This Girl, guess her ethnicity

[Alan]

Sardinians are the closest population we have to EEF. They have barely any ANE, so any resemblance would be based on "farmer" types before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans or any other Bronze Age expansions, but farmer types with some WHG in the case of the Sardinians. Or perhaps we'll find that when we have a sample of the early farmers who took off for Europe they won't be much different from EEF after all.

Agree

Sardinians don't have the 'hawk like" profile of some people in the Levant. (There are also other differences.) As for the also hawk like "Dinaric" look of popular parlance on anthroboards, based on the reconstructions of the Yamnaya people you posted on another thread, it seems as likely that this look arrived in some parts of Europe directly from the steppe as through Anatolia. Perhaps it would have its source in the Anatolian highlands, but from ANE, perhaps, not from the earliest farmer component?

The extreme Dinaric type seems to be a very recent evolution anywhere in the region. I agree that Yamna had more dinarization true, but they were overall not that extreme Dinaric. It seems to have evolved just in the Iron Ages.

Interesting though Sardinians resemble very often Circassians. Adyghe minus the ANE ancestry could be close to their ancestors. Adyghe also belong pred. to Haplogroup G2a.

I wonder if I could put "Master of Guessing" here with my avatar?

Yes, you won the trophy.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with Sardinian women, but in Italy they feel Sardinia has more than its fair share of beautiful women.

I don't know much about Sardinians but have noticed that they indeed have above average attractive females.

There is also Caterina Murino, of Casino Royale fame, whom Dienekes chose as his avatar for the Neolithic advance into Europe. In her case, though, I think there's a hint of later migrations, particularly in terms of her profile. She's closer, for me, to the women in Cretan art.

Yes I agree with that she looks closer to Cretan/Minoan type.

 

[Angela]

Then why don't Sardinians ever mix with mainland Italians? I know it's true but strange that they rarely ever mix.

They are mixing now, to some extent, as people move for work etc., but I think you have to take into account that Italy was very rural until the very late 19th century. The migration of people to factories took place much later than in Britain or even Germany. It's also a country where geographical features have separated people, mountains mostly, but in the case of Sardinia, the sea. Added to that, different parts of Italy were ruled for long stretches of time by different foreign entities, so there was less mobility. This goes some way toward explaining why there is so much genetic variation in Italy: people have drifted apart. (It's also true, of course, that different parts of Italy have been affected by migrations coming from different parts of the world.)

Any way, people didn't move very far from their ancestral "turf", and that had been the case for hundreds and hundreds of years. The family tree compiled by one of my uncles from church registries shows that my father's family didn't move from a few mountain valleys in the northern Apennines for at least five hundred years. My mother's family is barely any better. Only one of her lines seems to have come from elsewhere. That's why I have so few matches on 23andme. I only match the people from those two areas, and so my only close matches there are the descendents of some local people (mostly from my mother's area) who migrated to South America ( and a few to the U.S.) who have decided to test.

FWIW, I've heard that given the currents and winds around Sardinia, it's not a particularly easy island to get to, but don't quote me, I'm not a good enough mariner for that.

 

[Alan]

Then why don't Sardinians ever mix with mainland Italians? I know it's true but strange that they rarely ever mix.

They do mix but I would rather say the Sardinians who mix are usually those who leave Sardinian Island and settle in Italy mainland. This is why it appears like Sardinians don't mix, s are better.because as usual people settle there, where the economic benefits are better. And I assume this is the case with mainland Italy.

So it would rather be mainland Italy gaining Sardinian geneflow than opposite. But this might have changed with time.

 

[Maleth]

I wonder if I could put "Master of Guessing" here with my avatar?

:grin:

......only until the next one. OK?:grin::grin::grin:

 

[Angela]

There are also Sardinians who to me have more of a mainland look, like two of my mom's favorite actresses, the sisters Pierangeli, and in their case it makes sense as the surnames are from central Italy (and some branches in Liguria as well). There was some movement from the mainland into Sardinia, but it would have been mostly limited to the coastlines, not the mountainous interior where the always wise Cavalli-Sforza took his samples. The reverse is indeed far more common, i.e. Sardinians moving to the mainland and intermarrying there.

