Ancient genomics support deep divergence between Eastern and Western Mediterranean Indo-European languages

[torzio]

la tene celts are not the same as halstatt celts.
halstatt celts did not enter NE italy until late.

la tene celts entered western italy earlier

 

[MOESAN]

Late Bronze Age northern Italics and iron age populations like the Picenes will also be Yamnaya heavy, similar to the illyrians. Their proportion of neolithic Caucasian ancestry is much heavier than bell beaker descended types such as the latins/etruscans proper. It necessitates an origin from the balkans or carpathian basin.

The idea of there being fundamentally two different types of ancestry profiles concerning Steppe neolithic to Caucasian neolithic ratios is something I've mentioned more than a few times. Even excluding transaegean population exchanges in greece and southern Italy, Southern Europe was receiving a heavier dosage of Caucasian input through Yamnaya. If this weren't the case, northern Italy would look much more like France or maybe Spain instead of Iron age Illyria/Paeonia/Thrace. There was fundamentally at some point a mass replacement of the EBA bell beaker type profiles we see in Po Valley and the Italian Alps with Yamnaya derived introgression which seemingly did not cut deeply into the center of the peninsula until the end of late antiquity and the middle ages.

Some phonetic evolutions discarding Italic from Celtic could show a south-central/south-east influence on Italics, maybe in a stage around Pannonia, modifying the BB heritage between BA/Urnfields. I wonder if the everlasting question of Y-J2b-L283 is not linked to this evolution in respect of the primary Y-R1b-P312 dominance? The regions in northern Italy where the R1b are heavy cold be linked to Ligurians for a big part? I avow I have some hard work to place Etruscans here. There cultural technical skills would push me to believe they were from Central Europe at first (tells cultures) but it's so puzzled. Just bets from a high placed sight.

 

[MOESAN]

The incendiary rite was brought by the Terramare, who transported it from the Carpathian basin, displacing the burial rites of Polada. For a brief period we do find some mixed burial/cremations in the transition period between prior Polada settlements that were culturally affected by Terramare influence. The later cultural changes which affected the Carpathian basin such as the arrival of Urnfield burials were effectively immediately transported to Northern Italy through the Terramare cultural sphere and this further evidences the idea that within these geographies existed a single fluid material culture (and perhaps even a single ethnic group) that spanned Po valley and the Carpathian Basin.

It would be useful to not consider Terramare as a uni-ethnic entity during its whole period in Lombardia-Emilia. First inhabitants were not cremating their dead people and the introduction of this cremation took some time and gained ground gradually, at the contrary to what occurred in today Venetia. Increase of the previous population (Polada origin?) not only by natural birthrates but also by new pop's introgression (Urnfields issued: 'proto-Villanova'?) from N-E to west. But already before cremation the Terramare burying or post-life habits was different in north Pô river regions as opposed to the south ones (Emilia)...

 

[Pax Augusta]

That is the example I had in mind, nothing "nordic" about them and yet part of the "Celtic" world because their culture, though mixed with important local elements (as would be the case with the Lepontics, assuming they were Celts or proto-Celts), belongs to the Celtic koine.

Also, many individuals may have been probably transitional between Central and southern Europe. As for the Celticity of Lepontic as a language, I think there is little doubt nowadays.

Some phonetic evolutions discarding Italic from Celtic could show a south-central/south-east influence on Italics, maybe in a stage around Pannonia, modifying the BB heritage between BA/Urnfields. I wonder if the everlasting question of Y-J2b-L283 is not linked to this evolution in respect of the primary Y-R1b-P312 dominance? The regions in northern Italy where the R1b are heavy cold be linked to Ligurians for a big part? I avow I have some hard work to place Etruscans here. There cultural technical skills would push me to believe they were from Central Europe at first (tells cultures) but it's so puzzled. Just bets from a high placed sight.

R1b P312 predates in northern Italy the Ligurians, who are not attested until many many centuries later. As I know the earliest P312 found in northern Italy is still, unsurprisingly, a Bell Beaker, R1b1a1a2a1a2 - K1a2a dated to 2200-1930 B.C., found in Parma. Moreover, some influential archaeologists now argue that the Etruscans in northern Italy should be considered native to all intents and purposes as those in Etruria, meaning that their presence in northern Italy was not due to colonization from Etruria, as believed in the past. Even the idea that the oldest stratum in northern Italy was the Ligurian one is on the one hand a myth of the past based on ancient tales, lacking archaeological evidence, and on the other hand, however, it was always referred more to northwestern Italy than to all of northern Italy.

