La Tène Culture to Model Ancient & Modern Italians

[Jovialis]

ok

500 years plus apart in starting times and they are similar !!?? ...............I have my doubts

Why not just compare them in the calculator than...............................................................................

 

[Vallicanus]

Why not just compare them in the calculator than...............................................................................

Exactly.

 

[Jovialis]

@Torzio, here are 2D and 3D visualizations of their genetic similarity.

 

[Malaparte]

Regarding the calculator designed by Jovialis -- Are the Iberomaurusian samples in Loosdrecht 2018 the same as the Taforalt samples discussed in the Lazaridis paper on Dzudzuana Cave, wherein he posited that Taforalt was a mix of a Dzudzuana-like population and some "deeper" ancestry?

I imagine Iberomaurusian ancestry could have entered Italy through at least four movements:

(1) Pre-Neolithic movements -- Is it possible that Iberomaurusians crossed over to Sicily and mixed with Villabruna-like WHG?

(2) A Western Mediterranean trading network that had its first iteration in the Bronze Age, and a second iteration with Carthage and the Etruscans, with Sardinia an important node --->> Etruscans appear to have carried a significant percentage of Iberomaurusian, and Fernandes reported it in Sardinian samples

(3) Migration from the Levant during the Imperial Era -- i.e., Iberomaurusian is partly constitutive of Natufian-descended peoples

(4) Contact with Saracens

Which is of these movements is likely the greatest source of Iberomaurusian on the western shores of Italy? My guess is #2.

 

[Pax Augusta]

Out of curiosity, also if I'm only 1/4 Apulian and 3/16 northeastern Italian,the remaining being mostly other European

Out of curiosity, if you're 1/4 Apulian and only 3/16 northeastern Italian and the remaining being mostly other European, why is your ethnic group "Friulian"?

For your results, your distances seem too big.

Etruscans appear to have carried a significant percentage of Iberomaurusian, and Fernandes reported it in Sardinian samples

Etruscans did't have a significant percentage of Iberomaurusian. You are confusing with the foreigners, Punics or most likely Sardo-Punics, who were present in Etruria but who didn't change the genetic profile of the local population according to the latest study. The fact that someone is mixed is irrelevant for statistical purposes.

Of course, some Sardinians mixed with the Punics but not all the Sardinians/Nuragics did so. Then here we would have to open a serious discussion on who the Punics really were. Because they in turn assimilated foreigners, such as Sardinians and Iberians.

 

[Malaparte]

Etruscans did't have a significant percentage of Iberomaurusian. You are confusing with the foreigners, Punics or Sardo-Punics, who were present in Etruria but who didn't change the genetic profile of the local population according to the latest study.

Of course, some Sardinians mixed with the Punics but not all the Sardinians/Nuragics did so. Then here we would have to open a serious discussion on who the Punics really were. Because they in turn assimilated foreigners, such as Sardinians and Iberians.

What about sample R145 from Antonio? Or was that a Sardo-Punic sample? When I say significant, I mean something around 5% Iberomaurusian.

Further, I believe that you have "hinted" that Etruscan-like ancestry survived more in Campania than in Tuscany, despite Greek colony of Napoli -- or is that just my imagination?

But what I am driving at, in my own naive & clumsy way, is that there must have been a Western Mediterranean zone of genetic exchange, encompassing Sardinia, Balearic Isles, Iberia, North Africa, Southwestern Italy. This zone of exchange may not have been as significant as the "genetic beltway" that ran from Anatolia across the Balkans and the Aegean, but it was still a factor in shaping Italians, especially along the Tyrrhenian coast. Tuscany was eventually submerged in Italic peoples who were already quite similar to Etruscans, but the Etruscan-like ancestry (carrying more C_Italian_N and C_Italian_ChL, but also more Iberomaurusian) survived in Campania and points southwest. That's my very rough theory.

 

[Angela]

What about sample R145 from Antonio? Or was that a Sardo-Punic sample? When I say significant, I mean something around 5% Iberomaurusian.

Further, I believe that you have "hinted" that Etruscan-like ancestry survived more in Campania than in Tuscany, despite Greek colony of Napoli -- or is that just my imagination?

