Preview: Upcoming Ancient Greek Transect (Mesolithic to Medieval) from Biomuse.

[LTG]

The Northern Model work just fine for Southern Italy

Southern Italians can be modelled in such a way, yes, but I don't believe it's accurate. The additional Natufian admixture in them points towards assimilation of a population that wasn't like the Minoans/Mycenaeans who both lacked that component in excess of their Neolithic Anatolian. We know that Greek city-states in Magna Graecia were quite large, and the interconnected nature of the Hellenic world at that time means it's quite likely the region absorbed Greek immigrants from across the entire Eastern Mediterranean. This of course would include mainland Greece, but also places like the Aegean islands, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Egypt and coastal Syria. Naturally, the genetics of Southern Italy would have been quite cosmopolitan as a result, and probably more akin to modern Greek island populations than Mycenaeans by the time the Romans conquered and assimilated them.

Attachment 13210

[Jovialis]

Southern Italians can be modelled in such a way, yes, but I don't believe it's accurate. The additional Natufian admixture in them points towards assimilation of a population that wasn't like the Minoans/Mycenaeans who both lacked that component in excess of their Neolithic Anatolian. We know that Greek city-states in Magna Graecia were quite large, and the interconnected nature of the Hellenic world at that time means it's quite likely the region absorbed Greek immigrants from across the entire Eastern Mediterranean. This of course would include mainland Greece, but also places like the Aegean islands, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Egypt and coastal Syria. Naturally, the genetics of Southern Italy would have been quite cosmopolitan as a result, and probably more akin to modern Greek island populations than Mycenaeans by the time the Romans conquered and assimilated them.
Attachment 13210

The input from more recent near eastern admixture has been greatly exaggerated by Levantist, nordicists, and woke liberals. I am not the only one who proposed such a model. Raveane et al. 2022 also puts this forward in a way. However we came to that conclusion independently. Moreover, Apulia and other parts of the south are show among the highest affinity to the Ancient Greeks, along with other specific Peloponnesian populations.

^^Natufian confounds the model, because it has a ton of Anatolia_N. There's also the Moors to consider, who brought some north African which also serves to confuse the model. Using minoan isolates that. The eastern Mediterraneans are mostly Anatolia BA, and that is represented in the model I put forward as well.

Roman_Greek has a levant shift yes, but I suspect the input is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

All of these populations have a fit of 4 or less using this model. Observe the autosomal make up of Island Greeks, not all are the same.

Also, many of the Greek colonies were founded by eastern Peloponnesians

[Dianatomia]

Certainly, and thank you again. Here is the image you shared with me:

The post Iron Age Greeks do not completely overlap with Mycenaeans. The Myceneans actually formed their own cluster. Some of the spesimens are closer to Sicilians and some Greek islanders. And I believe that the modern Greeks in this chart are the ones previously used for the Lazaridis' Mycenaean paper. They are from Thessalonika. For good measure, the modern Greeks would plot starting from the T of Thessaloniki to just a little bit below the text Doliani. The post Bronze Age Greeks also seem to be pulled a little bit more to the near East.

[Jovialis]

The Iron Age Greeks do not completely overlap with Mycenaeans. The Myceneans actually formed their own cluster. Some of the spesimens are closer to Sicilians and some Greek islanders. And I believe that the modern Greeks in this chart are the ones previously used for the Lazaridis' Mycenaean paper. They are from Thessalonika. For good measure, the modern Greeks would plot starting from the T of Thessaloniki to just a little bit below the text Doliani. The post Bronze Age Greeks also seem to be pulled a little bit more to the near East.

I think you better look again, because most of them do in fact overlap, and are similar. Just as the upcoming Campania paper shows, as does the Olalde et al. 2021 pre-print.

[Jovialis]

The input from more recent near eastern admixture has been greatly exaggerated by Levantist, nordicists, and woke liberals. I am not the only one who proposed such a model. Raveane et al. 2022 also puts this forward in a way. However we came to that conclusion independently. Moreover, Apulia and other parts of the south are show among the highest affinity to the Ancient Greeks, along with other specific Peloponnesian populations.

