Etruscans, where from, Anatolia, Africa or Italy?

[John123]

And where did the pelasgians come from, when they landed in Crete for example? Western turkey, the pelasgians invaded the Mediterranean (brought some of their people) to the Mediterranean via turkey.

 

[John123]

Historically, there must have been across Greece, 1. An invasion of people from Turkey (look at how high % J2a haplotypes there are on Crete, pelasgians) and I postulate 2. Egypt (the danaids). These were two different groups bringing independently J2 and E3b towards Greece. As I've postulated many times Minoan culture (centered on Crete) was predominantly J2/J2a and later/conquering Mycenean culture was E-V13 (E3b)/J2 (J2b predominance).The Dorians where likely indo-European R1 people, I suspect R1b.

 

[John123]

Minoan: J2a
Mycenean: E-V13/J2b
Dorian: The R1 arrivals (R1b) postulation is in parentheses.

I think the "Aegyptus" and danaids story is legend as it was a progressive (historical) rather than direct migration. A movement over many generations from egypt towards the levant, eventually ending up in Anatolia and then migrating directly to the southern Balkan Peninsula

 

[MOESAN]

what about these 2013 papers

Genetic evidence does not support an etruscan origin in Anatolia

Francesca Tassi et al.

The debate on the origins of Etruscans, documented in central Italy between the eighth century BC and the first century AD, dates back to antiquity. Herodotus described them as a group of immigrants from Lydia, in Western Anatolia, whereas for Dionysius of Halicarnassus they were an indigenous population. Dionysius' view is shared by most modern archeologists, but the observation of similarities between the (modern) mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) of Turks and Tuscans was interpreted as supporting an Anatolian origin of the Etruscans. However, ancient DNA evidence shows that only some isolates, and not the bulk of the modern Tuscan population, are genetically related to the Etruscans. In this study, we tested alternative models of Etruscan origins by Approximate Bayesian Computation methods, comparing levels of genetic diversity in the mtDNAs of modern and ancient populations with those obtained by millions of computer simulations. The results show that the observed genetic similarities between modern Tuscans and Anatolians cannot be attributed to an immigration wave from the East leading to the onset of the Etruscan culture in Italy. Genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia do exist, but date back to a remote stage of prehistory, possibly but not necessarily to the spread of farmers during the Neolithic period.

Link

what we need is ancient DNA from well identified Etruscans sepultures and even like that we are not sure the Etrucans nobility did not incorporate members of the autochtonous previous elite: it seems Etruscans were firstable a small sized elite population having taken the strong side over Villanova culture people, among whom there was surely already some heterogeneity so... and had they a well balanced males-females original population at first arrival? it looks as everybody have some agenda in these tudies?... I prefer, waiting more sure data, believe in an pre-indo-european speaking population (language close to one of the Caucasus ones?) from Western Anatolia or even from North Levant - as a whole the present days Toscan population shows less lonks with these eatsern countries than Southern Italians or Greeks -

 

[MOESAN]

Pelasgian is a confusing term, used for I-Eans and not I-Eans -
just for the pleasure I recall the Alinei thesis, seeing the Etruscans as people came through land and speaking a kind of Turkic language which some terms were inbodied in today magyar language of Hungary - the only link I see and it seems very uncertain, is the hardening of stops in magyar, in the rhaetic ancient zone and the non-sonorization of romance in central and southern Italy, contrary to castillan, portuguese, french, walloon - the present day rhaetic lands knew big changes during history I think, albeit in some valleys, beacuse the Celts and Ligurians were neigbouring the Rhaetians - the today Switzerland romance language are closer to gallo-italic and french dialects concerning this sounds problems, than to central Italians... by the way, romanian did not sonorize as italian - with a very great imagination we could figure out a way from Anatolia through Danau river unti the Alps and then southwards into Italy, replacing "turkic" by something else, non I-Ean???... speculations

 

[MOESAN]

I add that Etruscans seemed good sailors so a maritime way still seems the better bet, helas for Alinei's thesis!

 

[Sile]

addressed on post#8 / 03-08-13

Tassi et al 2013
In this study, we tested alternative models of Etruscan origins by Approximate Bayesian Computation methods, comparing levels of genetic diversity in the mtDNAs of modern and ancient populations with those obtained by millions of computer simulations. The results show that the observed genetic similarities between modern Tuscans and Anatolians cannot be attributed to an immigration wave from the East leading to the onset of the Etruscan culture in Italy. Genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia do exist, but date back to a remote stage of prehistory, possibly but not necessarily to the spread of farmers during the Neolithic period.

