K12b Analyzing the Mediterranean Cluster C6 from Antonio M et al. 2019

[Francesco]

I mean during the exact time of the rise and fall of Rome, Central Italy and Southern Italy shifted towards substantially exactly towards West Asia. And Rome having over 1.5M inhabitants and other cities of Italy similar to Rome were populated heavily too for ancient standards. (like the sample town of Pompeii having 12,000 - 20,000 inhabitants)
That would be such a coincidence if the vast majority of them just left.

Merchants were a small fractions of the overall population. You must consider most of those people that plot near the Levant or Anatolia, slaves or soldiers. And even during the fall of Rome many or most of merchants lost their wealth.

The italian cline was already there during the Iron Age (though it could have been slightly augmented by later movements from Anatolia.

Surely there were not anatolian soldiers in Italy, since Italy was a no go area for any army since the republic, and surely for the alae of auxiliary were an anatolian would have served. You wouldn't have found any auxiliary unit in Imperial Italy.

The only military units stationed in Italy in the Imperial age were, as far as I know, the cohorts of the pretoriani guard in Rome and some alae of the equites augusti.

 

[Er Monnezza]

1) the wikipedia page (which just reports what is said in the sources linked) says clearly that the language spoken around Rome belonged to the southern group, hence it was NOT part of the central group, and indeed was "much" closer to Neapolitan than to dialects of the central group. Honestly, you're just using sophistry if you're going to debate such a point.

The Wikipedia page does not say that, read more:

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetto_romanesco#Storia

ITA: Il volgare che si parlava a Roma nel Medioevo era assai più vicino agli altri dialetti laziali o al napoletano che al fiorentino.

ENG: The vernacular that was spoken in Rome in the Middle Ages was much closer to the other dialects of Lazio or Neapolitan than to Florentine.

Perhaps I did not explain myself well. Medieval Romanesco had Samnite metaphony as the Campanian dialects also do, this brings it closer to the Neapolitan group, but not part of said group.

Samnite metaphony is typical of a large part of central and southern Italy. It involves diphthongation, generally resulting in /ié/, /uó/ (letto > lietto "bed", occhio > uocchio "eye"). Rocca di Papa, Nemi and Velletri also present Samnite metaphony. Palestrina, Genazzano and Valmontone have diphthongated Samnite metaphony; Capranica and Cave have monophthongated Samnite metaphony.

This is a Medieval Romanesco text:

http://bepi1949.altervista.org/cronica/cronica1.html

Quanno Sciarra, lo franco capitanio, sappe che la iente era ionta, non se dubitao niente, anco se armao e fece sonare la campana a stormo. Mesa notte era e forza lo primo suonno. Uno vanno con tromme mannao per la terra, che onne perzona fosse armata, ca·lli nemici erano entrati in Puortica, e che traiessino a Campituoglio. La iente che dormiva subitamente se sviglia. Ciascuno prenne arme. Coscia abbe nome lo vannitore. La campana sonava terribilemente. La iente trasse a Campituoglio. Là traie la baronia e·lli populari. Lo buono capitanio parlao e disse ca venuti erano per entrare in Roma, per mozzare le zinne delli pietti delle donne de Roma.

The dialect spoken by elders in Rocca di Papa (Castelli Romani), 27 km southeast of Rome, is extremely similar to medieval Romanesco. Again, it has very southern features, but I think it is a stretch to ascribe it directly to the southern group.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetti_dei_Castelli_Romani

ITA: I dialetti dei Castelli romani fanno parte della categoria di dialetti appartenenti alla famiglia marchigiana-umbro-laziale, detta italo-mediana. Inoltre, presentano spesso un caratteristico fenomeno di metafonia (metafonia sannita) che li distingue dai dialetti laziali e li accosta da questo punto di vista ai dialetti meridionali.

ENG: The dialects of the Castelli Romani belong to the category of dialects belonging to the Marche-Umbro-Latium family, called Central-Italian. In addition, they often exhibit a characteristic phenomenon of metaphony (Samnite metaphony), which distinguishes them from the dialects of Latium and likens them in this respect to southern dialects.

Some poems/stories in the local dialect:

Chi etè su viecchiu che ranca a zeccà corsu nnazzica a scegnelu straccu ruzzunitu llogratu? So io? Che cazzu dici ma io ieri, proprio ieri currèo, zompèo, giochèo ngima a l’arbori, me rampichèo decco e dello schizzeo. Come passa u tiempu come te scuia, come te prellessa. Quandu si giovine e a cresta è ngrillata nte pò capacità che a viecchiaia è ngomingiata.

U tiempu cure lestu. Ieri riazzu ciucu e maddomà già viécchiu. Me metto pò da parte chètu giochènno coll’amici a carte, e attuórno attuórno scèrno
’a neve dell’immèrno calàne sopre a ’a vita.

’N pecoraro d’a Rocca fece po’ la occa storta… Co’tutta chella che m’ajo magnatu tutti li giorni da che so’ natu caru compa’ dào che domanne! Senza menu… tenaràjo e budella tutte bianche!

 

[Pax Augusta]

The one sample labeled Liguria is from Genova. The so-called Piedmont sample is actually from an area in the Apennines "recently" incorporated by Piemonte but actually mountain Ligure in origin, as can be seen by the fact that they speak a Ligurian dialect, the towns all have the name "Ligure" in them, and the road used by these villages led to Genova.

Autosomally, I think they're a bit closer to eastern Liguria than western Liguria, although not by much, and they border Piacenza and far western Emilia as well.

So far as I know there "is" no official Emilia sample, so they've basically "guessed".

The sample labelled as Liguria comes from an unknown location in Liguria, as far as I know. I could not find any information. The only Ligurian area sampled (autosomal DNA) before Raveane 2019 is Savona, western Liguria. So, it cannot be excluded that it came from there.