^^Natufian confounds the model, because it has a ton of Anatolia_N. There's also the Moors to consider, who brought some north African which also serves to confuse the model. Using minoan isolates that. The eastern Mediterraneans are mostly Anatolia BA, and that is represented in the model I put forward as well.

Roman_Greek has a levant shift yes, but I suspect the input is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

All of these populations have a fit of 4 or less using this model. Observe the autosomal make up of Island Greeks, not all are the same.

Also, many of the Greek colonies were founded by eastern Peloponnesians

Excerpt from the Raveane et al. 2022 pre-print. There's also the Sarno et al. 2021 which supports a similar hypothesis.

Modelling the relationship between modern Southern Italian and ancient Eurasians We evaluated the genetic variation in Southern Italy with respect to ancient groups assembling a dataset composed of 138 ancient Eurasian individuals dating between the Palaeolithic and the Iron Age. Ancient genetic profiles were preliminarily investigated through PCA by projecting ancient genotypes onto the first two eigenvectors inferred on modern individuals (Fig. S5). Hunter Gatherers individuals from West (WHG) and East (EHG) Europe cluster on the right side of the PCA delineating a West to East cline along the second PC. Most of the individuals enriched in “Neolithic ancestry” are placed close to the genetic variability of present-day Sardinians. This group of samples also includes more recent individuals (from Late Neolithic to Copper Age) who in turn are scattered close to present-day inhabitants of the island (Fig. S5A). Interestingly, the only Greek Neolithic individual is close to Sardinians and European Early Neolithic samples and is part of a tight cluster that includes Anatolians and two Peloponnesians, from the Neolithic Age. On the other hand, three out of the five Neolithic Peloponnesians, together with the totality of Minoans and Mycenaeans included in our dataset plot towards the genetic variability of people currently inhabiting Southern Peloponnese (Maniots and Tsakonians) and Southern Italian regions (Sicily, Calabria and Apulia) (Fig. S5B). Modern Southern Italians are closer to Southern European Neolithic and Bronze Age samples (Neolithic Peloponnesians and Minoans) than most modern Peloponnesian groups, with the exception of the Deep Mani and Taygetos individuals (Fig. S5B). The affinity between Southern Italians and ancient samples was also investigated by the f-statistics. First, we tested the affinity symmetry of Northern Italians and other Italian groups (OIGs) with respect to Anatolia Neolithic (AN) samples (OIGs). All the f4 (Mbuti, AN, OIG, Lombardy) show a significantly higher affinity between Lombardy and AN, with the only exception of Sardinia (Table 1). This pattern is also evident when Bronze Age Greeks (Table 1) or ancient Steppe groups (Table S3) are used in place of AN. These observations suggest that populations from Central and Southern Italy had a lower contribution from AN than Lombardy, or alternatively, that Central and Southern Italians received contributions from other different groups, possibly associated with present-day Middle Eastern or African regions (19,40,41). However, when the affinity of Italian groups with African and Middle Eastern populations was tested, Southern Italians resulted not significantly closer to any of the two (Table S4). Except for East Sicily and Calabria, no significant results were detected for the combination f4 (Mbuti, Steppe, OIG, DeepMani), confirming a similar genetic composition for Maniots and Southern Italian groups. In contrast, replacing Deep Mani with other groups from different Peloponnesian areas resulted in the latter showing a higher affinity to Steppe ancestry than present-day Southern Italians (Table S3)

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...072v1.full.pdf

[Dianatomia]

I think you better look again, because most of them do in fact overlap, and are similar. Just as the upcoming Campania paper shows.

I can only make out Thessaloniki, Abdera as post Bronze Age. While Doliani is medieval. The rest is not on the chart. While the descriptions of other Iron Age Greeks is light hair and/or pale skin and in some cases light eyes. While Mycenaeans were described as very dark by Lazaridis. Where are Archontiko, Agios Panteleimonas, Sparta, Tenea on the PCA? The rest are from the Neolithic.

[Jovialis]

I can only make out Thessaloniki, Abdera as post Bronze Age. While Doliani is medieval. The rest is not on the chart. While the descriptions of other Iron Age Greeks is light hair and/or pale skin and in some cases light eyes. While Mycenaeans were described as very dark by Lazaridis. Where are Archontiko, Agios Panteleimonas, Sparta, Tenea on the PCA? The rest are from the Neolithic.

