Mobility in the Iron Age Central Mediterranean

[Pax Augusta]

The Etruscan from Tarquinia labeled R10343 is one of my closest Iron Age matches.

R11749, which is closest to Armenoi Crete at a distance of 3, is at a distance of 5.7 to Corsica, I'm a distance of 8.3, and North Italian at a distance of 9.4, Liguria 9.46, and TSI at 9.53, so maybe someone from the Balkans?

PCAs are helpful, but only two dimensions. Two of the Tunisian samples are pretty close to Etruscans, coming in at 3 and 4 approximately.

Perhaps the presence of "Etruscan like" remains in a Carthaginian port city shouldn't be a surprise, given that the Etruscans and Carthaginians were allies around the 530s B.C. Certainly, Greek like people, perhaps traders etc. shouldn't be a surprise..

I hadn't commented yet but I've read the preprint when was out and I didn't find it a good work. Full of flights of fancy and stretches. As is the style of some geneticists. The truth is that Moots has few samples in hand to draw the conclusions she would like to draw, and mostly from very busy places. So that there were foreigners is yet another discovery of hot water. Take the two non-European foreigners found at Tarquinia who seem to plot with Levantines. They date from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC if I'm not mistaken, when Tarquinia had long since entered the orbit of Rome. Tarquinia was part of southern Etruria, Veio was conquered by the Romans around 396 BC, and much of southern Etruria came under Roman control gradually from 300 BC. These two individuals cannot provide any information on the origin of the Etruscans, nor on the formation of the Etruscans, at such a late date, nor do they have anything to do likely with the relations with the Punics. The basic idea that every foreign person who died in a place might have helped shape subsequent generations is very weak. But geneticists like it so much because it is a very simple idea, not to say simplistic. Not to mention that Late Neolithic Morocco is still being used in this paper as a proxy for North African ancestry, when it was the sample that came from a study showing counter-migration during the Neolithic from Iberia to North Africa.

The third dimension is statistically unlikely to change a position significantly in my opinion. In any case the uniparental markers could help us clarify, really strange that they haven't published them anywhere. Hopefully they will when it is published. That there may be Etruscans in Tunisia is very possible, you're right. But there could have been individuals from other peoples, not only the Etruscans. The Punics did not only have relations with the Etruscans, although the genetitsts seem to be obsessed with the Etruscans. According to this preprint out of the 12 samples from Tunisia, 2 end with Italy BA (which I guess is the cluster of samples from Pian Sultano near Cerveteri), 5 end with Sicily/Greece, 4 would be local North African natives, and 1 sample is from sub-Saharan Africa. These published so far are only 6, 50% of the samples from Tunisia. Hopefully, the paper will be improved before it is published.

The only surprise is the lack of Levantine like people. Perhaps, as I said, cremation lasted for longer than we were aware, or there were so few of them that they were in the larger cities like Carthage itself. Otherwise, it's hard to fathom the yearly tributes to Tyre before it fell to Babylonia. It's also interesting that the Punic language had such a hold in parts of North Africa, lasting until about 500 A.D. if I remember correctly.

Yes, it is a surprise, but it may also be due to the smallness of the sample. Here again, it is not at all true what Moots writes that "the contribution of autochthonous North African populations in Carthaginian history is obscured by the use of terms like "Western Phoenicians", and even to an extent, "Punic", in the literature to refer to Carthaginians, as it implies a primarily colonial population and diminishes indigenous involvement in the Carthaginian Empire'" There are archaeological texts from over 20 years ago that distinguish the Punics and Carthaginians from the Phoenicians and assume that the bulk of the population was local and North African.