In any case, it is clear that one alone cannot represent an average. Both because there is individual variation and because of the complex geography of Liguria, which has many isolated valleys, even a piece of the Alps and many seaside locations.

So the sample named Piedmont is actually the same as the one from Liguria, right? I didn't know that the sample came from the tip of the Apennine Mountains. Thank you for the very interesting information. I wonder what other regions of Piedmont are like.

The sample named Piedmont on G25 is most likely from Val Borbera. It's Piedmont but being it's area linguistically transitional from Ligurian language to Piedmontese is not really representative of Piedmont. The problem was created by Raveane and Capelli (or Cappelli?) who only released a small part of the samples from northern Italy (and did not release samples from Emilia, Piedmont and just one from Liguria). To solve the problem Davidski a few days later uploaded to the G25 the only set of samples that had previously been released from Piedmont, namely the Val Borbera set.

Based on the private results I have seen, there are indeed 100 per cent Piedmontese (from eastern Piedmont, usually) who have results like that sample from Val Borbera, and others who go further north genetically and come closer to results more typical of the linguistically Italian northern Alps.

In northern Italy everywhere there is genetically the dichotomy between the Alps and the Po Valley (with the Apennines possibly in between, depending on the area). With those in the Po Valley being underrepresented both in studies and consequently in amateur calculators.

As for the rest of Piemonte, there are French like areas like Valle d'Aosta among others, but within Torino itself locals are almost outnumbered by people from other parts of Italy, especially from the south, who came to work in the Fiat factories, among other places.

This is now true for almost the whole of northern and central Italy. But also southern Italy is changing demographically.

It's complicated, but I believe I understand what you mean. I think Piedmont, like the rest of Italy clearly needs more additional samples from other regions Thank you for your kind explanation.

Geneticists, and particularly Italian ones, have never shown much capacity for accuracy, unfortunately. I don't think we will have much more accurate samples in the future than we do today. More samples but not necessarily more accurate.

 

[Er Monnezza]

3) The medieval samples from Rome, minus the north Italian-like individuals, clustuer around south Italians (who, I believe, are Sicilian samples), as it has been said many times.

If you read toward the end of post #55, I practically said the same thing. However, to what extent is it fair to exclude from the average those who plot with northern Italy and leave those who plot with Italian Jews?

(North European outliers are excluded from PCA below)

4)The late antiquity samples are more southern on average than medieval Rome (which remains a better proxy for south Italy),with a good chunk of the samples actually southern of south Italians, I wonder how is it possible that the average still comes out as significantly more northern than southern Italians then on G25 and dodecad12.

This is the full list of Central Italian samples dated from 400 to 500 AD.