Enough with the obfuscation, they were not all described as Very dark, that's your own slant you are putting, and it is not even true. Most of them had dark hair, the operating word is most. Ergo, some had light features. As far as I can see that is exactly the case with these new samples;

Excerpt from Lazaridis et al 2017 on phenotype:

Phenotype prediction from genetic data has enabled the reconstruction of the appearance of ancient Europeans1,24 who left no visual record of their pigmentation. By contrast, the appearance of the Bronze Age people of the Aegean has been preserved in colourful frescos and pottery, depicting people with mostly dark hair and eyes25. We used the HIrisPlex26 tool (Supplementary Information, section 4) to infer that the appearance of our ancient samples matched the visual representations (Extended Data Table 2), suggesting that art of this period reproduced phenotypes naturalistically.

[Jovialis]

The input from more recent near eastern admixture has been greatly exaggerated by Levantist, nordicists, and woke liberals. I am not the only one who proposed such a model. Raveane et al. 2022 also puts this forward in a way. However we came to that conclusion independently. Moreover, Apulia and other parts of the south are show among the highest affinity to the Ancient Greeks, along with other specific Peloponnesian populations.

^^Natufian confounds the model, because it has a ton of Anatolia_N. There's also the Moors to consider, who brought some north African which also serves to confuse the model. Using minoan isolates that. The eastern Mediterraneans are mostly Anatolia BA, and that is represented in the model I put forward as well.

Roman_Greek has a levant shift yes, but I suspect the input is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

All of these populations have a fit of 4 or less using this model. Observe the autosomal make up of Island Greeks, not all are the same.

Also, many of the Greek colonies were founded by eastern Peloponnesians

@LTG

This model was tested against all populations around the world, yet only Europeans show viability. Ergo, it fails for Levantine populations. To me this shows that the Northern model is indeed viable for Southern Italy.

[Jovialis]

Greek Colonies and the dialects they spoke:

[real expert]

Hi guys, I just want to know some predictions from you. What do you think which haplogroup will be dominant and will E-V13 finally be found among the Greeks? Do you expect more Southern and Northern shifted outliers? The Roman paper leak was pretty much accurate but there were some unexpected results too. However, this paper is very promising and appears to be exciting.

[Leopoldo Leone]

Southern Italians can be modelled in such a way, yes, but I don't believe it's accurate. The additional Natufian admixture in them points towards assimilation of a population that wasn't like the Minoans/Mycenaeans who both lacked that component in excess of their Neolithic Anatolian. We know that Greek city-states in Magna Graecia were quite large, and the interconnected nature of the Hellenic world at that time means it's quite likely the region absorbed Greek immigrants from across the entire Eastern Mediterranean. This of course would include mainland Greece, but also places like the Aegean islands, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Egypt and coastal Syria. Naturally, the genetics of Southern Italy would have been quite cosmopolitan as a result, and probably more akin to modern Greek island populations than Mycenaeans by the time the Romans conquered and assimilated them.

Attachment 13210

Can I ask why the focus has gone to southern Italians when the topic is about ancient Greeks?
Anyway, this additional natufian admixture is something I have never seen in any official paper, since all I've seen model south Italians as EEF+CHG+Steppe_EBA, and a bit of north african in Sicilians and some Calabrians (the only paper that argues for Levantine in Italians actually modelled Tuscans, not sure how credible that is though).
Is it 100% accurate? Likely not, as likely the modelling for modern populations are not as well, but they do capture the broad picture.

The only place where I see "additional natufian" in southern Italians is G25, and I've seen also that there southern Italians get assigned around 15-25 Slavic (!), so my skepticism is warranted. Furthermore, I hear again this theory that magna Graecia absorbed so many immigrants that it had a very important impact in the region's genetic make up, yet I fail to see how some Cypriot-like Greek travellers from costal Syria would cause a genetic turnover in the already very populated magna Graecia, unless you postulate a considerable chunk of south Italy was repopulated by Greeks from Syria or something like that, but we have no records or evidence of that, and it begs the question "why?".

Furthermore, we have no reason whatsoever to postulate that by the Roman conquest Greeks' genetic profile changed.


