A Genome-Wide Study of Modern-Day Tuscans: Revisiting Herodotus's Theory on the Origi

[Angela]

O.K., this is the name of the paper:
"Assessment of Whole-Genome capture methodologies on single- and double-stranded ancient DNA libraries from
Caribbean and European archaeological human remains"
Maria C Avila Arcos et al

Catchy title, right?

This is the abstract:
View attachment 7220
http://maria-avila.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AvilaArcos_BOG2015.pdf

That's all that's available so far, which tells us nothing. I'll keep searching.

 

[Angela]

Not yet published, I guess. Probably the study has been or will be presented during the talks of BOG 2015, that started on 5th May and ends on 9th May 2015 (The Biology of Genomes, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA - May 5-9, 2015).

Here is the title

"Avila-Arcos, M.C. Assessment of whole genome capture methodologies on single- and double-stranded ancient DNA libraries from Caribbean and European archaeological human remains"

http://nextgenseek.com/2015/04/2015-...ers-announced/

http://meetings.cshl.edu/meetings/2015/genome15.shtml




That sample probably even a bit more north shifted than Lunigianesi or Emilians, we need to wait further infos. I will back on this.



I was wondering just the same thing. There are many ancient populations to be studied in Spain. By the way Maria Avila Arcos is a Mexican Postdoctoral researcher at Stanford.

We're cross posting again.

Darn! I just called them...I thought I could talk my way into the presentation, but she gave it yesterday. I had actually looked at the list of papers, but that title sure didn't draw my attention. We're going to have to wait, I think.

 

[Alan]

Weren't you the clown who banned me

Didn't knew that an elite member was able to ban people. Unlikely that Kardu gave you a ban.

for saying that Georgians are basically Iraqis with some Slavic admixture or something along those lines???

Which is a claim without evidence and therefore can be considered spamming. The same way someone could argue that all Europeans are "Iraqis, Levantines and Anatolians who mixed with H&G who came from South_Central Asia at some point in time.

 

[Angela]

O.K., this is the name of the paper:
"Assessment of Whole-Genome capture methodologies on single- and double-stranded ancient DNA libraries from
Caribbean and European archaeological human remains"
Maria C Avila Arcos et al

Catchy title, right?

This is the abstract:
View attachment 7220
http://maria-avila.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AvilaArcos_BOG2015.pdf

That's all that's available so far, which tells us nothing. I'll keep searching.

Just so we have the visual in front of us:


I can't believe I missed the presentation. How exactly was I supposed to know from the title it was going to be about Etruscans?

I was talking about the one who is pretty close to TSI. That space would be filled by northern Italians of one stripe or another. I don't know about the other one. It's still southern Europe, I think. Where would the people of the Ticino plot?

Ed. I wonder where the ancient Thracians would plot? We have those genomes, even if they're not great quality, don't we, so it could be done. Were they just another group of Bronze Age Indo-Europeans who in this case happened to adopt the language of the prior inhabitants?

 

[Fire Haired14]

Ancient DNA confirms Estruscans were Southern European

​

"2,500-year old Etruscans". Dienekes.

Estruscan genomes from 2,500YBP were sampled and put in a PCA with HGDP populations: CEU(Utah Americans), GBR(British), FIN(Finnish), IBS(Iberians), and TSI(Tuscans). The Estruscans cluster with Tuscans and Iberians. No info was given about where the Estruscan genomes came from, but I guess probably Tuscany.

The Estruscan samples are slightly farther north and east than modern Tuscans. Davidski recreated the PCA Estruscans and shows that modern Bulgarians might be clustering closest to where Estruscans would if put in his PCA.

All I'm confident of, is these Estruscans were generally Southern European in the modern sense. They certainly were not immigrants from Anatolia. If Esturscans came from Anatolia, by 500BC they had already become heavily admixed with the natives. If these Estruscans are representative of most Italians 2,500YBP, Italy has probably been for the most part genetically stagnant in the last 2,500YBP.

Theories of heavy admixture from West Asia in Italy during Roman times(which some have considered) doesn't make a lot of sense now(it's still possible of course). These Estruscans are evidence the West Asian-signal in Italy(ancestry which can't be explained by Pre-Historic genomes from mainland Europe) must be at least 2,500 years old.