[Angela]

I hadn't commented yet but I've read the preprint when was out and I didn't find it a good work. Full of flights of fancy and stretches. As is the style of some geneticists. The truth is that Moots has few samples in hand to draw the conclusions she would like to draw, and mostly from very busy places. So that there were foreigners is yet another discovery of hot water. Take the two non-European foreigners found at Tarquinia who seem to plot with Levantines. They date from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC if I'm not mistaken, when Tarquinia had long since entered the orbit of Rome. Tarquinia was part of southern Etruria, Veio was conquered by the Romans around 396 BC, and much of southern Etruria came under Roman control gradually from 300 BC. These two individuals cannot provide any information on the origin of the Etruscans, nor on the formation of the Etruscans, at such a late date, nor do they have anything to do likely with the relations with the Punics. The basic idea that every foreign person who died in a place might have helped shape subsequent generations is very weak. But geneticists like it so much because it is a very simple idea, not to say simplistic. Not to mention that Late Neolithic Morocco is still being used in this paper as a proxy for North African ancestry, when it was the sample that came from a study showing counter-migration during the Neolithic from Iberia to North Africa.

The third dimension is statistically unlikely to change a position significantly in my opinion. In any case the uniparental markers could help us clarify, really strange that they haven't published them anywhere. Hopefully they will when it is published. That there may be Etruscans in Tunisia is very possible, you're right. But there could have been individuals from other peoples, not only the Etruscans. The Punics did not only have relations with the Etruscans, although the genetitsts seem to be obsessed with the Etruscans. According to this preprint out of the 12 samples from Tunisia, 2 end with Italy BA (which I guess is the cluster of samples from Pian Sultano near Cerveteri), 5 end with Sicily/Greece, 4 would be local North African natives, and 1 sample is from sub-Saharan Africa. These published so far are only 6, 50% of the samples from Tunisia. Hopefully, the paper will be improved before it is published.






Yes, it is a surprise, but it may also be due to the smallness of the sample. Here again, it is not at all true what Moots writes that "the contribution of autochthonous North African populations in Carthaginian history is obscured by the use of terms like "Western Phoenicians", and even to an extent, "Punic", in the literature to refer to Carthaginians, as it implies a primarily colonial population and diminishes indigenous involvement in the Carthaginian Empire'" There are archaeological texts from over 20 years ago that distinguish the Punics and Carthaginians from the Phoenicians and assume that the bulk of the population was local and North African.

Completely agree. Her papers are always flawed because of the erroneous assumption that every "foreign" sample from busy port cities 'must be' an important part of the ethnogenesis of the host country.

As to the Etruscans specifically, as you say, they formed as a people long before some of these very late samples.

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would use Morocco Late Neolithic for Tunisian samples, but given the quality of the work, I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise either.

You would think that someone supposedly trained in archaeology (if I'm not misremembering her background) would have read most of the relevant archaeological texts, but I guess not.

[real expert]

So, no Phoenicians in Carthaginian cities. If it's because they switched away from cremation later than previously thought, fine. If not, then I guess there goes that theory that the Carthaginians brought all this Levantine ancestry to places like Sicily and Iberia.

I know I keep doing this, but I did tell you so. I said over and over and over again that the Phoenicians were NOT colonizers, but were instead traders, and that there weren't enough of them to populate all these Carthaginian cities even before the downfall of their cities in today's Lebanon, and that I highly doubted much "Levantine" blood was spread through what were essentially trading marts.

The Carthaginians were essentially North Africans of their time, apparently, but even then the majority of their FORCES, the men on the ground, were mercenaries from all over the known world. Included among them were my own Ligures and many Iberians especially after the Carthaginians established colonies there. Once Hannibal was in Italy many of the tribes north of the Po joined in.

Does anyone else find her apparent surprise at the make-up of the North Africans of the time rather surprising? What else would one expect but an admixture of local HG derived ancestry, Levantine farmers (admixed, of course, with Anatolian farmers), who brought farming, and then "perhaps" some "black" African.

I have to read the paper carefully, but I highly doubt there were enough Sicilian and Greek settlers to contribute to the "European" ancestry in modern North Africans. Much more likely to just be EEF, or maybe a bit owing to the Barbary Pirates and their slave trade.

What always surprises me in any paper written by Moots (and affiliated people) is that she fails to grasp that the genomes of some people in port cities does not necessarily have anything to do with the genetic history of the people of the broader region.