So far I've seen natufia

[LTG]

The input from more recent near eastern admixture has been greatly exaggerated by Levantist, nordicists, and woke liberals. I am not the only one who proposed such a model. Raveane et al. 2022 also puts this forward in a way. However we came to that conclusion independently. Moreover, Apulia and other parts of the south are show among the highest affinity to the Ancient Greeks, along with other specific Peloponnesian populations.

^^Natufian confounds the model, because it has a ton of Anatolia_N. There's also the Moors to consider, who brought some north African which also serves to confuse the model. Using minoan isolates that. The eastern Mediterraneans are mostly Anatolia BA, and that is represented in the model I put forward as well.

Roman_Greek has a levant shift yes, but I suspect the input is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

All of these populations have a fit of 4 or less using this model. Observe the autosomal make up of Island Greeks, not all are the same.

Also, many of the Greek colonies were founded by eastern Peloponnesians

Of course there are certain agendas at play in this field. You can't avoid that because genetics and anthropology is too useful in shaping certain narratives to not be utilized by certain forces. That said, I think you're misunderstanding my point, presumably because this topic has become synonymous with a certain viewpoint which is the idea that West Asian DNA in Southern Italians arrived with intrusive Semitic groups e.g. Phoenicians, Jews or Arabs, and that before these people it was non-existent. This has been the prevailing narrative in the Anglo-Saxon world for decades now, but it's false. There is additional Natufian admixture in Southern Italians on top of their Neolithic Anatolian (Natufian doesn't contain ANF; that is Neolithic Levant which tends to inflate the scores in G25, hence why I didn't use it). But it entered into the Italian genepool via the Greeks, who had already taken on these admixtures sometime in either the Late Classical or Hellenistic period when a lot of diverse peoples across the Eastern Mediterranean were incorporated into the Greek civilization. From then on it was further diluted by the demographic resurgence of rural Latin Roman elements during the depopulation of the western empire, then again by the intrusion of Germanic invaders during the Early Medieval period -- but there's no doubt in my mind that the core ancestry of Southern Italians is Cretan/Dodecanesian/Cypriot-like, rather than Mycenaean/Minoan or even Anatolia BA (although you can use that, but only because it's already similar to the Greek islanders).

That's my opinion, anyways.

[Jovialis]

Let's shift focus away from south Italy, because I do agree that it is annoying to have it constantly brought up. I have to admit it is a bit of my fault. LTG, you're entitled to your opinion, obviously I feel strongly about mine. But after referring to two very recent papers on the subject in addition to my own analysis, I have made my case. At any rate, let's get back to this leaked paper which is fascinating.

[LTG]

Can I ask why the focus has gone to southern Italians when the topic is about ancient Greeks?
Anyway, this additional natufian admixture is something I have never seen in any official paper, since all I've seen model south Italians as EEF+CHG+Steppe_EBA, and a bit of north african in Sicilians and some Calabrians (the only paper that argues for Levantine in Italians actually modelled Tuscans, not sure how credible that is though).
Is it 100% accurate? Likely not, as likely the modelling for modern populations are not as well, but they do capture the broad picture.

The only place where I see "additional natufian" in southern Italians is G25, and I've seen also that there southern Italians get assigned around 15-25 Slavic (!), so my skepticism is warranted. Furthermore, I hear again this theory that magna Graecia absorbed so many immigrants that it had a very important impact in the region's genetic make up, yet I fail to see how some Cypriot-like Greek travellers from costal Syria would cause a genetic turnover in the already very populated magna Graecia, unless you postulate a considerable chunk of south Italy was repopulated by Greeks from Syria or something like that, but we have no records or evidence of that, and it begs the question "why?".

Furthermore, we have no reason whatsoever to postulate that by the Roman conquest Greeks' genetic profile changed.


So far I've seen natufia

Because Jovalis replied to my initial comment about Iron Age Greeks with his own ideas about Southern Italians. If not for that, I wouldn't have mentioned them. G25 isn't perfect nor does it claim to be, but it's pretty good at parsing ancestries in a broad sense and Southern Italians constantly show a pull not directly towards CHG, but rather somewhere in-between (which indicates post-Neolithic, Bronze Age sources from West Asia).