 

[Angela]

​

"2,500-year old Etruscans". Dienekes.

Estruscan genomes from 2,500YBP were sampled and put in a PCA with HGDP populations: CEU(Utah Americans), GBR(British), FIN(Finnish), IBS(Iberians), and TSI(Tuscans). The Estruscans cluster with Tuscans and Iberians. No info was given about where the Estruscan genomes came from, but I guess probably Tuscany.

The Estruscan samples are slightly farther north and east than modern Tuscans. Davidski recreated the PCA Estruscans and shows that modern Bulgarians might be clustering closest to where Estruscans would if put in his PCA.

All I'm confident of, is these Estruscans were generally Southern European in the modern sense. They certainly were not immigrants from Anatolia. If Esturscans came from Anatolia, by 500BC they had already become heavily admixed with the natives. If these Estruscans are representative of most Italians 2,500YBP, Italy has probably been for the most part genetically stagnant in the last 2,500YBP.

Theories of heavy admixture from West Asia in Italy during Roman times(which some have considered) doesn't make a lot of sense now(it's still possible of course). These Estruscans are evidence the West Asian-signal in Italy(ancestry which can't be explained by Pre-Historic genomes from mainland Europe) must be at least 2,500 years old.

It's already been posted and discussed. Arame linked it in post #96.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...isiting-Herodotus-s-Theory-on-the-Origi/page4

Too bad Eurogenes didn't bother to put northern Italians in the PCA. We've already speculated as to whether some of them would cluster in that space. Not that this is necessarily a conflict. Bulgarians and Italians have similar kinds of breakdowns in Lazaridis et al. The similarity between northern Italians and some people from the Balkans was postulated by Cavalli Sforza decades ago.



Somehow, when Italian researchers say it, it carries no weight.

Welcome to the world of Ralph and Coop.
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001555

As we pointed out in the other thread, a Copper Age Iberian was also pretty "Tuscan" like, and the ancient Thracians should be put into the mix to see where they would plot.*

Ed.You are exaggerating once again the amount of "West Asian" in Italians, certainly in northern Italians and even Tuscans. We've had this discussion before.

You might want to take a look at the SW Asian figures, for example, for Oetzi and Gok 4 versus modern northern Italians and Tuscans, and the West Asian scores in some of the Dodecad runs.

Ed. Still, this is just a PCA. Let's wait and see the actual genomes.

Certainly, though, these elite Etruscans are not Anatolians.

*This is the link to the paper about the Portalon farmer.
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:667495/FULLTEXT01.pdf

 

[LeBrok]

​

Interestingly they have a very high nose roots, flash with forehead and in line with forehead , the Greek Style, not a Roman nose. Typical ENF admixture of first farmers? They used to look the same through South Europe to Levant. If Etruscans were from Anatolia, it would need to be from secluded region who never mixed with IE or other Bronze Age nomads. We know that EEF from Spain, Italy, Balkans plotted almost in same spot on PC2, and I assume Anatolian EEF/ENF (when finally sequenced) will plot very close to them. Modern Anatolians/Turks will plot distinctly away.

 

[Maciamo]

​

"2,500-year old Etruscans". Dienekes.

Estruscan genomes from 2,500YBP were sampled and put in a PCA with HGDP populations: CEU(Utah Americans), GBR(British), FIN(Finnish), IBS(Iberians), and TSI(Tuscans). The Estruscans cluster with Tuscans and Iberians. No info was given about where the Estruscan genomes came from, but I guess probably Tuscany.

The Estruscan samples are slightly farther north and east than modern Tuscans. Davidski recreated the PCA Estruscans and shows that modern Bulgarians might be clustering closest to where Estruscans would if put in his PCA.

All I'm confident of, is these Estruscans were generally Southern European in the modern sense. They certainly were not immigrants from Anatolia. If Esturscans came from Anatolia, by 500BC they had already become heavily admixed with the natives. If these Estruscans are representative of most Italians 2,500YBP, Italy has probably been for the most part genetically stagnant in the last 2,500YBP.