ITA_Marsiliana_Imperial:MAS003___AD_465___unknown_coverage,0.091058,0.150298,0.004903,-0.050711,0.036314,-0.030957,0.00141,-0.003923,0.028633,0.030069,0.00406,0.003897,-0.008771,-0.002202,-0.007736,-0.001591,0.011995,-0.008235,-0.008045,-0.003752,-0.011105,-0.001731,0.013804,0.001928,0.010179
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR30___AD_500___Coverage_79.47%,0.101303,0.147252,-0.019987,-0.054264,0.013849,-0.024263,0.000235,-0.008077,0.0045,0.020228,0.000487,0.004196,-0.011447,-0.001514,-0.016558,-0.007027,0.00339,0.003041,0.005028,0.005628,0.001996,0.001237,0.003451,0.002289,-0.003233
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR31___AD_412___Coverage_88.66%,0.137726,0.142174,0.066373,0.047158,0.048317,0.008367,0.00423,0.009923,0.008795,0.004009,0.002273,0.002098,-0.002973,-0.009221,0.016965,0.021612,0.008345,0.002787,0.007793,0.013757,0.008735,0.00779,-0.003944,0.013737,-0.004071
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR32___AD_500___Coverage_53.38%,0.101303,0.155376,-0.007542,-0.044574,0.021542,-0.019243,-0.00376,-0.007154,0.002863,0.023326,-0.001137,0.003297,-0.008028,-0.006331,-0.002036,-0.004773,0.005867,-0.003294,-0.005782,0.003877,0.002121,-0.004081,0.003451,-0.011568,-0.000359
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR33___AD_500___Coverage_82.11%,0.124067,0.147252,0.024513,-0.012274,0.03416,-0.00251,0.00423,0.003,0.017589,0.026789,-0.003897,0,-0.012933,-0.003303,-0.005565,-0.005304,0.000652,0.00228,0.005656,-0.004252,-0.001872,0.002102,-0.005176,0.007591,-0.011855
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR34___AD_500___Coverage_70.78%,0.101303,0.152329,-0.023381,-0.059432,0.007386,-0.023985,0.001175,-0.000692,-0.003272,0.018406,0.002923,0.005095,-0.002973,0.00289,-0.007465,-0.005834,0.007041,0.004054,-0.002011,0.000125,-0.006364,0.004081,0.003944,-0.003012,-0.001557
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR35___AD_500___Coverage_50.76%,0.103579,0.150298,-0.011314,-0.046189,0.013541,-0.020638,0.00047,-0.008769,0.006954,0.021868,0.00341,0.002847,0.000149,-0.002064,-0.010179,-0.001724,0.008605,0.0019,0.000754,0.000125,-0.008235,-0.00136,0.002711,-0.010965,0.002395
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR36___AD_500___Coverage_74.85%,0.114961,0.15436,0.003017,-0.022287,0.022773,-0.008925,0.00658,-0.003692,0.001023,0.018224,0.008931,0.001649,-0.008474,-0.009909,-0.001357,0.002784,0.002347,-0.000633,0.002263,-0.003126,0.003119,0.001484,-0.001356,0.005061,-0.000958
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR105___AD_500___Coverage_72.43%,0.122929,0.146236,0.034695,-0.004522,0.040623,-0.00251,-0.00094,0.003231,0.01309,0.016766,0.00341,0.002698,-0.003865,-0.00055,0.003257,-0.004773,-0.012126,-0.006588,-0.000503,-0.001376,0.00025,0.001237,-0.003574,-0.006627,0.004191
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR106___AD_500___Coverage_68.57%,0.120652,0.136081,0.042992,0.03876,0.038161,0.005299,-0.000235,0.003231,0.002454,0.008383,-0.000487,0.007493,-0.009812,-0.008945,0.010993,0.00358,-0.002477,0.003041,0.014581,-0.006628,0.01148,0.008161,0.001356,0.005543,-0.005389
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR107___AD_500___Coverage_80.22%,0.119514,0.149283,-0.004525,-0.031654,0.022773,-0.02008,-0.00893,-0.004615,0.010226,0.021322,-0.000325,0.005545,-0.00223,0.00578,-0.007872,-0.007425,0.009127,-0.00038,-0.000251,0.007504,-0.003993,-0.001607,0.010106,0.00012,-0.00012
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR108___AD_500___Coverage_70.45%,0.12862,0.140143,0.042615,0.006783,0.043085,0.00502,0.001175,-0.008769,0.003477,0.01385,0.000325,0.002398,-0.001189,-0.008533,0.00475,0.005171,-0.000391,0.000633,0.002765,0,0.001373,0.001237,-0.004437,0.002892,0.00012
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR109___AD_500___Coverage_42.34%,0.122929,0.147252,0.039598,-0.011628,0.039392,-0.004741,0.000235,0.009692,0.018203,0.02041,-0.002436,0.012889,-0.015758,-0.014726,0.005565,0.000796,0.012126,0.002534,0.006411,-0.004502,0.005615,0.007048,-0.003204,0.011206,-0.004431
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR110___AD_500___Coverage_54.33%,0.127482,0.141159,0.033564,-0.005814,0.033545,-0.006693,-0.000705,0.001846,0.019225,0.034078,0.003735,0.008842,-0.016799,-0.004954,0.00665,0.002254,0.009388,0.007475,0.010182,0.007629,-0.009733,0.004946,0.001232,-0.000964,0.003712
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR117___AD_500___Coverage_65.46%,0.104717,0.150298,-0.014708,-0.039406,0.011694,-0.015897,-0.00329,-0.01223,0.003272,0.014032,-0.00341,0.010341,-0.013082,0.003853,-0.013843,0.003845,0.004303,0.006841,0.003897,-0.014757,-0.005116,-0.000495,-0.005669,0.005543,-0.00491
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR118___AD_500___Coverage_51.56%,0.108132,0.145221,0.003771,-0.033915,0.020619,-0.022311,-0.002115,0.003461,0.001227,0.023144,-0.004872,-0.000899,-0.017096,-0.006055,0.000814,0.009016,0.020861,-0.00152,0.006788,0.006128,-0.003369,0.004451,0.001232,0.002771,0.001557
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR120___AD_500___Coverage_44.44%,0.108132,0.153345,0.012068,-0.03876,0.016926,-0.011435,-0.0047,-0.010615,0.009613,0.023144,-0.000162,0.005845,-0.005054,0.000413,-0.009908,-0.004508,-0.011995,0.007095,0.001257,-0.000375,0.000374,0.010758,0.002095,-0.003976,0.003233
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR121___AD_500___Coverage_49.71%,0.112685,0.151314,0.000754,-0.031331,0.020927,-0.007251,0.00235,-0.003692,0.005727,0.024602,-0.004872,0.01079,-0.009663,0.001239,-0.013029,-0.006232,-0.008996,0,0.007668,-0.009004,0.001622,0,0.006039,0.000482,-0.011735
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR122___AD_500___Coverage_78.75%,0.102441,0.153345,0.000377,-0.044574,0.016003,-0.019801,-0.00235,0.000231,0.004909,0.031891,0.003085,0.006894,-0.013231,0.006331,-0.0095,-0.010077,-0.007432,-0.007601,0.003897,-0.005378,-0.001248,-0.005564,0.003574,0.005784,0.000239
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR130___AD_400___Coverage_78.50%,0.103579,0.150298,-0.037335,-0.063308,-0.001846,-0.021753,0.00047,-0.010846,0.003681,0.030069,0.008444,-0.001948,-0.003419,-0.002064,-0.00285,-0.009546,0.002868,0.002534,-0.000628,-0.000875,0.004118,0.001855,-0.013557,-0.001325,-0.00455
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR133___AD_400___Coverage_82.28%,0.108132,0.14319,-0.023381,-0.056202,0.006463,-0.020638,0.00658,0.000462,-0.005727,0.026971,0.007307,0.005245,-0.006244,-0.001651,-0.010993,0.01127,0.021122,-0.003547,0.003645,-0.005628,-0.006613,-0.003586,-0.003204,0.005422,0.005868
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR134___AD_400___Coverage_71.86%,0.097888,0.151314,-0.028284,-0.059432,0.008309,-0.020917,-0.0047,-0.006461,-0.004295,0.019681,0.000162,0.004196,0.00446,0.003853,-0.006107,-0.004641,0.000913,-0.002534,-0.005154,0.00025,-0.004243,0.004204,-0.002958,0.001325,-0.002994
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR136___AD_400___Coverage_86.69%,0.108132,0.149283,-0.013199,-0.040698,0.011079,-0.011435,-0.001645,-0.006,-0.000818,0.018224,0.00747,0.001199,-0.003568,0.004679,-0.008007,-0.001856,0.00339,0,0.005782,-0.005753,0.000125,0.006059,0,0.000964,0.003952
ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity:RMPR137___AD_400___Coverage_76.65%,0.110408,0.15436,-0.018856,-0.052003,0.010463,-0.008367,0.00047,-0.008538,-0.006954,0.028793,0.005846,0.005845,-0.012785,-0.007019,-0.017372,0.003845,0.007432,0.000887,-0.000126,-0.007629,-0.009483,0.000247,-0.000616,-0.002289,-0.003113

This is the average, regardless of outliers.

ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity,0.11173633,0.14839421,0.004447,-0.029594875,0.022337417,-0.012736,-0.00015666667,-0.0028748333,0.0060164583,0.021594958,0.0016779167,0.0046021667,-0.007699375,-0.002500125,-0.0042242917,-0.00046408333,0.0040147917,0.00044875,0.0027444583,-0.0011671667,-0.0012685833,0.0020197083,0.00022083333,0.0013305,-0.000992875

Distance to:    ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity
0.01011835    Italian_Marche
0.01124488    Italian_Umbria
0.01147578    Italian_Abruzzo
0.01344580    Italian_Lazio
0.01413269    Italian_Molise
0.01710765    Italian_Tuscany
0.01782361    Italian_Apulia
0.01947895    Italian_Basilicata

This is the average composed of samples clustering south of Tuscany, including those clustering with Jews.

ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity_(Southern_Profile),0.10572159,0.15065671,-0.010448353,-0.04522,0.015224412,-0.018111529,-0.00069117647,-0.0053617647,0.0036212941,0.023176118,0.0021968824,0.0043549412,-0.0071444706,-0.00057476471,-0.0084704706,-0.0020278824,0.0047551765,-0.000081882353,0.0011165882,-0.00192,-0.0027231765,0.00093835294,0.0013557059,-0.000085058824,-0.00035917647

Distance to:    ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity_(Southern_Profile)
0.00822864    Italian_Campania
0.01264317    Italian_Basilicata
0.01278914    Italian_Calabria
0.01313426    Italian_Apulia
0.01412605    Greek_Deep_Mani
0.01683126    Sicilian_East
0.01870609    Italian_Abruzzo
0.01963122    Greek_Crete

This is the average composed of samples that fall inside of Italian variation, but excluding Jews.

ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity_(Italian_Profile),0.11443013,0.148335,0.011389067,-0.020672,0.024845533,-0.010337533,-0.00072066667,-0.0021229333,0.0070766,0.020653467,0.0008768,0.0045759333,-0.0084439333,-0.0019358,-0.0028411333,-0.00023873333,0.0019906,0.0007602,0.0042654667,-0.00077526667,-0.00038266667,0.0022587333,0.00080513333,0.00089973333,-0.0013412

Distance to:    ITA_Rome_Late_Antiquity_(Italian_Profile)
0.00884804    Italian_Tuscany
0.01161248    Italian_Marche
0.01418676    Italian_Umbria
0.01744924    Italian_Piedmont
0.01899658    Greek_Thessaly
0.01982194    Italian_Lazio

6) Let's follow the line of argument that somehow Rome_medievalmodern and Rome_antiquity can't be used to approximate south Italians (though it is wrong)

Their overall AVERAGES cannot represent southern Italy, but if you extrapolate various clusters within them, they can.

if we take it that Rome medieval on G25 shows an average of 5% Levant_N, but according to this study it is around 8%, then we can infer that if Campanians and Sicilians were to be analysed with the same methodology they'd have a centroid/average at 16%, which is roughly the centroid for imperial Rome

I honestly don't even know where you are getting the percentages of the paper from. In the Excel file I can't find them. Also, it is not very clear which samples they used and which they did not for the percentages, and we cannot know how the actual Campanians and Sicilians would behave with their methods or what percentage they would get.

but since southern Italians cluster quite northern to the centroid of imperial Rome, there must have been another northern gene flow that pulled them to their position, which means that they must have started with a higher level of Levant_N than that of the average for imperial Rome: do you get why it is nonsensical?

It is very possible that Campania, on average, had higher Levant_PPNB in the Imperial period than it does now, probably in line with the Imperial Roman average or slightly less.

7)Notice that according to the data in the paper Anatolia experience and decrease in Levant_N ancestry from the BA to the byzantine period, so the suggestion that western Anatolia overall experienced and increase in levantine ancestry compared to antiquity is debunked.

Are we looking at the same paper? Mugla in the Byzantine period has increased Levant_PPNB than Mugla in the Archaic Greek period.

Sample,CHG, EHG,[COLOR=#ff0000][B]Levant_PPN[/B][/COLOR], SRB_Iron_Gates_HG, TUR_Marmara_Barcın_N
TUR_Aegean_Muğla_Değirmendere_Anc,31.316667,2.6916667,[COLOR=#ff0000][B]9.7166667[/B][/COLOR],0.13333333,56.15
TUR_Aegean_Muğla_Camandras_Dalagöz_Rom,37.45,1.05,[COLOR=#ff0000][B]17.45[/B][/COLOR],1.15,42.875
TUR_Aegean_Muğla_Samantaş_Byz,36.5,3.3,[COLOR=#ff0000][B]17.571429[/B][/COLOR],1.0571429,41.6
TUR_Aegean_Muğla_Stratonikeia_Byz,38.208333,3.9916667,[COLOR=#ff0000][B]19.058333[/B][/COLOR],0.86666667,37.891667
TUR_Aegean_Muğla_Çapalıbağ_Mdv,50.933333,12.833333,[COLOR=#ff0000][B]22.766667[/B][/COLOR],0.975,12.483333

9) Anyway, the Daunian paper and the last paper about southern Italians found no affinities of modern south Italians towards MENA people compared to ancient Mycenaean samples. so I am just arguing to show that there is still a discrepancy (again) between this paper and G25 when it comes to Italians.