Parma's "Papà Po" (I2478)

Bell Beaker, Beaker Folk, Glockenbecherkultur, Culture Campaniforme, Cultura del vaso campaniforme, Klokbekercultuur, Kultura pucharow dzwonowatych

bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com

J2b-L283 seems more related to a direct influence from Yamnaya, which linguistically is not hypothesized for either the Latino-Faliscan or Osco-Umbrian languages, a more recent adstratum of different origin cannot be entirely ruled out, just as from the late bronze J2b-L283 may have arrived anywhere. Recently J2b-L283 has also been found among the Celts in southern Germany (about 600 BC, Magdalenenberg, South-Western Germany), and from what I recall the study does not suggest that he is a foreigner.

Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe - Nature Human Behaviour

Gretzinger et al. examine genetic evidence from 31 Iron Age individuals in southern Germany and find that this early Celtic society probably had a dynastic system of matrilineal inheritance, with a network of well-connected elites covering a broad territory.

www.nature.com

 

[MOESAN]

Also, many individuals may have been probably transitional between Central and southern Europe. As for the Celticity of Lepontic as a language, I think there is little doubt nowadays.

R1b P312 predates in northern Italy the Ligurians, who are not attested until many many centuries later. As I know the earliest P312 found in northern Italy is still, unsurprisingly, a Bell Beaker, R1b1a1a2a1a2 - K1a2a dated to 2200-1930 B.C., found in Parma. Moreover, some influential archaeologists now argue that the Etruscans in northern Italy should be considered native to all intents and purposes as those in Etruria, meaning that their presence in northern Italy was not due to colonization from Etruria, as believed in the past. Even the idea that the oldest stratum in northern Italy was the Ligurian one is on the one hand a myth of the past based on ancient tales, lacking archaeological evidence, and on the other hand, however, it was always referred more to northwestern Italy than to all of northern Italy.

Parma's "Papà Po" (I2478)

Bell Beaker, Beaker Folk, Glockenbecherkultur, Culture Campaniforme, Cultura del vaso campaniforme, Klokbekercultuur, Kultura pucharow dzwonowatych

bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com

J2b-L283 seems more related to a direct influence from Yamnaya, which linguistically is not hypothesized for either the Latino-Faliscan or Osco-Umbrian languages, a more recent adstratum of different origin cannot be entirely ruled out, just as from the late bronze J2b-L283 may have arrived anywhere. Recently J2b-L283 has also been found among the Celts in southern Germany (about 600 BC, Magdalenenberg, South-Western Germany), and from what I recall the study does not suggest that he is a foreigner.

Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe - Nature Human Behaviour

Gretzinger et al. examine genetic evidence from 31 Iron Age individuals in southern Germany and find that this early Celtic society probably had a dynastic system of matrilineal inheritance, with a network of well-connected elites covering a broad territory.

www.nature.com

That P312 appeared before Ligurians is not to be discussed, I agree of course. What I write is only a personal feeling; but it's based on the assumed IE origin of ancient Ligurian dialect and its ties with both Celtic and Italic dialects (some linguists think it was closer to Celtic for the phonetic aspect, I report this but I avow I 've no true knowledge of Ligurian). It remains the big possibility that all these western IE dialects were descendants of some proto-language common to BB's. BTW more than one think that Corsicans received a lot of Ligurian ancestry and they are quite rich in R1b-U152 so?...
The Etruscans origin stays a mystery for me until today. I wait for more info's.

 

[Pax Augusta]

That P312 appeared before Ligurians is not to be discussed, I agree of course. What I write is only a personal feeling; but it's based on the assumed IE origin of ancient Ligurian dialect and its ties with both Celtic and Italic dialects (some linguists think it was closer to Celtic for the phonetic aspect, I report this but I avow I 've no true knowledge of Ligurian). It remains the big possibility that all these western IE dialects were descendants of some proto-language common to BB's. BTW more than one think that Corsicans received a lot of Ligurian ancestry and they are quite rich in R1b-U152 so?...
The Etruscans origin stays a mystery for me until today. I wait for more info's.

