@salento
Messapic expanded with Bell Beakers migrating through the Italian Peninsula, or rather southward through the eastern Adriatic coast. Based on the connections of the Cetina culture with Bell Beakers from the Italian Peninsula, and the potential nature of Messapian as a North-West Indo-European dialect, it seems more likely that Proto-Messapic speakers expanded first southward from the Alps into mainland areas east of the Appennines, and were later replaced and displaced to the south-eastern corner with migrations of Italic peoples. Two individuals from Early/Middle Bronze Age from Veliki Vanik in Split-Dalmatia (ca. 1630–1510 BC) include one of hg. J2b2a-M241 (formed ca. 118000 BC, TMRCA ca 7800 BC), probably corresponding to subclade J2b2a1-L283 (TMRCA ca. 3400 BC), since basal clades are found today in modern populations of southern Italy and Anatolia. These and a later sample of the Late Bronze Age from the Jazinka Cave, near Nečven (ca. 780 BC) show similar ancestry to other available Balkan samples, but with increased Steppe ancestry (ca. 35%), and slightly less WHG (although similar EHG) contribution compared to other Early Bronze Age individuals from the Balkans. Interestingly, this haplogroup, which probably arrived in the Balkans from a westward expansion through Anatolia during the Chalcolithic or Neolithic, is found later in Armenia MLBA in an individual with Steppe ancestry (see §viii.14. Caucasians and Armenians). The finding of haplogroup J-M304 among Mycenaeans (see §viii.12. Greeks and Phand Philistines) further suggests a relative infiltration rather than a massive migration of Yamna male lineages in the southern Balkans, probably due in great part to the higher demographic density of south-eastern Europe (Müller and Diachenko 2019).
In the south-east, Messapic-speaking Iapyginians from Botromagno (ca. 7th–4 th c. BC) show mainly mtDNA subclades H and U, while the later Romans from nearby Vagnari (ca. AD 1st-4th c.) Show other markers