Theories of heavy admixture from West Asia in Italy during Roman times(which some have considered) doesn't make a lot of sense now(it's still possible of course). These Estruscans are evidence the West Asian-signal in Italy(ancestry which can't be explained by Pre-Historic genomes from mainland Europe) must be at least 2,500 years old.

If these ancient Etruscans cluster with modern Bulgarians, that could actually mean that they are from northern Greece or western Anatolia. It has long been suggested that the Etruscan language was related to the Lemnian language of the Aegean island of Lemnos. That is quite close from Bulgaria. Let's also not forget that modern Bulgarians have plenty of Proto-Indo-European and Central Asian blood, the heritage of
5000 years of migrations from the Eurasian steppes to Europe. Coastal Ionia would be the most likely place of origin of the Etruscans, as later even Ionian Greeks set off to colonise Italy. It had to be a coastal region or island(s), ideally on the Aegean Sea. The Sea or Marmaris region is also possible.

 

[Fire Haired14]

Turks, even western, are very differnt from Bulgarians. Davidski plotted Turks/Antolians on his PCA, and they're far away from where the Estruscans would cluster. Although Estruscans can be from anywhere and mixed with the locals. Bulgarians and Italians are so similar that Estruscans clustering by Bulgarians isn't a big deal to me.

 

[Alan]

that modern Bulgarians might be clustering closest to where Estruscans would if put in his PCA.

They certainly were not immigrants from Anatolia.

Somehow contradicting these two statements. Also let's keep in mind, no one of us knows how Anatolia was genetically until the Etruscans possibly left. The Turks brought an huge amount of Central Asian Iranic (Not necessary East Eurasian) genes with them. Assyrians conquered many part of the Regions, the whole regions was re populated constantly. Let's also keep in mind that some individuals in Thrace where still EEF like until the Iron Age.

 

[Pax Augusta]

Indeed, one western shifted. One pretty close to TSI, one a bit north. As Dienekes pointed out, southern European, but not particularly Tuscan. Had they inter-married heavily with the Villanovans, if indeed some came from elsewhere? Or are we looking basically at Villanovan genomes? Of course, these would be elite burials. I don't know that any remains exist from more "common" people.

I wonder where slightly more northern Italians would plot on that graph? The Lunigianesi, for example, or the people of Emilia Romagna, to where the Etruscans extended their dominion? In the interests of science I am ready to provide my genome!

It's become clear from the latest papers that people 4,000 years ago were not exactly like us...now, it seems that genetic signatures had not totally set even 3,000 years ago. The Hinxton genomes weren't a perfect match for the modern English either.

We need to know the locations of the burials of these samples and the historical dating. We already know many Etruscan surnames (many Etruscan surnames are of Italic/IE origin or strongly related to them as showed in "Prosopographia etrusca"). By the way the proto-Villanovans are the proto-Etruscans just as they are the proto-Umbrians. The main differences were cultural and religious probably due to the fact the proto-Villanovans met and assimilated in southern Tuscany and northern Lazio the descendants of the Rinaldone culture that had a huge impact on them. We cannot rule out a late third migration (the Tyrrenians) with no or little impact on the genetics of Etruscans (even the studies more aligned with the theory of Herodotus show this and cannot prove a mass migration). And we must never forget that Etruscans called themselves Rasenna (as said by Dionysius of Halicarnassus), neither Tyrrenians nor Etruscans. Except Dionysius, all the Greek authors used the broader term Tyrrenian. The Etruscan inscriptions show that Dionysius was right.

Boundary stone from Cortona, 2nd century BC. The inscription reads: TULAR RASNAL. Tular means border, Rasnal is the genitivus of Rasenna, the name the Etruscans gave to themselves. The meaning of the inscription is therefore ‘Border of the Etruscans’.

I was talking about the one who is pretty close to TSI. That space would be filled by northern Italians of one stripe or another. I don't know about the other one. It's still southern Europe, I think. Where would the people of the Ticino plot?

Culturally and ethnically they are related to modern Lombards with some strong influence from north-east Piedmont. I guess that people of the Ticino could plot in the northern-western shifted side of the spectrum of modern Lombards, considering that Bergamo is the sample for average Northern Italians.