But what I am driving at, in my own naive & clumsy way, is that there must have been a Western Mediterranean zone of genetic exchange, encompassing Sardinia, Balearic Isles, Iberia, North Africa, Southwestern Italy. This zone of exchange may not have been as significant as the "genetic beltway" that ran from Anatolia across the Balkans and the Aegean, but it was still a factor in shaping Italians, especially along the Tyrrhenian coast. Tuscany was eventually submerged in Italic peoples who were already quite similar to Etruscans, but the Etruscan-like ancestry (carrying more C_Italian_N and C_Italian_ChL, but also more Iberomaurusian) survived in Campania and points southwest. That's my very rough theory.

Based on what evidence, other than that you think so?

If I were looking for "relict" populations I'd look for refugia, like perhaps in the Appennines, not near Napoli. You are aware that it's not only a port but that the surrounding countryside is a fertile, FLAT plain traipsed over by everybody and his brother, yes?

As to Etruscan descent people carrying more Iberomaurisian, I think Pax addressed that quite nicely. The latest papers do not see that one admixed sample as denoting any significant presence or continuation of "North African" ancestry in Etruscans.

Whether Saracens settled near Salento might have had a small impact I don't know, but Frederick Barbarossa, after using them, crushed the Saracens settled on the mainland, and the Spaniards, once they took over and imported the Inquisition, soon took care of the rest. Some y dna or mtDna may survive, but I doubt a lot of actual North African remains. I can speak for my husband, with both Neapolitan and Calabrian ancestry, and for the people with whom he shares at 23andme, and while they show surplus "Caucasus" ancestry, the North African is less than 2% in all of them, with most of them having about 1 to 1.5%, hardly anything to write home to mom about.

Perhaps you've forgotten but we've had this discussion before. I'm not aware of any paper changing those essential facts.

 

[Angela]

@Pax Augusta, I was born and grown up in a town in Friuli where most of my mix is common and seen as part of friulian ethnicity
About results I checked more times, maybe my higher level of admixture from all the corners of Europe and some minor non euro component confuses the calculator

It's fine to adopt the identity of the area where you were born; I did it here in the U.S.

However, when the discussion is about genetics, it's best to be clear; you are more Pugliese than Friulan. I don't know the other more than 50% of your ancestry, but that may trump both those Italian regional genetic clusters.

What is strange is that someone with only 1/4 Southern Italian ancestry should still show a mixture of Minoan and Catacomb, even if at such great distances.

However, I wouldn't sweat it; these calculators aren't precision instruments. Only "through a glass darkly", if you know what I mean.

 

[Pax Augusta]

What about sample R145 from Antonio? Or was that a Sardo-Punic sample? When I say significant, I mean something around 5% Iberomaurusian.

Sample R475 from Necropolis La Mattonara on the seaside (Civitavecchia, Rome, Lazio) was indeed partially of Punic ancestry, according to the study she was 50% Punic and 50% Etruscan, but actually the sample Antonio used in the study to make the calculation is a sample from the Neolithic period in Morocco and If I remember correctly it was partly of Iberian Neolithic ancestry, and so probably that 50% of Punic was Sardo-Punic rather than properly Punic. The contacts between Etruscans and Punics were mediated by the Sardinians (still today Civitavecchia is not by chance one of the main ports to go from Mainland Italy to Sardinia). The point is that here and there were indeed people with this kind of ancestry but according to the latest study they were a tiny minority and not numerically enough to change the genetic profile of all Etruscans which remained unchanged for almost 1000 years.

Further, I believe that you have "hinted" that Etruscan-like ancestry survived more in Campania than in Tuscany, despite Greek colony of Napoli -- or is that just my imagination?

Just your imagination, I can't have "hinted" it. The Etruscans were never numerically the dominant people in Campania, and their presence was due to settlers arriving from Lazio at the beginning of the Villanovan era (early Iron Age). At the beginning of the Second Iron Age, around 500-400 BC, the Etruscan presence in Campania was drastically reduced, almost to the point of disappearance, due to the expansion of the Oscans and possibly the Samnites as well.

But what I am driving at, in my own naive & clumsy way, is that there must have been a Western Mediterranean zone of genetic exchange, encompassing Sardinia, Balearic Isles, Iberia, North Africa, Southwestern Italy. This zone of exchange may not have been as significant as the "genetic beltway" that ran from Anatolia across the Balkans and the Aegean, but it was still a factor in shaping Italians, especially along the Tyrrhenian coast. Tuscany was eventually submerged in Italic peoples who were already quite similar to Etruscans, but the Etruscan-like ancestry (carrying more C_Italian_N and C_Italian_ChL, but also more Iberomaurusian) survived in Campania and points southwest. That's my very rough theory.

