Maybe the revamped/corrected west central high J2 ydna numbers in the link are the Etruscans? ..maybe RHAS was correct
http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=77703
I agree, that anatolia was not with Turks until the start of the "dark ages"
I'm still not very impressed by this Brisighelli study. The changes only fixed a few very egregious mathematical errors. With this level of resolution in the yDNA and mtDNA markers it's very difficult to reach conclusions about the time of entry of these haplogroups or their origin. I mean, they didn't even distinguish between J2a and J2b in the figures and tables in the main paper. Also, how a team that included three Italians could have put Modena and Bologna in the same group as the Abruzzi and Molise is beyond me, as is categorizing the Abruzzi as central Italy, regardless of where it lies geographically. I'm not even going to get into the madness of having one of your three main graphics show mtdna on the west and ydna only on the right.
In order to get something out of it, I looked at the data in conjunction with the much better Boattini et al study discussed here at
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/28670-Distribution-of-J2-subclades-in-Italy-(Boattini-et-al-)
These are the J2 levels in Italy from highest to lowest, using the data from both studies. The Boattini paper breaks J2 down into various J2a and J2b clades. The Brisighelli numbers are listed only as J2. So, I can only provide a breakdown for the Boattini numbers. As a general rule, the northern Italian numbers are all J2a. Starting in central Italy J2b makes an appearance, but as a minority group. The Boattini numbers, in my mind, also have more reliability because in addition to the grandparent rule for ancestry, Boattini uses surnames ancestral for the area.
36.9-Piceni (Brisighelli)-roughly, this is the Marche, an area from the base of the Apennines to the Adriatic, and from Ancona down to about Teramo in the Abruzzi, so, a coastal province. FWIW, Ancona was supposedly settled by Greeks from Siracusa, and the Marche has a long history of trade and cultural contacts with the southeast.
33.3-Belvedere, Calabria (Brisighelli) This town, part of the provincia of Cosenza, is on the Tyrhennian Sea. Cosenza is often sampled in Italian studies because it is the location of the Italic tribe of the Brutii, who fought long and hard against the Greeks. Sheltered in its valley within a ring of mountains, it subsequently fought Alaric (he is supposedly buried there with the treasure he stole from them), the Lombards, the Normans, the Angevins, the Aragonese, then the Austrians and the Bourbons. It was a cradle of the Carbonari and of riots in the 1820's that heralded the Risogimento. After a plebiscite, it was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. Interestingly, it also seems to be a hotbed of J2a, which is the largest single haplogroup.
25.5-Greci Salentini (Brisighelli) A population in the Salento peninsula of Puglia which still speaks a Greek dialect, Griko.Some scholars hypothesize a hold over from Magna Graecia, while others see it as Byzantine.
25.5-Lecce in the Salento peninsula, Puglia. (Boattini) Like the Greci Salentini, the people of Lecce can be found in the Salento Peninsula of Puglia, the heel of the boot. J2b 7.5%, J2a 18%.
25.0-Ragusa, Siracusa, south east coastal Sicily (Boattini). This is Magna Graecia.J2b 4.5%, J2a 20.5%.
24.5-Foligno, Umbria (Boattini)-It's an inland city 25 miles southeast of Perugia, which was one of the cities in the Etruscan confederation. The problem is that it's also a railroad hub and terminal, and has seen a lot of emigration from other areas in Italy, including the Marche and the south. J2b is 8%, J2a 16.5%.
22.8-Sicily (Brisighelli)
22.7-Latini (Brisighelli)
22.5-Macerata, Marche again (Boattini) J2b 2.5%, J2a 20.0%
21.0-Cosenza, Catanzaro, and Croton, another Greek city state, all in Calabria. (Boattini) 2.5%J2b, 18.5%J2a.
20.0-Sanniti, inland from Naples (Brisighelli)
20.0-Matera, Basilicata, inland between Campaga(Naples) and Calabria and home to the ancient Lucanians. (Boattini) J2b 8%, J2a 12%.