It simply states that the Tuscan - Anatolian link is older (pos. Neolithic) than the Historic Pelasgian migration recorded; How certain that is i dont know; and how the blonde Libyans are supposed to factor into all this (the Anatolian link / Tassi et al 2013) i also do not know;

your forgetting something important from the paper.
The Etruscans have been known to us in Italy from around 800BC ...............to today which = less than 3000 years.
The paper indicates that IF they came via anatolia there is a 4000 year gap between Anatolia and Italy times, which means, where did these Etruscans "hide" in this 4000 year period?

 

[Sile]

what we need is ancient DNA from well identified Etruscans sepultures and even like that we are not sure the Etrucans nobility did not incorporate members of the autochtonous previous elite: it seems Etruscans were firstable a small sized elite population having taken the strong side over Villanova culture people, among whom there was surely already some heterogeneity so... and had they a well balanced males-females original population at first arrival? it looks as everybody have some agenda in these tudies?... I prefer, waiting more sure data, believe in an pre-indo-european speaking population (language close to one of the Caucasus ones?) from Western Anatolia or even from North Levant - as a whole the present days Toscan population shows less lonks with these eatsern countries than Southern Italians or Greeks -

Lets looks logically at the facts
Its stated that the etruscans and raeti are related, its stated in the paper that there is a gap of thousands of years between leaving "anatolia" and settling in Italy. The only logical choice is that ........since raeti are older than Etruscans and the paper states etruscans are from modern german alpine area, then the logic would be that Etruscans are a sub-branch of the raeti..........I see no other system which makes logical sense.

 

[Nobody1]

The Etruscans are ultimately Pelasgians (Tyrsenoi);

Thucydides (IV/CIX) equates the Tyrsenoi with the Pelasgians that once inhabited Lemnos - which corresponds perfectly to the discovered Lemnos stele and its similar language to Etruscan on it;

Herodotus (I/XCIV) describes how the Tyrsenoi migrated from Lydia to the land of the Ombrici/Ούμπρι (i.e. Indo-Europeans Umbrians / Urnfield-Villanova) and the Pelasgians as a people are variously recorded (Homer/Herodotus and others) in Thessaly, Arcadia, Anatolia, Crete and Lemnos; Dionysius (I/XVIII) describes how a vast Pelasgian migration took place (11th cen BC) from Thessaly into Italy and how these Pelasgians allied and inter-mingled with the Aborigines (Umbrians);

The latest study Ghirotto et al 2013 - [30 Etruscan samples / 6 diff. sites]
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0055519

Has revealed that the maternal lineage (mtDNA) of the Etruscan civilization is almost identical with that of Neolithic (European) farmers; Which would mean that either the Indo-European Umbrians (Ombrici/Ούμπρι) inter-mingled with the female Neolothic pop. and thus preserved that lineage or the Tyrsenoi from the East Medit. brought their own females and are essentially of the same stock as the Neolithic pop.; Something i see with the Raeti;

An amateur on the i-net managed to deduce most Etruscan mtDNA Hg's to be JT or U5;
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.es/2013/02/guest-article-by-gail-tonnesen-comments.html

 

[John123]

This several thousand year gap thing needs to be re-explained to me I don't get it. The Etruscans were heavily decimated by Gauls arriving from the north (just as they had terrorized the Umbrians earlier) and they arrived in Tuscany before the Greek colonization of magna graecia; this could explain their weaker signature in Tuscany than the Greek signature in the south. I've actually seen tdna maps showing higher middle astern HV and several more near eastern U clades having a light extra higher frequency perfectly distributed across Tuscany.

 

[Nobody1]

your forgetting something important from the paper.
The Etruscans have been known to us in Italy from around 800BC ...............to today which = less than 3000 years.
The paper indicates that IF they came via anatolia there is a 4000 year gap between Anatolia and Italy times, which means, where did these Etruscans "hide" in this 4000 year period?

But the study does clearly confirm the Tuscan-Anatolian link just like previous studies before it;
It only does not (like previous studies before it) conclude and connect it to Herodotus and the Lydians but from way before that migration - pos. the Neolithic;

Genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia do exist, but date back to a remote stage of prehistory, possibly but not necessarily to the spread of farmers during the Neolithic period.

Now all that is based on modern Tuscans not Etruscans;
Which could mean that the Pelasgians are virtually (not much surprise) of the same stock as the Neolithic pop. and thus just an additional boost;

 

[Sile]

But the study does clearly confirm the Tuscan-Anatolian link just like previous studies before it;
It only does not (like previous studies before it) conclude and connect it to Herodotus and the Lydians but from way before that migration - pos. the Neolithic;

Genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia do exist, but date back to a remote stage of prehistory, possibly but not necessarily to the spread of farmers during the Neolithic period.

Now all that is based on modern Tuscans not Etruscans;
Which could mean that the Pelasgians are virtually (not much surprise) of the same stock as the Neolithic pop. and thus just an additional boost;

but the gap in years is too too much, they ( etruscans) must have lived somewhere between Lydia and Tuscany.
Also the Mesolithic Pelasgians seem only ancient pre-proto Greeks ( achaens) to me. did the etruscans live in these southern modern Greek lands?