If you continue to believe that the Etruscans are a mystery, that ends up affecting everything else, and thus you'll continue to get the rest of the picture wrong.

Consider that to date, we know much much more about the Etruscans than the Ligurians. Both on an archaeological, genetic, and linguistic level, because ancient Ligurian is not even attested (all the most recent texts by specialists on the Etruscans begin with the premise that there is no mystery, and that the idea of mystery is a commercial gimmick to attract the attention of the general public). By the way from Italy, as a matter of course, the way to Corsica is from prehistoric times to go through Tuscany, via the islands of the Tuscan archipelago. Not directly from Liguria.

So why would R1b -U152 found in Corsica be Ligurian? There is no concrete evidence to suggest this. Not least because R1b U152 arrived with the Bell Beaker in Italy, and it would be a gamble to match the Bell Beaker with only the Ligurian ethnos, attested more than a thousand years later.

 

[Vallicanus]

Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe - Nature Human Behaviour

Gretzinger et al. examine genetic evidence from 31 Iron Age individuals in southern Germany and find that this early Celtic society probably had a dynastic system of matrilineal inheritance, with a network of well-connected elites covering a broad territory.

www.nature.com

So much for Carleton Coon's "Hallstatt Nordics".

The Hallstatt people were largely of a southwestern European genetic profile.
Most (not all) of the North European genetic profile came to Central Europe with the Folk Wandering Germanic tribes from Scandinavia and North Germany in the 5th/6th centuries AD.

 

[MOESAN]

If you continue to believe that the Etruscans are a mystery, that ends up affecting everything else, and thus you'll continue to get the rest of the picture wrong.

Consider that to date, we know much much more about the Etruscans than the Ligurians. Both on an archaeological, genetic, and linguistic level, because ancient Ligurian is not even attested (all the most recent texts by specialists on the Etruscans begin with the premise that there is no mystery, and that the idea of mystery is a commercial gimmick to attract the attention of the general public). By the way from Italy, as a matter of course, the way to Corsica is from prehistoric times to go through Tuscany, via the islands of the Tuscan archipelago. Not directly from Liguria.

So why would R1b -U152 found in Corsica be Ligurian? There is no concrete evidence to suggest this. Not least because R1b U152 arrived with the Bell Beaker in Italy, and it would be a gamble to match the Bell Beaker with only the Ligurian ethnos, attested more than a thousand years later.

WHO ever said R1b-U152 was only a Ligurian marker? More than a subclade exists.
Maybe I base myself on too old studies, but a Ligurian presence in Corsica has been alleged. And some cultures of more southern Italy and Sicily has been supposed to be descended from Ligurianlike groups so the way from Italy to Corsica would not be so a question. When I say "mystery" I speak about my personal thought. I'm not the victim of sort of a "commercial" phsychological marketing! Personally I 'm pushed to think that Etruscans were born from a late Neolithic north-eastern Alps/Pannonian/Carpathian basin continuum at some stage of history, without the new impulse of Minoanlike or BA Anatolianlike DNA (+ 'Iran') into southeastern-suthcentral Europe. ATW if we want to consider north-Pô Terramare as Etruscans ancestors, we are obliged to consider too that they were not the very promotors of the Urnfields or post-Urnfields moves into Italy (proto-Villanovian and Villanovian)? My thoughts are just rambling now, but if you can give me some clues about recent Etruscans studies I 'll be glad and thankful.

 

[MOESAN]

So much for Carleton Coon's "Hallstatt Nordics".

The Hallstatt people were largely of a southwestern European genetic profile.
Most (not all) of the North European genetic profile came to Central Europe with the Folk Wandering Germanic tribes from Scandinavia and North Germany in the 5th/6th centuries AD.

Don't agree completely - I have to read again this paper but it seems it stated that the most of the ancestry of these people was akin to west-central Europe (French to Czechia through s-Germany) of the time, with only some outsiders from more south-southwestern and more northern origins; in short, Celts, who at those times mixed with preceding pops and "homogenised". And don't forget we speak here of elites. Physically it seems that a bigger scale 1/4 of these elites had then "cousins" in central Europe, until Moravia/SW Poland. Your "largely" seems to me a bit oberrated!