I confess that I got lost after the third line.

 

[Pax Augusta]

@Pax Augusta, I was born and grown up in a town in Friuli where most of my mix is common and seen as part of friulian ethnicity
About results I checked more times, maybe my higher level of admixture from all the corners of Europe and some minor non euro component confuses the calculator

Got it. It is true that nowadays in Italy people tend to identify themselves more and more with the place of birth and growth rather than with the place of ancestry, but I don't understand how the fact of not being of Friulian ancestry is seen as a characteristic of Friulian ethnicity.

However, as Angela says, since we are talking about genetics, what really matters is ancestry and not how one identifies oneself.

Calculators are not to be taken too seriously, and you, as I have already written, get results at very great distances.

 

[Hawk]

It's interesting how E-V13 has showed consistently in La Tene sites, though in absolute minority but present very likely in Southern France, Czech Central Bohemia, Western Hungary, Western Slovakia.

I think that E-V13 was a considerable lineage of the so called Eastern/Carpathian Urnfielders and participated in this culture but largely in South-Eastern variants like Gava, Piliny but also got integrated into more western variants and descendants of Urnfield like a minority Y-DNA in the sea of R1b.

 

[Hairarmy]

It's interesting how E-V13 has showed consistently in La Tene sites, though in absolute minority but present very likely in Southern France, Czech Central Bohemia, Western Hungary, Western Slovakia.

I think that E-V13 was a considerable lineage of the so called Eastern/Carpathian Urnfielders and participated in this culture but largely in South-Eastern variants like Gava, Piliny but also got integrated into more western variants and descendants of Urnfield like a minority Y-DNA in the sea of R1b.

I am Predominantly Celtic Scandinavian with a Very small Dib of Magyar per FTDNA. I am E-V13>S2979>FT191655 and believe my paternal line had to have assimilated in with I1 or R1B people and went North. I am 10th Gen American and my Paternal Family is Goode from Southern England and Cornwall. Based on my research I believe they would have been Anglo-Saxon Migration to England. I am listed as S2979* Kentucky in YFULL I would appreciate any thoughts

 

[Malaparte]

Based on what evidence, other than that you think so?

If I were looking for "relict" populations I'd look for refugia, like perhaps in the Appennines, not near Napoli. You are aware that it's not only a port but that the surrounding countryside is a fertile, FLAT plain traipsed over by everybody and his brother, yes?

As to Etruscan descent people carrying more Iberomaurisian, I think Pax addressed that quite nicely. The latest papers do not see that one admixed sample as denoting any significant presence or continuation of "North African" ancestry in Etruscans.

Whether Saracens settled near Salento might have had a small impact I don't know, but Frederick Barbarossa, after using them, crushed the Saracens settled on the mainland, and the Spaniards, once they took over and imported the Inquisition, soon took care of the rest. Some y dna or mtDna may survive, but I doubt a lot of actual North African remains. I can speak for my husband, with both Neapolitan and Calabrian ancestry, and for the people with whom he shares at 23andme, and while they show surplus "Caucasus" ancestry, the North African is less than 2% in all of them, with most of them having about 1 to 1.5%, hardly anything to write home to mom about.

Perhaps you've forgotten but we've had this discussion before. I'm not aware of any paper changing those essential facts.

If we've had this discussion, I've forgotten it. You had a really long debate with Ygorcs on the Italian & Jewish thread that touched on this question, the details are a blur. Or if you are referring to a conversation involving me in particular, well, I am almost always motivated by trying to figure out how Calabria fits into the overall Italian scheme (though sometimes my interest is more detached). And I agree that there was not much Saracen influence on mainland Italy, it was passing and superficial. I'm suggesting, rather, a more "persistent" role for the Iberomaurusian component. So far as I know -- and I will be the first to admit my knowledge is paltry compared with most here -- the Central Italian Neolithic samples tend to be around 2% to 3% NW African. In much of Italy this percentage declined because the Italic tribes and Greek colonizers did not carry this ancestry, and so it got reduced to less than 1%. But it might well have persisted in coastal zones, i.e., the hillier coastal zones, population drift. (And yes, I realize that the Greeks colonized the coasts, but not every nook and cranny.)

As for what study I would point to, I would say Fernandes.