16.5-Agrigento, southwest Sicily, another Greek settlement (Boattini) J2b 5%, J2a 11.5%.
16.5-Treviso, Central East Veneto All J2a
16.3-Messapi, in the Salento peninsula (Brisighelli) The Messapians were, according to ancient writers, Illyrians.
14.5-Catania, eastern Sicily, across from Calabria(Boattini) J2b 3%, J2a 11.5%
14.0-Benevento, inland from Naples (Boattini) All J2a
14.0-Savona/Genova, western and central Liguria (Boattini) All J2a
13.3-Lucera-upper Puglia (Brisighelli) This is an often tested area, because the few remaining Saracens in Sicily were supposedly relocted here.
13.0-L'Aquila, Abruzzi (Boattini) All J2a
10.6-Udine, far northeastern Italy (Brisighelli)
10.5-Grossetto, southern Toscana, ten miles from Vetulonia, a major city of the Etruscan Confederation (Boattini) J2b 2.5%, J2a 8%
10.5-Molise, once part of Abruzzi (Boattini) All J2a
10.0-Vicenza in the Central West Veneto (Boattini) All J2a
8.8-Ladini, a Ladin speaking isolate population extremely high in R1b (67%), which is found in the Dolomite Alps (Brisighelli)
7.5-Pistoia, northern Tuscany, just beyond the limit of the original confederated Etruscan cities (Boattini) J2a
7.5-Como, Lombardia (Boattini) J2b 2.5%, J2a 5.5%
6.5-La Spezia, eastern Liguria (Brisighelli)
6.5-Cuneo, Piemonte, North West Italy (Boattini)
5.0-Brescia, North East Lombardia (Boattini) All J2a
3.5-Bologna, Emilia-Romagna (Boattini) It's J2b
0-Eastern Liguria/northwest Toscana (Boattini)
Now, they could release a study tomorrow showing an elite Etruscan male sample is J2a, and I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think the distribtution of J2 in Italy necessarily leads to the conclusion that J2a was *the* Etruscan marker. While Pistoia (7.5%) is north of the Arno, and so I wouldn't necessarily expect a high concentration of the Etruscan markers there, I certainly would expect them around Grosseto and Siena where it is only 10.5% in total, lower than western Liguria, which is at 14% and only 8% J2a.
The only places sampled which are in any proximity to the major Etruscan towns and which have a high incidence of J2 are Foligno in Umbria (J2b 8%, J2a 16.5%) and the *Latini* (22.7%) sampled by Brisighelli. I'm not sure how much we should rely on the numbers for those two areas, as southern Lazio was, until the time of Mussolini, a part of the southern Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. At the same time, it's true that this 22.7% is substantially higher than the 14% for Benevento, inland from Naples, which is to its south. As for Foligno, it is a large commercial and railroad hub, so I don't know if the J2 could be from emigrants from the neighboring Marche or from Lazio and further south. I wish they had tested in Perugia, but as it is also a hub of transportation it might not have been all that informative.
I'm also unclear what to make of the distinction between J2b and J2a in the center and south. J2b, if I'm not mistaken, reaches reasonable levels in the Balkans and so could be a sign of the Neolithic, but J2a has not yet shown up in Neolithic samples.
The very high incidence found by both sets of researchers in the Marche (33% and 22.5%) bears scrutiny, as does the trail into the Veneto all the way up to Vicenza(10%) and Treviso(16.5%) and also into Udine (10.6)but I don't see how it stems from the Etruscans. The only thing that occurs to me as an explanation is either that a lot of it stems from the fact that these and adjoining areas were part of the Greek Exarchate of Ravenna, and/or it stems from both earlier and later trade and cultural ties with the Greek islands and the Greek cities of Anatolia. I think the northern Balkans are mainly J2b? If that's correct, only a very small portion of the J2 came from that area. Of course, a paper could come out tomorrow of a J2a Neolithic sample, but until then, I think I would go with J2a, anyway being Bronze Age and later in Italy.