It is there though, and this is also shown by Dodecad K12b. How come Global25 is to be boycotted while Dodecad K12b is not? In the end it has more to do with liking or disliking their creators.

Mycenaean,4.4596429,0.21285714,1.9146429,0.26571429,37.233571,8.125,0.64928571,0.38857143,11.450714,0.13642857,34.551786,0.6125
Daunian,0.84166667,0.55166667,1.7216667,0.58666667,41.583333,24.648333,0.048333333,0.11,6.9766667,0.16333333,22.45,0.32

Distance to:    Syrian_Christian
24.86734204    Italian_Campania
29.08288909    Mycenaean
46.00632953    Daunian

 

[Er Monnezza]

Can you please stop confounding the PCA with these made-up clusters? I have stated before, the paper itself has them divided by haplotype sharing, and they form as clusters.

Dodecad K12b may not be a good calculator for analyzing prehistoric source populations that fall outside of the modern genetic continuum of West Eurasians. But Dodecad is indeed a good calculator for looking at modern populations in Southern Europe that do. Of which these Italian samples fall into.

Also now that we see the difference between G25 and the southern Arc paper's model, we know G25 is also not a good calculator for analyzing prehistoric source populations, given the discrepancy.

That's exactly what I see when comparing the two calculators to the paper.

Yeah sure, my clusters are made up, while your Dodecad K12b models showing you as 70% Minoan and Angela as 70% Latin are perfectly fine

 

[Jovialis]

Yeah sure, my clusters are made up, while your Dodecad K12b models showing you as 70% Minoan and Angela as 70% Latin are perfectly fine

I guess these guys made this up as well.

Raveane et al. 2022:

 

[Er Monnezza]

None of these samples land in Toscana or Emilia, despite your previous calculations. Instead, as the paper stated, the C6 samples cover the area from CENTRAL Italy to Southern Italy. Of course, there are also samples from more northern parts of Italy.

In addition, just looking at your PCA and assuming its accuracy for the moment, how could you possibly think using averages is at all helpful? It's useless and leads to inaccurate conclusions. I might even say it's misinformation.

The Levant_PPNB percentages that Leopoldo Leone gave at first for Medieval Rome likely included all outliers (both northern and southern) as well, although it is not very clear. That is why the averages I posted include them.

By the way, I made the clusters for the reason you point out in the second part of the post.

 

[Leopoldo Leone]

@Er Monnezza
1) The link I posted unambiguously stated that "the medieval Roman dialect belonged to the southern family of Italian dialects", you say that "it has very southern features, but I think it is a stretch to ascribe it directly to the southern group": it is again the old problem of "dialect continuum", but let us focus on the important point: the dialect spoken in Latium was " closer to Neapolitan than to Tuscan" but afterwards underwent a "tuscanization" caused by a large numbers of immigrants from Tuscany (or speakers of Tuscan dialects), and the genetic samples from the medieval and renaissance period show a tight cluster of individuals with Sicilians and a sizeable chunk of them that form a cloud from Sicily to north Italy (and a bit more northern), so the natural inference is that the modern Romans formed as a mix of north Italians and southern Italians; I guess it isn't the contentious point, but I get that your insistence that the medieval Roman dialect was a member of the central group depends on the implicit suggestion, opposed to mine, that medieval Romans while not being as northern as modern ones were still more northern than modern Campanians/Sicilians, whereas it is the suggestion implicit in my claim; well, whatever was the category the medieval Roman dialct belonged to, genetically the inhabitants looked Sicilian-like.
2) We have already said that G25 is suspicious, so can we stick to what appears from the papers? The vast majority of the late antiquity samples cluster around Sicily and Italy_south (Calabria?), very few with Bergamo (five), two are outliers clustering with French or English, so how is it possible that the average comes closer to Tuscany? To be precise, 16/24 cluster with or south of Sicily, five with Bergamo, two roughly with Hungarians/Pannonians, and one is close to Sardinia. I lack a mathematical model but something doesn't seem to add up; the average of the samples that fall into the Italian landscape must be closer to Sicily than Tuscany, so are just two NW European outliers enough to make it plot close to Tuscany?.
3)"A genetic probe into the ancient and medieval history of southern Europe and west Asia", figure 3, A (which I had already posted), you can clearly see that Levant_N decreases from the BA to the Byzantine period.
4)Since every sample on G25 get lower levels of Levant_N compared to what shown in this paper, then it is practically sure Sicilians and Campanians would show higher Levant_N too, otherwise you have any suggestion why they would behave differently from all the other samples.
5)

It is there though, and this is also shown by Dodecad K12b. How come Global25 is to be boycotted while Dodecad K12b is not? In the end it has more to do with liking or disliking their creators

Do you like being self referential? You can claim whatever you want, and I can agree that G25 samples need higher Levantine (and it is also why they are iffy to me), but the Daunian paper ( https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.30.454498v1.full , read the section " The pan-Mediterranean genetic landscape of Iron Age Apulia") and the last paper on southern Italians (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.26.482072v1.full , read the section " Modelling the relationship between modern Southern Italian and ancient Eurasians") both say:

We also investigated whether the PCA scattering was due to varying African or Levantine contributions with f4(Rome Republican, IAA, Levant_N/YRI, Mbuti) and tried the same on Medieval ancient Apulians (ORD010 and SGR001). However, none of the tested ancient Apulians shows a significant excess of YRI ancestry when compared to the contemporary Roman Republicans, even though ORD014, SAL007 and SAL011 show negative f4 values with a Z-score between 2 and 3

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

View attachment 13581View attachment 13581View attachment 13581

View attachment 13582

 

[Francesco]

Yeah sure, my clusters are made up, while your Dodecad K12b models showing you as 70% Minoan and Angela as 70% Latin are perfectly fine

If I understood correctly she's from north western Tuscany, so70% Latin - like makes perfect sense.