The point isn't about population turnover or repopulation. It's about a theorized (and likely) gradual change in the Greek autosomal profile in the centuries between the establishment of Magna Graecia during the 8th century, when Greeks were largely confined to their core territories/homelands i.e. where the Mycenaeans settled between 1400-1000 BC: Balkans, Aegean, Cyprus, Western Anatolia and the Black Sea coast, to the Hellenization of large parts of Anatolia, Syria and the Levant after the conquests of Alexander. It stands to reason that once a large % of people across the Eastern Mediterranean were integrated into Greek culture, they would (within reason, we're not talking mass migrations) trade, travel, migrate and intermingle with one another in the various city-states, with Magna Graecia being one of those core destinations. We know this because even during the Classical period, we see Greeks travelling from across the Mediterranean to learn/teach in Athens. My opinion is that this is the same reason why we see tons of Cretan/Dodecasnesian/Cypriot-like Greeks in the Roman port towns. They are heavily mixed Hellenistic people that the Romans eventually absorbed, which is why various Italian groups today have some West Asian DNA. Of course, this is all speculation until we get samples from that period of Southern Italy.

Edit: I just saw Jovalis' reply so won't be commenting on this further as it's off topic.

[Jovialis]

Because Jovalis replied to my initial comment about Iron Age Greeks with his own ideas about Southern Italians. If not for that, I wouldn't have mentioned them. G25 isn't perfect nor does it claim to be, but it's pretty good at parsing ancestries in a broad sense and Southern Italians constantly show a pull not directly towards CHG, but rather somewhere in-between (which indicates post-Neolithic, Bronze Age sources from West Asia).
The point isn't about population turnover or repopulation. It's about a theorized (and likely) gradual change in the Greek autosomal profile in the centuries between the establishment of Magna Graecia during the 8th century, when Greeks were largely confined to their core territories/homelands i.e. where the Mycenaeans settled between 1400-1000 BC: Balkans, Aegean, Cyprus, Western Anatolia and the Black Sea coast, to the Hellenization of large parts of Anatolia, Syria and the Levant after the conquests of Alexander. It stands to reason that once a large % of people across the Eastern Mediterranean were integrated into Greek culture, they would (within reason, we're not talking mass migrations) trade, travel, migrate and intermingle with one another in the various city-states, with Magna Graecia being one of those core destinations. We know this because even during the Classical period, we see Greeks travelling from across the Mediterranean to learn/teach in Athens. My opinion is that this is the same reason why we see tons of Cretan/Dodecasnesian/Cypriot-like Greeks in the Roman port towns. They are heavily mixed Hellenistic people that the Romans eventually absorbed, which is why various Italian groups today have some West Asian DNA. Of course, this is all speculation until we get samples from that period of Southern Italy.

Yes, it is speculation, but my speculation is also shared by Sarno et al. 2021 and Raveane et al. 2022. But ultimately as you said aDNA will show us.

Please see my last post. I admit to starting it, but we need to move on. Otherwise we will be repeating ourselves in an off topic discussion that will turn off people to the thread.

[Palermo Trapani]

The majority of the samples plot in the range of LBA Myceneans. I guess Olalde 2022 was right to use the Empuries sample.

Ok, thanks Jovialis.

[Angela]

You know these guys seem to eat an extraordinary amount of meat and animal products, and a surprisingly low amount of fruits and vegetables.

It's quite a change from the Neolithic period, and even the Archaic period was for some more plant based..

Indeed, Empuries would seem to be a good sample to use for the Classical period as well. Probably Olalde knew the general outlines of what samples were in the Reich Lab for the ancient Greeks.

I think we can put to bed the idea that the original Mycenaean samples we had were somehow not representative. That one goes into the book I'm keeping, too.

Their level of total steppe seems to be pretty close to that of Southern Italians, yes?

[Angela]

There was never any reason to believe that Iron Age Greeks would be different to the preceding Mycenaeans in the first place. That original autosomal profile likely lasted all the way through Classical period. It wasn't until the Hellenistic period when Greek civilization came to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean that we see the formation of a distinctively modern looking Cretan/Dodecanesian/Cypriot-like genetic profile, very similar to the Imperial Roman samples, after extensive intermixing between the original IA/Classical Greek and Greek-speaking but autosomal West Asian people. It's highly likely that this sort of Southeast Mediterranean genetic profile persisted well into the Roman/Byzantine period, where the assimilation of the Slavs crystallized the difference we see between the mainland and islands today.