Exactly, historians already suggested that only the ruling elite of Carthage was Phoenician and that the Phoenician impact on the native Population was rather culturally than genetically. However, I do think that Levantine/Phoenician genetic input was there, albeit unevenly spread across Carthage.


By the way, I've read some Twitter comments from Hannah Moots and she is a pro-open borders and multiculturalism apologist. It seems that the "fight against white supremacy" is being used as an excuse to politicize genetic papers in order to support certain liberal narratives. Matter of fact, it's not seldom that the involved authors have their own political spin and agendas. Hence, the usage of Morocco_HG instead of Levant_N in the Roman paper and now in this current one was probably not just a coincidence. The choice of Morocco_HG instead of Levant_N which makes Sicilians appear to be 50% North African-like, is misleading.

[real expert]

I hadn't commented yet but I've read the preprint when was out and I didn't find it a good work. Full of flights of fancy and stretches. As is the style of some geneticists. The truth is that Moots has few samples in hand to draw the conclusions she would like to draw, and mostly from very busy places. So that there were foreigners is yet another discovery of hot water. Take the two non-European foreigners found at Tarquinia who seem to plot with Levantines. They date from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC if I'm not mistaken, when Tarquinia had long since entered the orbit of Rome. Tarquinia was part of southern Etruria, Veio was conquered by the Romans around 396 BC, and much of southern Etruria came under Roman control gradually from 300 BC. These two individuals cannot provide any information on the origin of the Etruscans, nor on the formation of the Etruscans, at such a late date, nor do they have anything to do likely with the relations with the Punics. The basic idea that every foreign person who died in a place might have helped shape subsequent generations is very weak. But geneticists like it so much because it is a very simple idea, not to say simplistic. Not to mention that Late Neolithic Morocco is still being used in this paper as a proxy for North African ancestry, when it was the sample that came from a study showing counter-migration during the Neolithic from Iberia to North Africa.

The third dimension is statistically unlikely to change a position significantly in my opinion. In any case the uniparental markers could help us clarify, really strange that they haven't published them anywhere. Hopefully they will when it is published. That there may be Etruscans in Tunisia is very possible, you're right. But there could have been individuals from other peoples, not only the Etruscans. The Punics did not only have relations with the Etruscans, although the genetitsts seem to be obsessed with the Etruscans. According to this preprint out of the 12 samples from Tunisia, 2 end with Italy BA (which I guess is the cluster of samples from Pian Sultano near Cerveteri), 5 end with Sicily/Greece, 4 would be local North African natives, and 1 sample is from sub-Saharan Africa. These published so far are only 6, 50% of the samples from Tunisia. Hopefully, the paper will be improved before it is published.






Yes, it is a surprise, but it may also be due to the smallness of the sample. Here again, it is not at all true what Moots writes that "the contribution of autochthonous North African populations in Carthaginian history is obscured by the use of terms like "Western Phoenicians", and even to an extent, "Punic", in the literature to refer to Carthaginians, as it implies a primarily colonial population and diminishes indigenous involvement in the Carthaginian Empire'" There are archaeological texts from over 20 years ago that distinguish the Punics and Carthaginians from the Phoenicians and assume that the bulk of the population was local and North African.

Thanks for the good analysis and breakdown of the paper. It's always good that there are people like you who can give a historical and archeological context for ancient DNA findings.

[kingjohn]

it is a true bummer
that we don't know the y haplogroups of the tunisian
iron age male remains
could be some j1 type or e-v65, e-m81

[Salento]

it is a true bummer
that we don't know the y haplogroups of the tunisian
iron age male remains
could be some j1 type or e-v65, e-m81

… this ENA Project has only 6 Tunisian samples, … all females, … I Think!

PRJEB49419

R11749
R11755
R11776
R11780
R11790
R11791

[kingjohn]

… this ENA Project has only 6 Tunisian samples, … all females, … I Think!