The area was between the etruscan and ligurian world and was later heavily colonized by Romans, so much so the variety of Italian spoke there is the more closely related to Latin.

 

[Pax Augusta]

If I understood correctly she's from north western Tuscany, so70% Latin - like makes perfect sense.
The area was between the etruscan and ligurian world and was later heavily colonized by Romans, so much so the variety of Italian spoke there is the more closely related to Latin.

Angela is 1/2 Emilian, 1/4 Eastern Ligurian, 1/4 north western Tuscan (Massa-Carrara). Of course, how his ancestors identified themselves is another matter. That area between Liguria, Tuscany and Emilia has always been the gateway between Liguria/Tuscany and northern Italy (Po Valley, Appennines). Besides the fact that Liguria is clearly already northern Italy.


The problem with Romanisation is that the Latins were a small group, not the largest in Italy. When we speak of Romanisation, it is not the same as saying Latin colonists.

 

[Pax Augusta]

@Er Monnezza
1) The link I posted unambiguously stated that "the medieval Roman dialect belonged to the southern family of Italian dialects", you say that "it has very southern features, but I think it is a stretch to ascribe it directly to the southern group": it is again the old problem of "dialect continuum", but let us focus on the important point: the dialect spoken in Latium was " closer to Neapolitan than to Tuscan" but afterwards underwent a "tuscanization" caused by a large numbers of immigrants from Tuscany (or speakers of Tuscan dialects), and the genetic samples from the medieval and renaissance period show a tight cluster of individuals with Sicilians and a sizeable chunk of them that form a cloud from Sicily to north Italy (and a bit more northern), so the natural inference is that the modern Romans formed as a mix of north Italians and southern Italians; I guess it isn't the contentious point, but I get that your insistence that the medieval Roman dialect was a member of the central group depends on the implicit suggestion, opposed to mine, that medieval Romans while not being as northern as modern ones were still more northern than modern Campanians/Sicilians, whereas it is the suggestion implicit in my claim; well, whatever was the category the medieval Roman dialct belonged to, genetically the inhabitants looked Sicilian-like.

I do not believe there is any evidence that the Tuscanisation of Romanesco is due to large migrations of Tuscans to Rome. Migrations from Tuscany to Rome did take place, among the 'foreign' communities, the Florentine one was one of the most numerous but it is a slightly more complicated matter. Before the sack of Rome (1527), the city had already been declining in population for years. After the sack of Rome (1527), there is a further demographic collapse, and the city was gradually repopulated. Probably yes, between 1400 and 1600, the population of Rome changed a lot demographically. but the Tuscanisation of the language was, I believe, also due to other factors.

 

[Francesco]

The problem with Romanisation is that the Latins were a small group, not the largest in Italy. When we speak of Romanisation, it is not the same as saying Latin colonists.

Correct, but in Nortwestern Tuscany, from Florence to Pisa, the merely demographic impact of latinization was probably pretty important: all of most important cities in the area (wich today is the most dendely populated of all Tuscany) have been founded (or refounded) by roman (Firenze) or latin (Lucca) colonist, while in pre-roman time the same area was not densely populated (at least the regions west of Florence), were only small villages of etruscan and ligures existed. The fact that the tuscan dialect is the most similar to latin probably have something to do with this process, I guess.

Then, of course, the ethnic substratum preceding this colonization was already pretty analogue to the latin one, so it's no surprise that an individual from this area is pretty similar to an Iron age roman.

The same could also apply for Emilia as well, even if in this case the celtic invasion must be taken in to account.

 

[Pax Augusta]

Correct, but in Nortwestern Tuscany, from Florence to Pisa, the merely demographic impact of latinization was probably pretty important: all of most important cities in the area (wich today is the most dendely populated of all Tuscany) have been founded (or refounded) by roman (Firenze) or latin (Lucca) colonist, while in pre-roman time the same area was not densely populated (at least the regions west of Florence), were only small villages of etruscan and ligures existed. The fact that the tuscan dialect is the most similar to latin probably have something to do with this process, I guess.

Then, of course, the ethnic substratum preceding this colonization was already pretty analogue to the latin one, so it's no surprise that an individual from this area is pretty similar to an Iron age roman.

The same could also apply for Emilia as well, even if in this case the celtic invasion must be taken in to account.

I don't know if Tuscan is the closest to Latin, there is also Sardinian for example. The language question does not prove much, because it was an imposed language, as in the case of Sardinian. In fact, if memory serves, many linguists consider Sardinian to be the closest.

Then there is another problem. The Latins were very genetically similar to the Etruscans, they even shared many uniparental markers.

 

[Francesco]

That's a correct point, language doesn't necessarily prove a comman ancestry, yet a continuity in language could hint to a demographic continuity since its adoption. Regarding wich is more similar to latin between tuscan and sardinian (wich also share direct contact by themselves, due to the pisan domination in the northern part of the island), I can't give a proper answer, since I'm not a linguist, but I found this article pretty interesting: https://www.viv-it.org/schede/5-3-sardegna-e-toscana

 

[Pax Augusta]

That's a correct point, language doesn't necessarily prove a comman ancestry, yet a continuity in language could hint to a demographic continuity since its adoption. Regarding wich is more similar to latin between tuscan and sardinian (wich also share direct contact by themselves, due to the pisan domination in the northern part of the island), I can't give a proper answer, since I'm not a linguist, but I found this article pretty interesting: https://www.viv-it.org/schede/5-3-sardegna-e-toscana

The Sardinians themselves are living proof that an imposed language proves nothing. Or at least it is not sufficient proof. For years it was mistakenly believed that Romanization was equivalent to Latinization in the genetic sense. So much so that R1b U152 and related clades were attributed to Romanization. When it was discovered that the Etruscans also had similar uniparental markers. The Latins were too few, it would be enough to take a map of Latium vetus, to have a significative genetic impact on the rest of Italy. We are waiting for the studies on the rest of Iron Italy that were supposed to be out by now, and which will help shed light. Let's see if they confirm that it is true that the Latin-Etruscan was a genetic profile (autosomal DNA) common to most of the peoples of pre-Roman Italy.

