people have some dubious intrigue, it doesn't mean it is true. Even if it is, so what? Also, clearly, based on this paper, two labs can look at similar data and come to different conclusions.

 

[Jovialis]

^^Also,


Eastern Mediterraean means different things to different people I guess. To Antonio et al 2019, Eastern Med C5 was Maltese, to Cypriot-like people (Apparently this disappeared too). In Posth et al. 2021, they don't even know what it is, Anatolian or Levantine. In Olalde et al 2021, "Near Eastern" is not at all Levantine, and clearly points to Anatolian (Anatolian_ChL/Iran_N) which sounds like "East Med" in Posth 2021..., Levantine was specifically tested for, and found among one person.

Therefore, I don't see how a clear understanding can be when considering the conclusions and terminology used with these papers. Anyone that claims to know anything at this point, doesn't know if he is coming or going...


Who the hell knows what this next paper will consider to be "Eastern Med".

 

[bigsnake49]

^^Also,


Eastern Mediterraean means different things to different people I guess. To Antonio et al 2019, Eastern Med C5 was Maltese, to Cypriot-like people (Apparently this disappeared too). In Posth et al. 2021, they don't even know what it is, Anatolian or Levantine. In Olalde et al 2021, "Near Eastern" is not at all Levantine, and clearly points to Anatolian (Anatolian_ChL/Iran_N) which sounds like "East Med" in Posth 2021..., Levantine was specifically tested for, and found among one person.

Therefore, I don't see how a clear understanding can be when considering the conclusions and terminology used with these papers. Anyone that claims to know anything at this point, doesn't know if he is coming or going...


Who the hell knows what this next paper will consider to be "Eastern Med".

Yeah, I think from now on each paper should define what the geographical areas mean to them, maybe label the areas on a map.

 

[Angela]

Yeah, I think from now on each paper should define what the geographical areas mean to them, maybe label the areas on a map.

I completely agree. Jovialis has made a very important point. People throw the term East Med around to mean anything from Greek to Aegean IA like to western Anatolia like to the Levant.

You have to spend time looking for the sentence where they define it, or looking at where the samples plot on an ancient map.

That's what creates a lot of confusion.

 

[Jovialis]

Also, an open message to our t-roll who thinks he is clever by pointing out that Romans are different from modern Italians. Just about as distant as Greeks are from Ancient Greeks, Balkans are from their IA ancestors, and Iberians are from their IA ancestors. Is this an affront to these people as well?

Guess what, the Italians of the Renaissance, in central Italy, and those we see in Medieval Tuscans are C6. They are the ones that created the marvelous city-states of that era.

In a synthesis of Greek and Roman people essential combines the two greatest civilizations of the Classic world. This is part of the ethnogenesis of the people who restored those ideals, and built upon them in the middle ages and Renaissance.

 

[Riverman]

I completely agree. Jovialis has made a very important point. People throw the term East Med around to mean anything from Greek to Aegean IA like to western Anatolia like to the Levant.

You have to spend time looking for the sentence where they define it, or looking at where the samples plot on an ancient map.

That's what creates a lot of confusion.

Part of the problem is that we don't really know how the Anatolians themselves plot. Especially the West Anatolians might plot from European Thracians to way more Eastern, and they might have shifted to the Near East, from EIA on, themselves. The Bithynians, Thynians and Phrygians, among others, were all recent, Thracian-related migrants to Anatolia, and might have had a different profile than let's say Carians-Luwians. We don't really have a lot to work with and determine. It looks more Eastern though, as if it can't be properly modelled without more Eastern Anatolian-Syrian influx.

 

[ihype02]

The ancient Greek results seem to be trickling in from colonies, and if I interpret right they were Mycenaean-like (except for possible admixture with locals). As we know, the rumor is that classical Greeks were heterogenous, which would not be surprising given their separation into city-states and constant warfare against each other. Wish the rumor-knower would provide some details, but the person seems to be cagey or evasive, when asked.

The Greek Dark Age holds a lot of significance, to see if there were big population changes, or if the re-emerging Greeks of the Archaic era were more or less the same as their Mycenaean predecessors. Did the Dorians come from central Europe, like some speculate, or were they mostly locals, like the Mycenaeans?

Depends on your definition of "heterogenous". I think BUL_IA represents northern Greece quite well.

 

[Francis Drake]

Sorry, where are these results trickling in from? Have any new samples been released from Ancient Greece (or rumors)?

 

[ihype02]

--------deleted---------

 

[Angela]

^^Completely disagree.

If Thessalians and Macedonians can be modeled with substantial Anatolian, then so can the Albanians. Albanians are just part of Greek variation, and plot with those two groups. You're not pure steppe imports or whatever you think. The northern shift mainly happened later, as with the Greeks. Levantine is another issue. G25 misleads a lot of people.

I don't even know what the heck you mean by East Med. If you mean people with Anatolian Neolithic but more Iran Neo, it started in the Neolithic, we know it was in Bronze Age Sicily. Whether it was in mainland Southern Italy I don't know yet. I don't know why it would be in Sicily but not right across the straits of Messina. The trade winds and currents from Crete flow right toward both areas. However, we'll have to wait and see.

I don't know what this antipathy is in Albanians against the idea that first millennium BC Greeks influenced Southern Italian and possibly at least Central Italian genetics. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the period knows there were many city states. Now we have ancient samples which prove their presence in at least Campania.

So now what's left is that because their city-states weren't as powerful as time went on they just disappeared? I don't know if they admixed in the early stages, but after hundreds of years I would think the men at least would take local wives.

As for the Romans importing people from EVERYWHERE to Southern Italy, the vast latifundia all over the Roman world were manned by slaves. They were the nucleus for a good number of Medieval manors. Now, whether these people impacted the local gene pools to a substantial degree is another issue. It would seem to me that the slaves who would be manumitted would be the literate ones, i.e. accountants, overseers, or at least people with advanced artisanal crafts to practice, not subsistence farmers from wherever, so there's that to consider.

I have no idea what you mean by the Romans "transformed" the Greeks.

Altogether, I must say, a very disappointing post with absolutely no proof for your assertions. Why don't you wait for some data before making some generalized and dogmatic points.