 

[Vallicanus]

WHO ever said R1b-U152 was only a Ligurian marker? More than a subclade exists.
Maybe I base myself on too old studies, but a Ligurian presence in Corsica has been alleged. And some cultures of more southern Italy and Sicily has been supposed to be descended from Ligurianlike groups so the way from Italy to Corsica would not be so a question. When I say "mystery" I speak about my personal thought. I'm not the victim of sort of a "commercial" phsychological marketing! Personally I 'm pushed to think that Etruscans were born from a late Neolithic north-eastern Alps/Pannonian/Carpathian basin continuum at some stage of history, without the new impulse of Minoanlike or BA Anatolianlike DNA (+ 'Iran') into southeastern-suthcentral Europe. ATW if we want to consider north-Pô Terramare as Etruscans ancestors, we are obliged to consider too that they were not the very promotors of the Urnfields or post-Urnfields moves into Italy (proto-Villanovian and Villanovian)? My thoughts are just rambling now, but if you can give me some clues about recent Etruscans studies I 'll be glad and thankful.

The paper says "While the Hallstatt population showed highest genetic affinity to present-day French, Spanish and Belgians, the early medieval (Alemannic and Bavarian) populations of southern Germany exhibit closest resemblance to present-day Danish, northern Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians".

Connecting the Hallstatt culture to "Nordics" (however defined) is absurd.

 

[Archetype0ne]

Also, many individuals may have been probably transitional between Central and southern Europe. As for the Celticity of Lepontic as a language, I think there is little doubt nowadays.

R1b P312 predates in northern Italy the Ligurians, who are not attested until many many centuries later. As I know the earliest P312 found in northern Italy is still, unsurprisingly, a Bell Beaker, R1b1a1a2a1a2 - K1a2a dated to 2200-1930 B.C., found in Parma. Moreover, some influential archaeologists now argue that the Etruscans in northern Italy should be considered native to all intents and purposes as those in Etruria, meaning that their presence in northern Italy was not due to colonization from Etruria, as believed in the past. Even the idea that the oldest stratum in northern Italy was the Ligurian one is on the one hand a myth of the past based on ancient tales, lacking archaeological evidence, and on the other hand, however, it was always referred more to northwestern Italy than to all of northern Italy.

Parma's "Papà Po" (I2478)

Bell Beaker, Beaker Folk, Glockenbecherkultur, Culture Campaniforme, Cultura del vaso campaniforme, Klokbekercultuur, Kultura pucharow dzwonowatych

bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com

J2b-L283 seems more related to a direct influence from Yamnaya, which linguistically is not hypothesized for either the Latino-Faliscan or Osco-Umbrian languages, a more recent adstratum of different origin cannot be entirely ruled out, just as from the late bronze J2b-L283 may have arrived anywhere. Recently J2b-L283 has also been found among the Celts in southern Germany (about 600 BC, Magdalenenberg, South-Western Germany), and from what I recall the study does not suggest that he is a foreigner.

Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe - Nature Human Behaviour

Gretzinger et al. examine genetic evidence from 31 Iron Age individuals in southern Germany and find that this early Celtic society probably had a dynastic system of matrilineal inheritance, with a network of well-connected elites covering a broad territory.

www.nature.com

L283 early history based on the samples we have so far (trimmed to a minimum to keep it readable):

https://imgur.com/kIZay3E

 

[Vallicanus]

Do we see some Etruscan genetic/cultural link in the Celtic paper mentioned above?

The Discussion section says:
"In this context, we highlight our finding that the earliest elite burial in the region from the central grave of the Magdalenenberg at 616 BCE, as well as his relatives, show evidence of ancestry from South of the Alps, which might suggest a leading role of this connection in the initial formation of the early Celtic Hallstatt culture. Cultural links across the Alps are also preserved in the material culture of these elite graves throughout centuries".

 

[HereToLearn]

The paper says "While the Hallstatt population showed highest genetic affinity to present-day French, Spanish and Belgians, the early medieval (Alemannic and Bavarian) populations of southern Germany exhibit closest resemblance to present-day Danish, northern Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians".

It must be said that's quite an extended group, the present-day Belgians and the Spaniards are not close at all. In fact from what I've seen the Belgians and most of the French are closer to the Germans.