 

[Angela]

If I understood correctly she's from north western Tuscany, so70% Latin - like makes perfect sense.
The area was between the etruscan and ligurian world and was later heavily colonized by Romans, so much so the variety of Italian spoke there is the more closely related to Latin.

The 70% Latin was based on the four Latini from Republican Era Rome. How representative of them they are will remain to be seen when we hopefully get more samples. The other 30% is Minoan like.

My ancestral breakdown is as Pax describes it.

The Emilian part is from the Appennines. According to Cavalli Sforza, if my memory serves, most of the inhabitants probably fled up into the mountains from the Pianura Padana, as that is the easiest access route. The reason was simple: there was no lord breathing down their necks, with the authority over them granted to the Bishop in Parma, who could rarely be bothered with them. Otherwise, why choose such a difficult place to make a living?

In my father's particular line there were, however, two exceptions: one was a family from Firenze* (a Roman colony itself), of some means, apparently, who arrived in the 1500s, no surprise given the vicissitudes of life in the city at that time, and the other was a man from Rimini, a "pirate" as my family tells it, although probably a privateer. In my nonna's time, the family still had a golden ewer and two silver salt-shakers from him. The Florentines were the ones who controlled the village, and it is their name and coat of arms carved over the gate into the village.** The majority do indeed seem to have come from the plains around Parma, which, of course, was a Roman colony, founded in 183 B.C. by 2000 families, although the Etrurians were there first. At the same time, that area, and the Apennines themselves were also home to a few Gallic tribes.

The other half of my ancestry comes from my mother and is from eastern Liguria (La Spezia) and Northwest Tuscany. The latter is indeed politically the province of Massa Carrara, but her maternal family came more specifically from the area around the northern and central Magra valley, usually called by us the Lunigiana. The dialect is closer to Emilian than to Ligurian or Tuscan, although those languages influenced the local speech. As the name implies, it was the hinterland of the Roman city of Luni, settled by Rome in 177 B.C.

"Luna was the frontier town of Etruria, on the left bank of the river Macra (now Magra), the boundary in imperial times between Etruria and Liguria.^[3] When the Romans first appeared in these parts, Etruscans and the Ligurians were already in possession of the territory.^[4]The Roman city was established in 177 BC by Publius Aelius, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Gnaeus Sicinius^[4][5] It was a military stronghold for the campaigns against the Ligures. "

When the great city of Luni was destroyed, the Bishop led the people inland away from the coast and settled in Sarzana shortly after 1000 AD. I would assume that as a cosmopolitan city there were merchants and artisans from other parts of the Empire, including Southern Italy, Greece, Anatolia etc. There are even a few attested Jewish families who got in trouble with the Bishop because they were converting their slaves. In addition, in the wars between the Lombards and Byzantines, it was for a time ruled by the Byzantines.

This is all to say that while I'm not going to go around proclaiming to everyone I meet that I'm 70% Latin/Roman, or 30% Minoan like, for that matter, I don't think it's an impossibility or even improbability that I am indeed descended from people with those kinds of genetic profiles. I know that all my ancestors, with a few minor holes in the record, came from what could be called Lunezia for at least the last 500 years and some lines go back to 1000 A.D. Italics of one sort or another, the Etruscans who were not so different, and Greeks, were certainly there not that long before. As for the Celt-Ligurians who survived the Romans, they also were not "that" different, and hey, perhaps they're the reason I consistently get a slice of French in commercial tools.

I also think it's interesting in this regard that I seem very close to Corsican samples, which could be because of Ligurian and Tuscan settlement in Corsica, but could also reflect that Corsicans, like my ancestors, have lived in "relative" isolation, and so could have conserved some of these genes.

Ed.
*The oral history says Toscana, not Firenze. I misremembered.

**The coat of arms over the village gate and the house of my father's maternal family is actually that of the Leni family, who were the "lords" of Monchio, the administrative center for this set of villages. They probably were people from Monchio, associated with the Leni family, who moved even further up into the mountains. So far as I know there is no relationship of the Leni family to the Leni aristocratic family of Rome.

 

[Cato]

Northern Sardinians are not so distant from Iron Age Rome Latins, at least according to Vahaduo/G25 (i don't know how to use other calculators).

I don't know if its due to direct Latin or Corsican ancestry

 

[Francesco]

Or at least it is not sufficient proof.

That's for sure, even if I think north western Tuscany could be an exception.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that a strong continuity in the area since the Iron Age is not surprising at all. The considerations on the dialect were just an additional starting point of reflection that I find quite interesting, since I came roughly from that region.

 

[Pax Augusta]

Northern Sardinians are not so distant from Iron Age Rome Latins, at least according to Vahaduo/G25 (i don't know how to use other calculators).

I don't know if its due to direct Latin or Corsican ancestry

Except that it is only one that is considered, according to those results, it's distant, not close.

The Sardinians both ancient and modern are just different from the Latins who had Steppes between 25 and 30%. Not to mention the uniparental markers. Then for goodness sake you are free to believe what you want, that the Sardinian language is among the closest to Latin because there were mass migrations of Latins to Sardinia. For me, nothing changes.

There is growing evidence that there is not always a relationship between language and genetics, particularly from the Iron Age onwards. This has long been one of the errors, of the many errors, of geneticists, which will slowly be disproved by ancient DNA.