This is why there is a similar level of Mycenaean-like ancestry (40-60%) across all modern Greeks (with the exception of Pontians from the Black Sea), with an inverse relationship between East European vs. West Asian admixture based on geography e.g. a Rhodian is a Cypriot with roughly 6% more Slavic, thus 6% less West Asian, Cretan is a Rhodian with around 8% more Slavic etc. all the way until you reach Macedonia.

Why don't we stick to facts and not endless speculation which in most cases has been proven to be false. I know it will be difficult, but try.

[Angela]

The input from more recent near eastern admixture has been greatly exaggerated by Levantist, nordicists, and woke liberals. I am not the only one who proposed such a model. Raveane et al. 2022 also puts this forward in a way. However we came to that conclusion independently. Moreover, Apulia and other parts of the south are show among the highest affinity to the Ancient Greeks, along with other specific Peloponnesian populations.

^^Natufian confounds the model, because it has a ton of Anatolia_N. There's also the Moors to consider, who brought some north African which also serves to confuse the model. Using minoan isolates that. The eastern Mediterraneans are mostly Anatolia BA, and that is represented in the model I put forward as well.

Roman_Greek has a levant shift yes, but I suspect the input is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

All of these populations have a fit of 4 or less using this model. Observe the autosomal make up of Island Greeks, not all are the same.

Also, many of the Greek colonies were founded by eastern Peloponnesians

The usual suspect(s) just can't stand being wrong yet again.

[Angela]

I can only make out Thessaloniki, Abdera as post Bronze Age. While Doliani is medieval. The rest is not on the chart. While the descriptions of other Iron Age Greeks is light hair and/or pale skin and in some cases light eyes. While Mycenaeans were described as very dark by Lazaridis. Where are Archontiko, Agios Panteleimonas, Sparta, Tenea on the PCA? The rest are from the Neolithic.

What are you looking at?

Of the summaries presented, one has blue eyes and brown/blonde hair (Sparta), and one, from around 1000 BC has red hair with no information on the color of the eyes.

The rest all have dark hair and dark eyes.

If you have data for other samples than those posted here, please present it.

Otherwise, please stop spreading misinformation.

[Jovialis]

It's quite a change from the Neolithic period, and even the Archaic period was for some more plant based..

Indeed, Empuries would seem to be a good sample to use for the Classical period as well. Probably Olalde knew the general outlines of what samples were in the Reich Lab for the ancient Greeks.

I think we can put to bed the idea that the original Mycenaean samples we had were somehow not representative. That one goes into the book I'm keeping, too.

Their level of total steppe seems to be pretty close to that of Southern Italians, yes?

Indeed, they get about 15-20% with a huge amount of Minoan.

Also, the Mycenaeans profile has indeed survived into the iron age, and is certainly representative of what they looked like in the Bronze Age. This study is vindicating for sure.

[Jovialis]

Also they seem almost like they're on the paleo-diet with as much as 90% (!) of what they consume being meat and animal products.

So much for the canard that "civilization is bad because the diet is not as good as what meat eating HGs ate, blah, blah, blah". These people ate meat, and in a large amount. I guess that's what happens when you have an advanced civilization with access to what you want to have. :)

[Palermo Trapani]

apparently "Upcoming Ancient Greek Transect (Mesolithic to Medieval) from Biomuse"

Thanks for the response, glad the threads were combined. Any word on who some the researchers on the paper might be.

[Jovialis]

Thanks for the response, glad the threads were combined. Any word on who some the researchers on the paper might be.

I think I may have found it here:

BIOMUSE - TETRAGON

CONSORTIUM



History and Ethnology Department-Anthropology Laboratory DEMOCRITUS UNIVERSITY OF THRACE, TETRAGON SA (Greece), Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Reiss-Engelhorn Museen (Germany)

[Jovialis]

Fantastic, so it is not just a paper, but an entire museum exhibit.