All I'm confident of, is these Estruscans were generally Southern European in the modern sense. They certainly were not immigrants from Anatolia. If Esturscans came from Anatolia, by 500BC they had already become heavily admixed with the natives. If these Estruscans are representative of most Italians 2,500YBP, Italy has probably been for the most part genetically stagnant in the last 2,500YBP.

Theories of heavy admixture from West Asia in Italy during Roman times (which some have considered) doesn't make a lot of sense now (it's still possible of course).

I agree, they were not immigrants from Anatolia surely not in the sense of a civilization that one day, bag and baggage, moved from Anatolia to central Italy. Central Italy was already inhabited.

Interestingly they have a very high nose roots, flash with forehead and in line with forehead , the Greek Style, not a Roman nose. Typical ENF admixture of first farmers? They used to look the same through South Europe to Levant. If Etruscans were from Anatolia, it would need to be from secluded region who never mixed with IE or other Bronze Age nomads. We know that EEF from Spain, Italy, Balkans plotted almost in same spot on PC2, and I assume Anatolian EEF/ENF (when finally sequenced) will plot very close to them. Modern Anatolians/Turks will plot distinctly away.

That's a cinerarium, surely unrealistic, from Northern Lazio, Southern Etruria. It's similar to the archaich Greek style (kouroi and korai) due to common external cultural influences. I don't think that style depends by the kind of admixture, it's just an artistic style.

This is also another Etruscan cinerarium from Tuscany (Northern Etruria) much more realistic than the previous one.

 

[Angela]

Pax Augusta: We need to know the name the location of the burials of these samples and the historical dating.

I think this is very important. Are the remains from later in the first millennium BC or earlier? Are they from the "heartland", or in one of the expansion areas? How far had the "Orientalizing" process gone?

Pax Augusta:I agree, they were not immigrants from Anatolia surely not in the sense of a civilization that one day, bag and baggage, moved from Anatolia to central Italy. Central Italy was already inhabited.

We're presumably talking about elite graves here, yes? So, these are the people who would have had the highest percentages of "new" ancestry in the area.

If we look at the placement of these people on the PCA again, one lands in the IBS area. I don't think Iberians got a massive migration from the east in the first millennium BC.
View attachment 7224

Unless there is something very unexpected in the paper, we are seeing, if anything, an elite migration. Let's not forget that even if we had a way of proving that the supposedly "Anatolian" mtDna came in the first millennium BC rather than in the Neolithic, it was, what, 6% of the total?

It's true that Anatolia has experienced its own population changes in the last 2800 years. However, the largest one would have been the "Turkic" invasion. I'm by no means an expert on Turkish genetics, but I've never seen that influx of genes described as "massive" in nature. In fact, to the best of my recollection, wasn't it estimated at about 10%? Does anyone have a paper that explores that?

Again, looking at the PCA, it seems that one of the other samples lands pretty close to TSI, just a little north. The other one is north of that. I hate to sound like a broken record, but where would northern Italians plot? Would they plot somewhere in that general area as well? Since Bergamo samples are available from the same data set that the authors used, it's curious they weren't included in the plot.

It would also be nice to see the ancient Thracians plotted on there. Here, I'm not focused on the one that was so "Oetzi" like. I don't think anyone is claiming that the inhabitants of central or northern Italy in the first millennium BC were necessarily still all "Oetzi" like. Italy too was impacted by the "Indo-Europeans". That is evident in the archaeology, and has now been verified by genetics analysis. I think we recently discussed that the Haak et al figure for modern Tuscans is 30%. Looking at ancient genomes in Gamba et al, for example, you can see that modern Tuscans plot east of Sardinians, and northern Italians east and north of them. The Haak et al figure for Yamnay in Tuscans is 30%.

So, I'm just if not more interested in seeing where the Bronze Age Thracian would plot, and where the Iron Age one would plot as well. (I realize that it wouldn't be dispositive given the contamination issues, but I still think it would be interesting.)

The question to me is how much did any putative migration from the east in the first millennium BC impact modern central/north Italians...not during the Neolithic, and not even during the Bronze Age, but during the first millennium BC. That's what this whole intellectual puzzle is all about, yes?

As for Bulgarians, they are not transplanted Anatolians either.The Eurogenes plot is of modern Bulgarians. Their ethnogenesis is not solely EEF; like the Italians, they have been impacted by Indo-European migrations, i.e. the Thracians, and to some extent the Slavs. The same general migration movements affected them both.

