Southern Italian Ethnogenesis (My theory)

[Jovialis]

This was from Raveane et al. 2019, it was an alternative model they had made in the supplement. I used the same color scheme in my models from this study for consistency. It looks very close to the results I have found using Dodecad K12b for Southern Italians. Interestingly, the Reich Lab also found similar results in Sicily in the Bronze Age, in an alternative model found in the supplement.

[Angela]

This was from Raveane et al. 2019, it was an alternative model they had made in the supplement. I used the same color scheme in my models from this study for consistency. It looks very close to the results I have found using Dodecad K12b for Southern Italians. Interestingly, the Reich Lab also found similar results in Sicily in the Bronze Age, in an alternative model found in the supplement.

Did they discuss why they chose to highlight the other model, or why they decided to also look at it this way? I don't remember off hand, and can't look it up right now.

[Niceguy12]

I agree with 90% of everything said. Most southern Italian ancestry is quite similar to minoans, however, as another member said; in addition to the greater Caucasian component than in western anatolia, there is also a greater levantine component, perhaps a Phoenician influence? I do not know for sure. I don't understand the reason for 'controversy'. Throughout southern Europe there is some mix of north africa or middle East. It is not unique to southern Italy. There are also in Iberia and other southeastern European countries.

[CrazyDonkey]

Stonehenge is indeed interesting, and finding out that it was EEF like people who made it did come as a bit of a shock to a lot of people.

Primarily Y-DNA I2a, which goes back to WHG (and the Epigravettian Refugium), but with a significant EEF admixture. My interest is primarily historical - Y-DNA can help to track migrations, but is a single thread that gets thinner and thinner the further back it goes. I'm in the Isles Scot/Ire clade (according to my Big Y-700 results):

"Our next sub-sector is the Isles Sc/Ire that stems from Isles Limbo I-FGC20063 branch through I-FT2392 to Isles Sc/Ire I-S7753*. One could say it was by far the most successful of the Isles sector branches thus far. This sub-sector can be distinguished for most tested from other Isles sub-sectors by the STR marker DSY464 having 11-11-14-15. Of course we see variations especially if affected by a recLOH event. The I-S7753 branch node is also known as I-Y4171 and I-FGC20048 and has according to FTDNA 15 SNPs at the node. Still room for discovering new branches and splitting this node. It has two known branches - I-Y23716* and I-Y4142*" -- Wayne Rodney Roberts (I-M223 Project Administrator)

Very few "racially-attributable" traits are carried by the Y-Chromosome. Apparently, however:

"A pedigree of hairy ear rims published in Italy in 1907 indicated holandric inheritance. The recent collection of over 20 pedigrees in India appears to show conclusively that the gene for hairy ear rims is in the Y chromosome. This is further evidence of relationship between the Mediterranean race in Europe and the population of India." -- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...132.3420.145.a

Despite my Y-DNA ancestors likely having been in northeast Ireland since before the formation of surnames (as evidenced by my very "Irish" surname), according to my Family Finder results: I'm 100% Europe; 47% England, Wales, and Scotland; 21% Scandinavia; 20% Central Europe; and, last and least, 13% Irish. I partially attribute my relatively minuscule amount of Irishness either to males in my direct paternal line having largely avoided marrying girls of "Irish" descent (as evidenced by Irish maiden names) or that there just weren't many available in the areas where they settled (Pennsylvania and Nebraska), the exception being a great-great-great grandmother (nee Goff). If the Irish tribe had a reservation, I'd be in danger of being voted off of it. And I've likely inherited as many or more Irish genes from my mother's as from my father's side, with a Duhig (Duffy) great-great-grandfather from Ireland. The 21% Scandinavian may come from my paternal great-grandfather having married a girl (nee Nelson) from Denmark.

[Jovialis]

Did they discuss why they chose to highlight the other model, or why they decided to also look at it this way? I don't remember off hand, and can't look it up right now.

I don't recall, but it is interesting that Raveane et al. 2022 now entertains a Minoan model instead.

[Francesco]

I don't recall, but it is interesting that Raveane et al. 2022 now entertains a Minoan model instead.

They probably lurked some of your posts.
Jokes aside, wonder if this new model could shed new light on the so called pelasgian people.
Southern Italy in the late bronze must have been quite an interesting place, with aegean and italic invaders swarming around.

[Jovialis]

They probably lurked some of your posts.
Jokes aside, wonder if this new model could shed new light on the so called pelasgian people.
Southern Italy in the late bronze must have been quite an interesting place, with aegean and italic invaders swarming around.

This model is basically a more expanded upon version. Interestingly, southern Italians remain the same in spite of all the new additions. Which leads me to believe it is a good model.