 

[Pax Augusta]

That's for sure, even if I think north western Tuscany could be an exception.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that a strong continuity in the area since the Iron Age is not surprising at all. The considerations on the dialect were just an additional starting point of reflection that I find quite interesting, since I came roughly from that region.

I do not know whether north western Tuscany might be an exception. There was a 2018 study based only on mtDNA, both modern and ancient samples including Etruscans, which concluded that there was continuity in that area from the Iron Age to present day. But we know that mtDNA is only one side of the story. We still lack analyses of the ancient Ligurians, for example.

From the first rumours and leaks, geneticists are saying that the genetic profile of Etruscans and Latins (=genetic position), based on autosomal DNA, is that shared also by other peoples of Iron Age Pre-Roman Italy, based on Iron Age samples from Emilia-Romagna (unclear whether they are Villanovan necropolises, hence Etruscan), Umbria (ancient Umbrians plus other Etruscans?), Marche (some Osco-Umbrian-speaking people, at any rate), Lazio (Latins or Sabines or both?).

The key sentence is this "The first results highlight an affinity of the majority of the samples with previously reported Iron Age individuals from Italy". The previously reported Iron Age individuals from Italy are clearly Latins and Etruscans (Daunians were still not published).


This one was submitted to ISBA9, Summer 2021. It is really unclear why it has still not been published after more than a year since it was presented.

Unraveling the genetic history of Italians: a genome-wide study of Iron Age Italic populations

Zaro Valentina (1), Vergata Chiara (1), Cannariato Costanza (1), Modi Alessandra (1), Vai Stefania (1), Pilli Elena (1), Diroma Maria Angela (1), Caramelli David (1), Lari Martina (1) Department of Biology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy (Italy)

The high genetic variability of present-day Italians reflects a complex scenario of past population dynamics dating back not only to Late Paleolithic and Neolithic but also Metal Ages. Although many archaeogenetic studies have been recently carried out to investigate the peopling of Europe, only few genomic data have been reported from Italic populations so far, especially the ones belonging to the last phase of Metal Ages: the Iron Age. To outline a picture of Iron Age genetic variability within the Italian context and infer potential gene flow patterns, we collected 78 human remains from 8 Iron Age necropolises covering 5 different regions of Italy (Emilia-Romagna, Umbria, Marche, Latium and Sicily). Double stranded half-UDG libraries were produced and then shotgun sequenced on an Illumina NovaSeq6000 platform to allow for an initial screening of the samples. Raw reads were processed using the EAGER pipeline and then assessment of DNA authenticity and sex determination were performed. Preliminary population genetics tests were run on genotyped data by building a west Eurasian PCA including all the samples with at least 10.000 SNPs covered on the Affymetrix Human Origins panel. The first results highlight an affinity of the majority of the samples with previously reported Iron Age individuals from Italy, while all samples from Sicily overlap with the genetic variability observed in this area during the Bronze Age. Our aim is to deeper investigate these samples which can significantly contribute to better understand past peopling dynamics of the Italian peninsula and reconstruct modern Italians' genetic history.


Then there is this one, also already presented in summer 2021 at EAA, of which PCAs have been circulating. From what the author herself said, the Samnites of Campania were genetically similar (again based on autosomal DNA) to Etruscans and Latins. We know nothing else. And again, it is unclear why after more than a year it has still not been published.


EXPLORING THE GENETIC DIVERSITY OF MAGNA GRAECIA – THE CASE OF CAMPANIA

Alissa Mittnik1,2, Alfredo Coppa3,4,5, Alessandra Sperduti6,7, Luca Bondioli6,8, Melania Gigante8, Claudio Cavazzuti9,10, Alessandra Modi11, David Caramelli11, Ron Pinhasi12, David Reich13,2,14,15 1 Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138,
USA 2 Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA and 07745 Jena, Germany 3 Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy 4 Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA 5 Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria 6 Bioarchaeology Service, Museum of Civilization, 00144 Rome, Italy
7 Department of Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, 80121 Naples, Italy 8 Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Padua, 35139 Padua, Italy 9 Department of History Cultures Civilizations, Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, 40124, Bologna, Italy 10 Durham University – Department of Archaeology, Durham DH1 3LE, UK 11 Department of Biology, University of Florence, 50122, Florence, Italy 12 Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria 13 Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard Univeristy, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA 15 Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

Starting in the 8th century BCE, coastal Campania in Southern Italy became a melting pot of various cultures and peoples when Etruscan and Greek colonizers joined local Italic tribes. By establishing cities and trade posts, the contact networks of Campania were further expanded across the Mediterranean and inland. We generated ancient genomes from Campania, spanning the 8th to 3rd century BCE, i.e. the Orientalizing, Archaic and Hellenistic-Roman period in this region. While most individuals can be attributed to a genetic ancestry that arose on the Italian mainland, we also discover descendants of migrants from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Most notably, an individual dated to the 8th century at the first Greek settlement, Pithekoussai, a site that also yielded the earliest example of writing in the Euboean alphabet, was genetically of Aegean origin, and we find that this type of ancestry persisted at the site for several centuries. We compare the genetic composition of these descendants of Greek settlers to the local Campanians represented by individuals from the site San Marzano and Etruscan immigrants from Pontecagnano. We integrate a thorough analysis of the associated material culture and, where available, strontium isotopes to establish temporal and cultural patterns of mobility, ancestry and admixture that shaped the genetic landscape of Campanian Magna Graecia.


There may be more studies in the pipeline that we know nothing about. If that was a genetic profile common to several populations in Pre-Roman Italy, this clearly makes it difficult to then work out what the contribution is in the modern Italian population of a specific Pre-Roman population (which is in any case always a very uncertain calculation).