Ed. One other thing occurs to me. It's informative to look at the "West Asian" scores of northern Italians. If they plot near these Etruscans, and even some TSI isn't far, then that is approximately the amount that was present at least in Etruria in the first millennium. So, as Fire Haired has noted, not very much came in during the Empire, and that brings us full circle back to Ralph and Coop.

PaxAugusta: That's a cinerarium, surely unrealistic, from Northern Lazio, Southern Etruria. It's similar to the archaich Greek style (kouroi and korai) due to common external cultural influences. I don't think that style depends by the kind of admixture, it's just an artistic style.

That's the problem with discussions about phenotype and the Etruscans. Any art historian would point out that much of Etruscan art is very derivative of Greek art...sometimes the art is just copied wholesale. So, are we looking at "Greek" faces, or "Etruscan" faces, or just "stylized" faces that don't really represent either. That's not of course to say that there weren't "Greek" looking Etruscans.

This is another sarcophagus which is said to be in a "naturalistic" style.

Here are some other representations. I don't know if they are representative of them or not, but they look totally normal to me for modern Italians.

 

[LeBrok]

That's a cinerarium, surely unrealistic, from Northern Lazio, Southern Etruria. It's similar to the archaich Greek style (kouroi and korai) due to common external cultural influences. I don't think that style depends by the kind of admixture, it's just an artistic style.

This is also another Etruscan cinerarium from Tuscany (Northern Etruria) much more realistic than the previous one.

The dude has more of hunter gatherer or IE nose or even the whole face. The woman however has again very high nose roots and forehead and nose inline. She looks like a typical farmer. Therefore it is not just a style.
The two busts Angela posted also have same typical South European/farmer features.

 

[Pax Augusta]

If these ancient Etruscans cluster with modern Bulgarians, that could actually mean that they are from northern Greece or western Anatolia. It has long been suggested that the Etruscan language was related to the Lemnian language of the Aegean island of Lemnos. That is quite close from Bulgaria. Let's also not forget that modern Bulgarians have plenty of Proto-Indo-European and Central Asian blood, the heritage of 5000 years of migrations from the Eurasian steppes to Europe. Coastal Ionia would be the most likely place of origin of the Etruscans, as later even Ionian Greeks set off to colonise Italy. It had to be a coastal region or island(s), ideally on the Aegean Sea. The Sea or Marmaris region is also possible.

I often agree with you but this time your analisys seems unfounded. Do ancient Etruscans really cluster with modern Bulgarians? Are we really sure about this? Similar ratios and proportions of the components in my opinion doesn't mean that they are the same people. And one Etruscan sample plots in IBS- Iberia Spain, as northern Greece is not exactly the same of western Anatolia. Etruscan art had indeed some Ionian influences during the Orientalizing period but it doesn't imply that they were Ionians, as if I wear a kimono or I eat sushi it doesn't make me a Japanese. Not to mention that Etruria was already inhabited since prehistoric times and there is archaeological evidence for continuity between the Etruscans and the people that lived in Etruria before the rise of their civilization.

Etruscan is the name of a civilization developed in central Italy, there is no archaeological evidence so far that can challenge this. Outside Etruria we have just the Rhaetian and Lemnos inscriptions only. What we are trying to find out if there was a later migration (the Tyrrenians) to central Italy. In any case, the people that already inhabited Etruria before the rise of the Etruscan civilization played a leading role in the formation of the Etruscan ethnos.

Turks, even western, are very differnt from Bulgarians. Davidski plotted Turks/Antolians on his PCA, and they're far away from where the Estruscans would cluster. Although Estruscans can be from anywhere and mixed with the locals. Bulgarians and Italians are so similar that Estruscans clustering by Bulgarians isn't a big deal to me.

I agree with this.

The dude has more of hunter gatherer or IE nose or even the whole face. The woman however has again very high nose roots and forehead and nose inline. She looks like a typical farmer. Therefore it is not just a style. The two busts Angela posted also have same typical South European/farmer features.

Basically Etruscans were a mixture of IE and EEF, typically south European.