 

[LeBrok]

but the gap in years is too too much, they ( etruscans) must have lived somewhere between Lydia and Tuscany.
Also the Mesolithic Pelasgians seem only ancient pre-proto Greeks ( achaens) to me. did the etruscans live in these southern modern Greek lands?

You realize that one is temporal distance the other geographical? Just because there is a "time distance" when we don't know much about them, it doesn't mean they needed to be somewhere else than Lydia or Tuscany. They've could have been all the time in Tuscany. Just because we don't have any previous records it doesn't mean they couldn't exist there,...and of course they might have been anywhere else too.

 

[Taranis]

The Etruscans are ultimately Pelasgians (Tyrsenoi);

Thucydides (IV/CIX) equates the Tyrsenoi with the Pelasgians that once inhabited Lemnos - which corresponds perfectly to the discovered Lemnos stele and its similar language to Etruscan on it;

Herodotus (I/XCIV) describes how the Tyrsenoi migrated from Lydia to the land of the Ombrici/Ούμπρι (i.e. Indo-Europeans Umbrians / Urnfield-Villanova) and the Pelasgians as a people are variously recorded (Homer/Herodotus and others) in Thessaly, Arcadia, Anatolia, Crete and Lemnos; Dionysius (I/XVIII) describes how a vast Pelasgian migration took place (11th cen BC) from Thessaly into Italy and how these Pelasgians allied and inter-mingled with the Aborigines (Umbrians);

The latest study Ghirotto et al 2013 - [30 Etruscan samples / 6 diff. sites]
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0055519

Has revealed that the maternal lineage (mtDNA) of the Etruscan civilization is almost identical with that of Neolithic (European) farmers; Which would mean that either the Indo-European Umbrians (Ombrici/Ούμπρι) inter-mingled with the female Neolothic pop. and thus preserved that lineage or the Tyrsenoi from the East Medit. brought their own females and are essentially of the same stock as the Neolithic pop.; Something i see with the Raeti;

An amateur on the i-net managed to deduce most Etruscan mtDNA Hg's to be JT or U5;
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.es/2013/02/guest-article-by-gail-tonnesen-comments.html

I agree on the Etruscan-Lemnian connection, but I'd advise caution on the usage of the term "Pelasgian", as that term meant a various number things to ancient authors, including the ancestors of the Greeks themselves. In the linguistic sense, it may mean "pre-Greek substrate", there is no connection with Etruscan. Whatever Pre-Greek languages (Minoan?) were spoken in Greece, Etruscan wasn't one of them.

I'm personally in favour of the idea that the Etruscans were immigrants from Anatolia (though where exactly there, is a lot less clear, but you should consider that the ethnic makeup of Anatolia was changed several times over), that probably arrived in Italy during the Bronze Age collapse in the eastern Mediterranean.

There's also the (minority) view that the Etruscans were "autochthonous" to Italy. Or, at least, technically, Neolithic immigrants rather than Bronze Age ones, also originally from Anatolia and if we are fair, the genetic evidence is ambiguous of that. However, I have my doubts about that view.

I would rule out an African origin, because Etruscan has no proven genetic relationship with any one of the Afrasian language families along the Mediterranean (Berber, Egyptian or Semitic).

 

[Sile]

You realize that one is temporal distance the other geographical? Just because there is a "time distance" when we don't know much about them, it doesn't mean they needed to be somewhere else than Lydia or Tuscany. They've could have been all the time in Tuscany. Just because we don't have any previous records it doesn't mean they couldn't exist there,...and of course they might have been anywhere else too.

yes that's true, but if they stayed in anatolia, they would be linked by someone to some tribe and this link would be written down.
they are ONLY "recognised" in Tuscany from 800BC .......and yes these might be on bardic tales

If they where in Tuscany older than 800BC then they where known as something else

 

[Nobody1]

I agree on the Etruscan-Lemnian connection, but I'd advise caution on the usage of the term "Pelasgian", as that term meant a various number things to ancient authors, including the ancestors of the Greeks themselves. In the linguistic sense, it may mean "pre-Greek substrate", there is no connection with Etruscan. Whatever Pre-Greek languages (Minoan?) were spoken in Greece, Etruscan wasn't one of them.