PRJEB49419

R11749
R11755
R11776
R11780
R11790
R11791

yes but in the paper those other 4 are males :

R11746.SG
R11751.SG
R11753.SG
R11793.SG

from a reason unknown to me ENA decide not to include them
maybe they are in horrible quality i don't know

[Pygmalion]

One thing that is frustrating about these studies, is that they often don't specify where the samples came from, they only vaguely mentioned the site, but not the tombs.
Sant'Imbenia for instance was a Nuragic coastal village known for the production of the Sant'Imbenia amphorae, but neither a necropolis nor individual tombs are ever mentioned in any publication about it.

[Papayaseeds]

Interesting thread

[kingjohn]

… this ENA Project has only 6 Tunisian samples, … all females, … I Think!

PRJEB49419

R11749
R11755
R11776
R11780
R11790
R11791

what a bummer ( personaly for me no E at all )
user from anthrogenica post this today:

A member of the E-M81 project group apperantely got them.

2x J2b2
1x J2b1
1x J2a

J2b1
https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Z597/

J2a
https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Y14439/

Still got no info on the J2b2s.



p.s
tell you the truth it realy put good prove for the theory that the main
haplogroup of the pheonicians is j2 ( like pierre zoulla research years ago )

[Hawk]

A bit off Phoenicians having more J2b2-L283 and J2b1 and on general J2 and no J1 and E-M35, ain't it? But, i guess specific groups despite having and speaking one language family could have been of different male lineages. Like in case of Indo-European groups, especially the latter groups.

Could it be that those J2b2-L283 were picked in Sardinia? Were Punicized Nuragics?

edit: you edited and removed the J2b2-L283 yfull, i guess it was a mistake then?

[kingjohn]

A bit off Phoenicians having more J2b2-L283 and J2b1 and on general J2 and no J1 and E-M35, ain't it? But, i guess specific groups despite having and speaking one language family could have been of different male lineages. Like in case of Indo-European groups, especially the latter groups.
Could it be that those J2b2-L283 were picked in Sardinia? Were Punicized Nuragics?
edit: you edited and removed the J2b2-L283 yfull, i guess it was a mistake then?

I just put what he posted in anthrogenica
It is extremely hard for me to read posts
There
But i wont give up my hobby just because
Of some creatures in anthrogenica
Who hate with no forgivnece
I will continue to watch new posts there
What we know for sure that those 4 punic males belong to y haplogroup j....
I always thought that e-v22 under e-m78 could be the pheonician e-m35 version...

P.s
I am dissapointed i expected at least 1 e-v65
Individual
As maybe the pheonicians absorbed some native north african lines and later spread it to the other side of the med- sea

[kingjohn]

Update:

Today i look in another dna forum
By anlaysis by expert apperently
1 out of the 4 male carthegenians
Was r1b >v88

R11746; 733-411 BC; Kerkouane; Tunisia IA; R1b-V2219>V88>PF6287>pre-Y7777

R11751; 729-409 BC; Kerkouane; Tunisia IA; J2b2a-L283>Z622>Z600>Z2509>Z585>Z615>Z597>Z2507>Y15058>Z 38240>Z38241>PH1602

R11753; 656-405 BC; Kerkouane; Tunisia IA; J2b2a-L283>Z622>Z600>Z2509>Z585>Z615>Z597>Z2507>Y15058>Z 38240

R11793; 761-405 BC; Kerkouane; Tunisia IA; J2a-Z6064>Z6055>Z6057>Y7013>Y7010>Y13128>Y14434>Y14439 >Z28527>Z35779>PF7415* (xZ28524)

[Angela]

The Phoenicians who established trading marts across the Mediterranean were most probably an extremely small group who just set up the original trading posts. As I've always maintained, their cities were NOT the result of any folk movement, as was the case for the Greeks.

I think the major point is being overlooked. A lot of these samples may be Italian and Greek in origin. This is a port city. Some of these "scientists" can't seem to grasp the fact that a lot of bodies buried in port cities were NOT the bodies of locals.

The remainder may have North African y lines. V88 had to get to Cameroon somehow, after all. They didn't fly from Southeast Europe to the middle of Africa.

All of that said, this is a small collection of samples. Any more definitive conclusions will have to wait for a larger collection of male samples.