Here is one of them with James Dean...they were a couple for a while but she broke it off to marry Vic Damone. What beautiful babies they would have made, although Vic Damone was no slouch in the looks department either.

Marisa Pavan:

Lest I be accused of posting only glamour pictures, here is a video of men from an inland region performing a folk song. As with the women I don't think they could ever be mistaken for Levantines. They're just European meds. Something must have changed with the phenotype after the first farmers left for Europe. I've heard casual speculation that it was a specifically Semitic adaption. However, even among the Persians/Iranians, certainly by the first millennium BC, the phenotype had changed, and a new nose shape had appeared which is quite different. Is it what anthropologists would call an Armenoid nose? If so, I don't think the Armenians got it from the first farmers. It's even different from the one you see on the ancient Romans, which has a parallel in one of the steppe reconstructions posted by Alan. I'm posting a few pictures to illustrate. For now, I'm still thinking this came from further east into both the steppe and the Near East, or from one into the other. The Pashtuns sure have it as do some northwestern Indians.

 

[Alan]

Sardinians have a European Med look definitely. It's just that the connection to early farmers is visible of course with thousands of years of adaption to the European continent and some mixing with WHG.

The modern iranian type is mostly straight to slightly convex nosed. Armenoids are said to be often extremely convexed nosed or sloppy.
I don't think this convex nose thing came from the East. It seems to be a very late adaption to dry, harsh climate of the region.
Remember back in the time the fertile crescent was much more fertile. One of the major reasons why some even left for migration outside of the Near East is the climatic change.
It is not like all extreme convex nose are xclusive to their and the Eastern Mediterranean/Balkan. Extreme Convex noses are found throughout Europe.

And to be honest from the videos, I saw quite a few convexed nosed (some even more on the extreme) Sardinians too. So it is not all something new. It is just that during Iron Age it might have become more present.

Remember even some of the typical Roman aristrocrat phenotypes seem to have been very convexed nosed. In the past narrow, convex noses were seen as sign of wisdom and high status. This might be an additional reason how this phenotype spred further around.

 

[Alan]

The typical "Armenian" nose (of course the majority of Armenians do not have this extreme type of nose, just that it is most prevelant among them) is this.

extreme examples. Nose is sometimes sharp, sometimes floppy but typical that the strong curve is in the middle of the nose.

Also the Pashtun guy you posted has more of a typical "Armenian" nose

Typical "Iranic" nose is less often straight or average convex but rather sharp/narrow and not floppy.

 

[MOESAN]

I'm sorry but the woman posted in the first post, to guess her "ethnicity" shows uncommon features in South - her jaw and the nose and the eyes, everything is far from the "recent" (8000 BP) typical forms of mediterranea and levante-Near-East - she evocates to me some 'borreby' trends, of surely 'cro-magnon' far ancestry + here some 'Brûnn' trend too (her browridges, strong for a wife)- these types survived at individual levels in more than a place, but as rare specimen -
some are even found in North Africa and Yemen (but not among the most of Yemenese Bedwins - I show some same trend, more or less mixed among rare Syrians - Nothing evocating the common new types (yet diverse) send by neolithic agriculture to Europe - more HGs inheritage!!!
it's true typical 'mediterranean' typeS before individualization, were by force descendants of or/and 'cro-magnon', 'capellid-brünnid' locally evolved types with maybe some 'east-african' element... we find some common features among the typical 'mediterraneans' but local types were borned, the crania and face features are a proof of it -
concerning ethnoc aspect, I think the pictures of women is not the best choice, because, inconsciently we are tempted to choose among the women according to estet°Hic criteria (for the most: attractiveness, sometimes: the contrary!), more than for men -
the only valuable document is a collective pictures of ordinary men or women of same origin but without any other sort of choice, AT THE EXCLUSION OF ACTRESSSES OR KNOWN ARTISTS

 

[Mars]

Then why don't Sardinians ever mix with mainland Italians? I know it's true but strange that they rarely ever mix.

That's not true... A lot of sardinians migrated to mainland Italy in the XXth century (especially to Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardia) and many of them mixed with the locals, obviously; let's say, in big cities like Genoa and Turin, you can find 1 sardinian in every 20,000 non sardinian people... of course they mix, sooner or later

 

[Teegurr]

Circassian?