[Jovialis]

Something interesting I noticed is that Scythians seems to fill the gap between Helladic_MBA and Yamnaya; linking the cline from Yamnaya to Minoan. I wonder if there could be any relation.

[torzio]

Something interesting I noticed is that Scythians seems to fill the gap between Helladic_MBA and Yamnaya; linking the cline from Yamnaya to Minoan. I wonder if there could be any relation.

Ostrogoths and visigoths arrived in scythian and sarmatian lands from 150BC and stayed until they went via the balkans into Italy , france and Spain .......................the mixing of these goths with scythians in the north part of the black sea for over 400 years could have something to do with it

[Francesco]

I'm sorry if the question I'm about to ask won't make much sense from a technical point of view, but I wonder if it could be a good fit to model southern Italy as a three way mix of protovillanovian + Minoan + Empuries (used as proxy for Iron age Greek), which, historically, should have been the three populations who contributed the most to the ethnogenesis of that region.

[Archetype0ne]

I'm sorry if the question I'm about to ask won't make much sense from a technical point of view, but I wonder if it could be a good fit to model southern Italy as a three way mix of protovillanovian + Minoan + Empuries (used as proxy for Iron age Greek), which, historically, should have been the three populations who contributed the most to the ethnogenesis of that region.

I can check using qpADM, do you know the id of the Protovillanovan sample?
But I suspect the model will fail, not because of merit, but rather even in cases where it is plausible, using populations that share common drift, such as Minoan and Empuries causes the models to have bad fits.

[Pax Augusta]

I'm sorry if the question I'm about to ask won't make much sense from a technical point of view, but I wonder if it could be a good fit to model southern Italy as a three way mix of protovillanovian + Minoan + Empuries (used as proxy for Iron age Greek), which, historically, should have been the three populations who contributed the most to the ethnogenesis of that region.

The Protovillanovan sample, which comes from the border between Abruzzo and Marche, is only one, it is most likely a Proto-Picene, and we do not know whether it is truly representative of all Protovillanovan samples, which is a supranational facies of the late Bronze Age. The fact that the Protovillanovan sample has less WHG than Latins and Etruscans suggests that this sample may be a relatively recent arrival from the Balkans, and even if this is not definitely proven there is a further problem, because archaeologists admit the role of a Balkan component in the ethnogenesis of the Picenes (plus two other components, if I remember correctly), but that is something that might concern the Picenes in this case, rather than all speakers of Osco-Umbrian languages.

[Francesco]

The Protovillanovan sample, which comes from the border between Abruzzo and Marche, is only one, it is most likely a Proto-Picene, and we do not know whether it is truly representative of all Protovillanovan samples, which is a supranational facies of the late Bronze Age. The fact that the Protovillanovan sample has less WHG than Latins and Etruscans suggests that this sample may be a relatively recent arrival from the Balkans, and even if this is not definitely proven there is a further problem, because archaeologists admit the role of a Balkan component in the ethnogenesis of the Picenes (plus two other components, if I remember correctly), but that is something that might concern the Picenes in this case, rather than all speakers of Osco-Umbrian languages.

Very interesting, thank you.
I imagine it could be possible, on one hand, that the protovillanovian / protoitalic group was less WHG admixed as whole, and that the major WHG ancestry found in Etruscan and Latin samples is due to the central Italian Neolithic substrate. But it could also be, as you said, that the protovillanovian sample we have is not representative of the whole proto-italic group and that he was just a recent arrival from the Balkan.

[Francesco]

I can check using qpADM, do you know the id of the Protovillanovan sample?
But I suspect the model will fail, not because of merit, but rather even in cases where it is plausible, using populations that share common drift, such as Minoan and Empuries causes the models to have bad fits.

Thanks, I had no idea about that

[Pax Augusta]

Very interesting, thank you.
I imagine it could be possible, on one hand, that the protovillanovian / protoitalic group was less WHG admixed as whole, and that the major WHG ancestry found in Etruscan and Latin samples is due to the central Italian Neolithic substrate. But it could also be, as you said, that the protovillanovian sample we have is not representative of the whole proto-italic group and that he was just a recent arrival from the Balkan.

The identification of the Protovillanovan culture with the Protoitalics is disputed by some archaeologists (the Protovillanovan is also ancestral to the Latins, Venetis and Etruscans, to name but a few examples) and is still unproven.

If it is true, as some linguists claim, that the Latin-Faliscan and Osco-Umbrian branches are separate, and arrived in Italy separately due to two different migrations (and convergence would be due to later contacts in Italy), the latter could perhaps have some more Balkan origins. But it is all very hypothetical, over a year ago studies were presented, including at least a couple that contained the genome of Osco-Umbrian language populations, hopefully helping to clarify.

[Francesco]

But it is all very hypothetical, over a year ago studies were presented, including at least a couple that contained the genome of Osco-Umbrian language populations, hopefully helping to clarify.