It's also inescapable that there's a lot of J2 in southern Italy, in areas that had nothing to do with the Etruscans. The numbers for western Calabria(33.3%) and southeastern Sicily (25%) are particularly noteworthy, as are those of southern Puglia (25.5)for the latter of which the Greek migrations are, I think, the best explanation. It need not all be from Magna Graecia either. I have seen some studies which hold that the Greek dialect spoken in the Salento is closer to Byzantine than to ancient Greek. If some of our linguists read this, perhaps they might comment on this as on any other area where linguistics might provide some illumination.
Finally, the distributions in Lombardia, Emilia, and Liguria are also interesting. Como has 7.5%, and Brescia has only 5%, Emilia 3%, and eastern Liguria/northwest Toscana has 0% in Boattini, and eastern Liguria in Brisighelli has 6.5%, for a rough average of 3.2%. However, Genova, which is central/western Liguria, has a healthy 14%, higher than for Toscana, and approaching some levels in the south. So, the areas in Emilia and eastern Liguria, northwest Tuscany closest to the Etruscans have very minor levels, while the people of Savona and Genova who are further away have higher levels. I have researched the history of Genova quite extensively, and the most I could find was a Greek emporium, not a major settlement. However,they did control the coast for a time. Also, Massalia (Marseilles) was founded by the Greeks, and after each periodic sacking, new settlers could have arrived from that area. Fwiw, Massalia was originally settled by people from the Greek city of Phocaea on the Aegean coast of Anatolia.
Of course, when I say that the distribution of J2a could be attributed to Greek input, that input could have come from mainland Greece, the Greek islands, far western Turkey on the Aegean, or even from the Pontic Greeks. The Byzantines would have drawn from people not only in Greece, but from the Balkans, Anatolia and even the coastal Levant.
I've seen speculation that perhaps some of the input is from Near Eastern slaves during the days of the Empire, but, as per the IBD studies of Ralph and Coop, (until and if they are proven wrong) foreign input into Italy is almost indiscernible after about 400 B.C. I can only think that the life of a slave was so very harsh, with so many in the mines and galleys, or being worked to death in the Latifundia and the brothels, that most of them didn't survive to pro-create. The southern U.S. plantation model where slaves were bred doesn't have any counterpart in the Empire so far as I know. There was no concern about the replenishment of the stock, as there was usually another war right on the horizon. The educated Greek freedmen in imperial service would have been a drop in the bucket in terms of the millions then living on the peninsula and islands, and then, many impoverished rural people in Italia also increasingly sold themselves into slavery from debt and hunger.
I'm also a little skeptical that the Roman colonies in the north spread the J2a. After the large and prosperous Roman town of Luni was repeatedly sacked, the inhabitants moved en masse to Sarzana, which is just to the north of La Spezia. (It's also the last Tuscan home of the Bonapartes) Now, Sarzana hasn't been tested, but in the following 1500 years you would think some would have wound up in La Spezia and Massa, and yet there is very little J2. Instead, the largest haplogroup by far is R1b.
One last word...the Malloui study attempted to prove that J2a was the pre-eminent Phoenician marker. Although the Phoenicians didn't plant the kind of colonies we're familiar with in the case of the Greeks, some of this J2a might also be attributable to them, at least in Sicily, or in a few specific towns, like Teramo in Abuzzi for example, which is said to have been both an Etruscan and a Phoenician trading post. Until someone spends the time and money to get really downstream markers for J2a, and does some extensive testing in Italy, perhaps using Boattini's surname method, I just don't see how this can all really be untangled.
Map of Greek and Phoenician settlements in the Mediterranean.
http://jewishness.bellevueholidayrentals.com/images/p069_1_01.jpg
Map of Etruscan Italy
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Etruscan_civilization_italian_map.png
Ed. I'm sorry this is so long, but once I spent all this time analyzing the data, I thought I should put it on the site to preserve it.
I'd be very interested in any analysis or criticism any of you might have