Let me stress that I do not want to overstate the amount of Iberomaurusian in certain Italians. I'm just trying to account for why it keeps appearing on calculators. Why do I carry 2.7% on the Jovialis calculator? What could be the explanation? Allowing for the possibility that my results are a mere contingency that pertains to nobody but me, I prefer to imagine that my score is related to the wider history of Italy.

And, again, what exactly is Iberomaurusian anyway? Are we running with the Lazaridis theory that this component is Dzudzuana-like plus a branch of non-SSA that is "deeper" than Basal Eurasian?

 

[Malaparte]

I confess that I got lost after the third line.

That's okay. Sounds like I can trash that theory anyway.

 

[torzio]

@Pax Augusta, I was born and grown up in a town in Friuli where most of my mix is common and seen as part of friulian ethnicity
About results I checked more times, maybe my higher level of admixture from all the corners of Europe and some minor non euro component confuses the calculator

my cousin is from Porcia, Pordenone , Friuli and he knows some Cescut ( if this is your surname ) people from Aviano, Pordenone, Friuli ..............where you originally from there .....as the Cescut my cousin knows says they came from Gorizia, Udine, Friuli

 

[Malaparte]

Of course, some Sardinians mixed with the Punics but not all the Sardinians/Nuragics did so. Then here we would have to open a serious discussion on who the Punics really were. Because they in turn assimilated foreigners, such as Sardinians and Iberians.

With regard to Berbers as well as Sardinians and Iberians, I wonder how much these groups traded and sailed in the Western Mediterranean *before* their contact with Phoenicia-Carthage. Sardinians, or at least coastal Sardinians, were sea-farers as early as the Bronze Age, but I don't imagine the same of Berbers. Is this a correct assumption? And if they were traders & mariners, could this not lead to significant genetic exchange? I realize that by 500 BC or so, foreign traders were generally confined to merchant quarters in ports, but would this have been true in earlier times?

Sample R475 from Necropolis La Mattonara on the seaside (Civitavecchia, Rome, Lazio) was indeed partially of Punic ancestry, according to the study she was 50% Punic and 50% Etruscan, but actually the sample Antonio used in the study to make the calculation is a sample from the Neolithic period in Morocco and If I remember correctly it was partly of Iberian Neolithic ancestry, and so probably that 50% of Punic was Sardo-Punic rather than properly Punic. The contacts between Etruscans and Punics were mediated by the Sardinians (still today Civitavecchia is not by chance one of the main ports to go from Mainland Italy to Sardinia). The point is that here and there were indeed people with this kind of ancestry but according to the latest study they were a tiny minority and not numerically enough to change the genetic profile of all Etruscans which remained unchanged for almost 1000 years.

Yes, but couldn't there be local effects? Civitavecchia is a bad example for local effects, as it is so close to Rome. But in more remote coastal areas, contacts with various "Punic" peoples may have had enduring effects on local population structure.

I accept the argument, often repeated on Eupedia, that the genetic impact of foreign merchant groups is ephemeral because urban areas, where merchants cluster, are population sinks. It is the native countryside population that expands demographically and effectively washes away residual alien elements.

However, in earlier times, down to the close of the Bronze Age, much of the trade along the Italian coast was conducted by small trading posts that were natural extensions of the countryside, not cities proper. They weren't densely populated, afflicted by sewage and disease. Further, the social divide between traders, farmers and warriors may not have been a neat one (Dumezil's tripartite structure be damned). A foreign trader might have been more likely to take a local bride and see his children join a local farming community than in later ages.

So maybe Iberomaurusian contacts had little effect on Etruscan or Italian populations at large, but had enduring local effects, whether in Sardinia or various points along the Tyrrhenian coast or the Aeolian islands.

 

[Salento]

… one Francesco/a nickname is Checco/a … ch = k in Italian

 

[Salento]

@Cescut … your Iberomaurusian is too elevated, You did not inherit it from southern Italians, … It must have come from somewhere else, … I think.

 

[Jovialis]

@Cescut … your Iberomaurusian is too elevated, You did not inherit it from southern Italians, … It must have come from somewhere else, … I think.

That is because he is a t-roll, and his numbers are completely invented. Here is the modeling vs all other modern populations in the Dodecad set. His numbers are not possible.

The order is by goodness of fit; Italians are the best.

 

[Jovialis]

The modeling works pretty well for Iberians too, if you use a bit of mental gymnastics, to understand how the components used can be proxies.