Herodotus - I/LVII
What the language of the Pelasgi was I cannot say with any certainty....if, I say, we are to form a conjecture from any of these, we must pronounce that the Pelasgi spoke a barbarous language. If this were really so, and the entire Pelasgic race spoke the same tongue, the Athenians, who were certainly Pelasgi, must have changed their language at the same time that they passed into the Hellenic body;

Not even the Greek scholars of the 5th cen BC knew what language the Pelasgians spoke; Despite Herodotus going on in LVIII that the Hellenic race is a branch of the Pelasgic but is clear that the Hellenic body rejected this 'barbarous language';

I understand the caution with the term "Pelasgian" - however Dionysius specifically states (I/XVII-XVIII) that it was Pelasgians/Πελασγῶν who migrated from Thessaly via the Adriatic into the mouth of the Po and intermingled with the Aborigines when moving south into Apennines; Specifically Πελασγῶν; And both Thucydides and Sophocles used Tyrsenoi as a synonym for Pelasgian; Also Hellanicus (Phoronis) describes a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly into Italy and makes these Pelasgians the ancestors of the Etruscans; Dionysius further describes the union (hybrid) with the pre-existing Aborigines/Umbrians;

I'm personally in favour of the idea that the Etruscans were immigrants from Anatolia (though where exactly there, is a lot less clear, but you should consider that the ethnic makeup of Anatolia was changed several times over), that probably arrived in Italy during the Bronze Age collapse in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Bronze-age collapse also corresponds with the dating in Classical History; The Pelasgians entering Italy in Dionysius (I/XVII-XVIII) is connected to the expulsion of the Siculi which fled/migrated to Sicily acc. to Thucydides (VI/XVIII) 300 years before the first Greek Colony existed in Sicily; First Greek colony was Naxos ~735BC - meaning 11th cen BC i.e. after the Bronze-age collapse;
Where exactly the Tyrsenoi/Pelasgians came from whether Anatolia/Thessaly/Lemnos is actually secondary - same region same culture same (Pelasgian) people;

The Etruscan civilization is a hybrid of Tyrsenoi and Umbrians - with the Umbrians being Indo-Europeans of the Urnfield expansion [~1200BC] and the Tyrsenoi being Pelasgians from the East Medit. Bronze-age and arriving after the Umbrians; One of the main Archaeological aspects (+many more) that illustrate the hybrid civilization and influence is the burial rite;

Roland Fell - Etruria and Rome (1924) - Cambridge Uni.
Cremation is characteristic of cemeteries of the Villanova type, but the Etruscans undoubtedly used both cremation and inhumation at an early time. It is difficult to see why if the Etruscans were merely the same Italic stock as the Villanova people in a later stage of culture, they should have adopted a different rite in south Etruria almost universally....Further north (especially round Chiusi, Perugia and Volterra) cremation was far commoner....at Marzabotto cremation is prevalent though not universal...the Etruscan necropolis of Bologna, according to Grenier, shews both cremation and inhumation in the proportion of 2:3....in the 'circle-tombs' of Vetulonia the remains were nearly always cremated, in the large necropolis of Marsiliana which has yielded precisely similar furniture inhumation predominates, and there is no distinction in locality or contents between the cremation and inhumation tombs.

 

[Diviacus]

The Etruscans are ultimately Pelasgians (Tyrsenoi)

RSP Beekes: Pre-Greek, Leiden 2007
As to `Pelasgian' and related theories which assume an Indo-European substratum in Greece, these theories have failed, and I no longer mention them (in my etymological dictionary). The theory has been extensively discussed by Furnee (37-68). `Pelasgian' has done much harm, and it is time to definitely reject it. The latest attempt was Heubeck's `Minoisch-Mykenische' (discussed by Furnee 55- 66), where the material was reduced to some ten words; the theory has been tacitly abandoned.

 

[Nobody1]

RSP Beekes: Pre-Greek, Leiden 2007
As to `Pelasgian' and related theories which assume an Indo-European substratum in Greece, these theories have failed, and I no longer mention them (in my etymological dictionary). The theory has been extensively discussed by Furnee (37-68). `Pelasgian' has done much harm, and it is time to definitely reject it. The latest attempt was Heubeck's `Minoisch-Mykenische' (discussed by Furnee 55- 66), where the material was reduced to some ten words; the theory has been tacitly abandoned.

Pelasgian is not an Indo-European language and neither is Thyrrenian nor Lemnian;
The Quote you Quoted is about Linguists being false at asserting an Indo-European substrate in Greece via the Pelasgians/Minoans;

 

[kamani]

Just throwing a random fact out there: Kosovars autosomally on 23AndMe score almost 100% Balkan, which makes them very old in the area. They also score very close to Tuscans on the genetic distance map; paradoxically much closer than Albanians who have more genetic influence by the Romans. This to me is proof of a Neolithic/Early Bronze Age link between the Balkans and Tuscany.

 

[Sile]

Pelasgian is not an Indo-European language and neither is Thyrrenian nor Lemnian;
The Quote you Quoted is about Linguists being false at asserting an Indo-European substrate in Greece via the Pelasgians/Minoans;

IIRC, pelasgians are placed from modern istanbul to modern greek thrace province land, bordering modern greek macedonia province. They have always been european and not associated with the phygians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komotini
being its central (epicentre) spot