Probably the most important missing link to properly understand Southern Italy's ethnogenesis are exactly samples from the southern oscan tribes. If Jovialis' intuitions are rights, oscans (or at least the most southern of them) should be a two way mixture of Minoan (or late bronze age Sicily) and some sort of IE population. If you then ad more Iron age greeks to the picture, you should have a good model for southern Italy, or at least for the bulk of it.

[torzio]

I'm sorry if the question I'm about to ask won't make much sense from a technical point of view, but I wonder if it could be a good fit to model southern Italy as a three way mix of protovillanovian + Minoan + Empuries (used as proxy for Iron age Greek), which, historically, should have been the three populations who contributed the most to the ethnogenesis of that region.

Are you referring to the Woman ( Sample ID R1 ) ................found in Martinscuro and tronto areas of Picene , at that time a Liburnian colony


she is now part of this project

https://www.archaeological.org/field...oject-croatia/

[Francesco]

Are you referring to the Woman ( Sample ID R1 ) ................found in Martinscuro and tronto areas of Picene , at that time a Liburnian colony

she is now part of this project
https://www.archaeological.org/field...oject-croatia/

To be honest I didn't have in mind a particular individual, I just knew we had at least one protovillanovian sample (to be precise I thought we had more than just one) and I guessed they could be an acceptable proxy for the people of the italic expansion of the late bronze age

[Francesco]

Scrolling on the forum I just realize we have some sample from Iron age Venosa which sectacularly plot with modern central and southern italians: https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...l=1#post629001

I'm referring, of course, to the samples labelled as VEN. In the Iron age, Venosa was inhabited by oscan tribes: if the samples are actually from southern italics individuals (are they or have I mistaken something?), it would prove once more Jovialis' theory and the fact that by the beginning of the iron age the genetic profile of the modern italian paeninsula was already largely formed.

[Er Monnezza]

Scrolling on the forum I just realize we have some sample from Iron age Venosa which sectacularly plot with modern central and southern italians: https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...l=1#post629001

I'm referring, of course, to the samples labelled as VEN. In the Iron age, Venosa was inhabited by oscan tribes: if the samples are actually from southern italics individuals (are they or have I mistaken something?), it would prove once more Jovialis' theory and the fact that by the beginning of the iron age the genetic profile of the modern italian paeninsula was already largely formed.

Venosa samples are dated between AD 707 and 736, not the Iron Age.

Geo-political situation during that period

[Er Monnezza]

Most Venosa samples are also low coverage (less than at least 20%).

Sample ID	Coverage
VEN015	77,43%
VEN001	54,04%
VEN013	49,24%
VEN006	41,09%
VEN016	36,69%
VEN005	19,25%
VEN012	16,68%
VEN010	9,23%
VEN009	8,73%
VEN008	7,14%
VEN018	5,49%
VEN014	4,15%
VEN021	3,73%
VEN002	3,69%
VEN017	2,92%
VEN022	2,70%

[Francesco]

Venosa samples are dated between AD 707 and 736, not the Iron Age.
Geo-political situation during that period

Thanks, I dug into the supplementary material and the burials are indeed dated roughly to the 8th century.

[Francesco]

This model is basically a more expanded upon version. Interestingly, southern Italians remain the same in spite of all the new additions. Which leads me to believe it is a good model.

Wonder if the new Mycenaeans samples (some of wich seem to be a bit more anatolian adimixed than the previous four published samples) could explain, at least to some extent, the ABA component in southern Italy.

[Angela]

Wonder if the new Mycenaeans samples (some of wich seem to be a bit more anatolian adimixed than the previous four published samples) could explain, at least to some extent, the ABA component in southern Italy.

Just for the record, some of the new Mycenaean samples actually have less EHG than the old ones. There's a lot of variation in them.

From the leaked information from the Greek colonial site near Naples, some of the Greek colonists had a lot of Anatolian Bronze. However, it's difficult to project these things because we don't know how many Greeks arrived, the relative number of "Italics" and Etruscans versus the Greek newcomers, if the ancestry spread all over the south, etc.

[Francesco]

From the leaked information from the Greek colonial site near Naples, some of the Greek colonists had a lot of Anatolian Bronze.

That's indeed very interesting and in line with the ancestry of many of those new Mycenaean samples, If I'm not mistaken.

However, it's difficult to project these things because we don't know how many Greeks arrived, the relative number of "Italics" and Etruscans versus the Greek newcomers, if the ancestry spread all over the south, etc.

We could maybe desume those data by comparing the archeological data with the new archeogenetic research. In order to do so, we surely need samples from Southern Italic tribes(wich could already be more "Minoan" like than Latins and Etruscans) and Greek settlers of the Iron age.