Other Etruscan cinerarium from Northern Etruria (Tuscany). Some of these are not different from the Romans.

Portrait of Lars Sentinates Caesa (Chiusi, Tuscany)

Chiusi (Tuscany)

Volterra (Tuscany)

Chiusi (Tuscany)

Siena, Tuscany

Arezzo (Tuscany), Ariadne (Etruscan: Areatha)

 

[Pax Augusta]

That's the problem with discussions about phenotype and the Etruscans. Any art historian would point out that much of Etruscan art is very derivative of Greek art...sometimes the art is just copied wholesale. So, are we looking at "Greek" faces, or "Etruscan" faces, or just "stylized" faces that don't really represent either. That's not of course to say that there weren't "Greek" looking Etruscans.

Yes, very true.


Portrait of Etruscan Aule Metele (from Perugia, Umbria, or Cortona, Tuscany) in Etruscan-Roman style (so even more realistic than the previous ones).

 

[Sile]

Somehow contradicting these two statements. Also let's keep in mind, no one of us knows how Anatolia was genetically until the Etruscans possibly left. The Turks brought an huge amount of Central Asian Iranic (Not necessary East Eurasian) genes with them. Assyrians conquered many part of the Regions, the whole regions was re populated constantly. Let's also keep in mind that some individuals in Thrace where still EEF like until the Iron Age.

The Turks only entered Anatolia a 1000 years ago...........Anatolia prior to this was something else in regards to ethnicity.

 

[oriental]

From the Trojan War it seems there was a lot of traffic between Greece and Troy so there would be a lot of mingling. Trojans also had a lot of women slaves who were used for the textile industry as suggested in various videos. Maybe it was Greek women who were taken so "Helen" was just a sybolic figure for the great war.

 

[Maciamo]

Turks, even western, are very differnt from Bulgarians. Davidski plotted Turks/Antolians on his PCA, and they're far away from where the Estruscans would cluster. Although Estruscans can be from anywhere and mixed with the locals. Bulgarians and Italians are so similar that Estruscans clustering by Bulgarians isn't a big deal to me.

Modern Turks differ a lot from Iron Age Anatolians in that they have a considerable amount of Turkic/Mongolian and Central Asian (including assimilated Andronovo Indo-Europeans). Obviously modern Bulgarians also differ from Iron Age ones, but probably less (they have very little East Asian admixture, for instance).

Then, as always with migrations, you shouldn't expect people to remain pure and unadmixed when they move from one region to another. Iron Age Etruscans were a hybrid population, with part of their gene pool descended from Bronze Age Italy, and part from those hypothetical migrants from the Aegean or West Anatolia. Based on the high percentage of R1b-P312 and U152 in Tuscany today, and on the proximity of ancient Etruscans samples to modern Iberian ones, I'd say that the Bronze Age Italo-Celtic genetic heritage of the Etruscans could have been dominant on the Iron Age Aegean one.

We'll know more once these Etruscan samples will be run in the Dodecad and Eurogenes calculators. PCA charts have their limits.

 

[Angela]

The Turks only entered Anatolia a 1000 years ago...........Anatolia prior to this was something else in regards to ethnicity.

To my knowledge, from 800 BC to the present the only large scale migration into Anatolia was from the "Turks", as you say.

If that's incorrect, could someone correct the record?

How much are they supposed to have changed the Anatolian genome? As I asked upthread, isn't it supposed to be below 10%?

I just took a look at the Globe 13 spreadsheet, which has a number of Turkish populations as well as the Dodecad set. If I add the Siberian, East Asian and Arctic, some populations score around 6% of those components, and the highest score is around 8%.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArAJcY18g2GadF9CLUJnTUdSbkVJaDR2UkRtUE9kaUE#gid=2

The Turkish Cypriots, in contrast, only score about 2.2 % of those components, but I don't think it looks as if the elite Etruscans would cluster near them either.

 

[oriental]

The sultan had huge harems and the Turks could have four wives so their aDNA would be smothered by Circarssian women they seem to like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_beauties

http://chnm.gmu.edu/lostmuseum/star/

http://chnm.gmu.edu/lostmuseum/lm/311/

http://www.geocurrents.info/place/r...-circassian-mystique-and-its-historical-roots