 

[Vallicanus]

It must be said that's quite an extended group, the present-day Belgians and the Spaniards are not close at all. In fact from what I've seen the Belgians and most of the French are closer to the Germans.

The Gretzinger paper states:

Indeed, most Hallstatt individuals fit a model of receiving all of their ancestry from Germany_Lech_MBA, with the exception of previously described southern outliers MBG004, MBG016 and northern outlier LAN001 from Alte Burg.

MBG004, MBG016, MBG017 and HOC004 had a putative transalpine origin in northern Italy.

 

[Vallicanus]

It must be said that's quite an extended group, the present-day Belgians and the Spaniards are not close at all. In fact from what I've seen the Belgians and most of the French are closer to the Germans.

That statement is belied by the more precise figure given in the text of 59.9pc (plus or minus 3.9pc) Southern European ancestry for the analysed individuals, without the outliers.

 

[MOESAN]

The paper says "While the Hallstatt population showed highest genetic affinity to present-day French, Spanish and Belgians, the early medieval (Alemannic and Bavarian) populations of southern Germany exhibit closest resemblance to present-day Danish, northern Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians".

Connecting the Hallstatt culture to "Nordics" (however defined) is absurd.

Others have answered for me.
Nobody contest that the first Germanics come southwards in Germany were close to today most northern pop's of Europe (which are not as far from us as the Baltic people are BTW).

 

[Vitruvius]

It would be useful to not consider Terramare as a uni-ethnic entity during its whole period in Lombardia-Emilia. First inhabitants were not cremating their dead people and the introduction of this cremation took some time and gained ground gradually, at the contrary to what occurred in today Venetia. Increase of the previous population (Polada origin?) not only by natural birthrates but also by new pop's introgression (Urnfields issued: 'proto-Villanova'?) from N-E to west. But already before cremation the Terramare burying or post-life habits was different in north Pô river regions as opposed to the south ones (Emilia)...

We have no way of knowing whether the Terramare considered themselves a single ethnic group or not. I see no barrier preventing this possibility but regardless of what they considered themself, it's very likely they bore a common genetic profile based on the speed of the material cultural changes they brought. The idea of a natural population increase of Polada has already been dismissed as infeasible, but I'd have to look at exactly which scholars commented on this. Typically as far as north vs south Terramare funerary practices are concerned I recall northern integrating aspects of Polada, where as southern Terramare likely represented a more direct population replacement with less evidence of Polada influence.

 

[Vitruvius]

It must be said that's quite an extended group, the present-day Belgians and the Spaniards are not close at all. In fact from what I've seen the Belgians and most of the French are closer to the Germans.

They are all heavier in WHG than Germanic populations which is the key indicator. This again goes back to my point in that IA celts really were french like as far as their makeup. Germanics came to displace and assimilate them and had the effect of reducing said WHG ancestry in favor of more EHG.

 

[MOESAN]

They are all heavier in WHG than Germanic populations which is the key indicator. This again goes back to my point in that IA celts really were french like as far as their makeup. Germanics came to displace and assimilate them and had the effect of reducing said WHG ancestry in favor of more EHG.

I precise I spoke of today Germans when speaking of today Belgians. When I speak of ancient northern tribe I prefer to say 'Germanics': today Germans cluster is large enough (The proximity with Belgians -and myself - concerns S-W Germans, with their pre-Celtic and Celtic input). Iberia people, even today stay a bit farther.No real opposition to your thoughts, I think, just the research of more precise ties.

your [This again goes back to my point in that IA celts really were french like as far as their makeup] -here I agree, at the partial exception of today southern French people.

 

[Vitruvius]

I precise I spoke of today Germans when speaking of today Belgians. When I speak of ancient northern tribe I prefer to say 'Germanics': today Germans cluster is large enough (The proximity with Belgians -and myself - concerns S-W Germans, with their pre-Celtic and Celtic input). Iberia people, even today stay a bit farther.No real opposition to your thoughts, I think, just the research of more precise ties.

your [This again goes back to my point in that IA celts really were french like as far as their makeup] -here I agree, at the partial exception of today southern French people.

This is true. Southern french have most likely received either Greek and/or Italian input, but broadly speaking I think we're in agreement.