Through 40,000 years of human presence in Southern Europe: the Italian case study

Jovialis

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R-PF7566 (R-Y227216)
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Abstract

The Italian Peninsula, a natural pier across the Mediterranean Sea, witnessed intricate population events since the very beginning of the human occupation in Europe. In the last few years, an increasing number of modern and ancient genomes from the area have been published by the international research community. This genomic perspective started unveiling the relevance of Italy to understand the post-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) re-peopling of Europe, the earlier phase of the Neolithic westward migrations, and its linking role between Eastern and Western Mediterranean areas after the Iron Age. However, many open questions are still waiting for more data to be addressed in full. With this review, we summarize the current knowledge emerging from the available ancient Italian individuals and, by re-analysing them all at once, we try to shed light on the avenues future research in the area should cover. In particular, open questions concern (1) the fate of pre-Villabruna Europeans and to what extent their genomic components were absorbed by the post-LGM hunter-gatherers; (2) the role of Sicily and Sardinia before LGM; (3) to what degree the documented genetic structure within the Early Neolithic settlers can be described as two separate migrations; (4) what are the population events behind the marked presence of an Iranian Neolithic-like component in Bronze Age and Iron Age Italian and Southern European samples.


 
^^Seems like the Italian ethnogenesis is proposed to be formed from the Bronze Age to Iron Age within the European genetic continuum.
 
What does it prove?
It shows that there was indeed an EBA CHG/Iran_N movement into the Mediterranean that impacted the South of Italy, likely the same that was formative to the Ancient Greeks. Before it was just assumed that it came with Greeks later in the Classical period and progressed onward from there. No doubt there were likely contributions from the Classical period to the Medieval period that served to re-enforce this genetic profile.

At any rate, we can see the IA created a cluster that includes Peninsular Italians that overlaps with the Modern Italians, from North to South.

The CHG-enriched south and the Steppe-enriched north merged to create IA Italians.

PCA_ITA.png
 
It shows that there was indeed an EBA CHG/Iran_N movement into the Mediterranean that impacted the South of Italy, likely the same that was formative to the Ancient Greeks. Before it was just assumed that it came with Greeks later in the Classical period and progressed onward from there. No doubt there were likely contributions from the Classical period to the Medieval period that served to re-enforce this genetic profile.

Northwest of Iran in the Bronze Age was the land of Lullubium (compare Lilybaeum/Lilubaeum, one of the oldest cities in Sicily), the greatest king of Lullubium was Anubanini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubanini from the name of the two faced god Ianu/Anu, compare Roman god Janus and Etruscan Ani: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ani_(god) (In Etruscan mythology, Ani is god of the sky. He is shown as living in the highest heaven. He is sometimes shown with two faces, possibly showing a link with the Akkadian god Anu and the Roman god Janus) and the greatest queen of Lullubium was Melili (compare Melilli, a comune in Sicily).
 
Northwest of Iran in the Bronze Age was the land of Lullubium (compare Lilybaeum/Lilubaeum, one of the oldest cities in Sicily), the greatest king of Lullubium was Anubanini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubanini from the name of the two faced god Ianu/Anu, compare Roman god Janus and Etruscan Ani: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ani_(god) (In Etruscan mythology, Ani is god of the sky. He is shown as living in the highest heaven. He is sometimes shown with two faces, possibly showing a link with the Akkadian god Anu and the Roman god Janus) and the greatest queen of Lullubium was Melili (compare Melilli, a comune in Sicily).
Just to be clear, It wasn't a direct migration from Bronze Age Iran though. Rather it was a gradual accumulation of CHG/IN via intermediaries (Anatolian groups, Greeks, etc.) throughout the centuries.
 
If there is a connection between Iranian and Roman gods, it is likely due to the shared Indo-European cultural origins, that developed independently into those gods.
 
Interesting Jovialis. Thanks for shearing. Do you think this influence is also related with the early arrival of some Iranian/East Med yHg's to Italy, such as some HG J2 subclades, like part of JL70's clades, like J-FGC6730?. Sometime ago I was convinced this subclades only arrived with Greeks to southern Italy, and afterwards were expanded elsewhere with romans, although now I'm convinced depending on the subclade, some of them indeed arrived much early from the Eastern mediterranean to the peninsula.
 
Interesting Jovialis. Thanks for shearing. Do you think this influence is also related with the early arrival of some Iranian/East Med yHg's to Italy, such as some HG J2 subclades, like part of JL70's clades, like J-FGC6730?. Sometime ago I was convinced this subclades only arrived with Greeks to southern Italy, and afterwards were expanded elsewhere with romans, although now I'm convinced depending on the subclade, some of them indeed arrived much early from the Eastern mediterranean to the peninsula.
could have even come in the neolithic, because J2 was found in central Italy at that time.
 
If there is a connection between Iranian and Roman gods, it is likely due to the shared Indo-European cultural origins, that developed independently into those gods.
Just to be clear, It wasn't a direct migration from Bronze Age Iran though. Rather it was a gradual accumulation of CHG/IN via intermediaries (Anatolian groups, Greeks, etc.) throughout the centuries.
There is a big difference between "Iranian" as a sub-branch of Indo-Iranian people and "Iranian" as a people who lived in ancient Iran, Hittites who lived in modern Turkey were not Turk, whether by a direct or an indirect migration, a culture could spread from the northwest of Iran to Italy.
 
20240913_114029.jpg

However, they seem to stick to the hypothesis of imperial immigrants and Germanic influence.
 
a culture could spread from the northwest of Iran to Italy.
I'm not aware of any concrete evidence for that. Inferring that from random places names and supposed similarity in Indoeuropean deities is absurd. On the other hand I suspected crackpot theories like those would start to pop up in this thread as soon as I read references about CHG/Iran_N movement into the Mediterranean that impacted the South of Italy.

There's Berghem in the Netherlands and Berghem (dialect for Bergamo) in Italy, are you suggesting that the Dutch came and colonised Lombardy?
 
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However, they seem to stick to the hypothesis of imperial immigrants and Germanic influence.
Even if they had some contributions, I think the case of CHG/IN pre-Magna Grecia makes the Imperial era less of a dramatic shift. Moreover, I bet most of the CHG/IN came with Magna Graecia.
 
FYI I also didn't realize this is from 2021.
 
FYI I also didn't realize this is from 2021.

I am not criticizing what you claim, but this 2021 paper by Aneli is quite ridiculous (just look at what he writes about the Etruscans, only not to go against his godfather's wrong thesis).
 
I am not criticizing what you claim, but this 2021 paper by Aneli is quite ridiculous (just look at what he writes about the Etruscans, only not to go against his godfather's wrong thesis).
I respect that, to me a lot of papers feel like that, I've been accustom to it at this point TBH.

I just look forward to the raw data.
 
"82% Greco-Roman" and 18% immigrants? :unsure:

Besides of being puzzled of what an "Italic-Aegean Greek mix" is (people hailing from Magna Graecia as opposed to proper Hellenistic Aegean Greeks from Greece?), what truly strikes me, assuming that I'm reading the data correctly, is the supposed complete lack of "pure" Italics/North Italics/Etruscans in Rome.
 
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