# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Genomic Diversity in Italy

## Angela

See:

Sazzini et al
https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/ar...15-020-00778-4

"*Background*The cline of human genetic diversity observable across Europe is recapitulated at a micro-geographic scale by variation within the Italian population. Besides resulting from extensive gene flow, this might be ascribable also to local adaptations to diverse ecological contexts evolved by people who anciently spread along the Italian Peninsula. Dissecting the evolutionary history of the ancestors of present-day Italians may thus improve the understanding of demographic and biological processes that contributed to shape the gene pool of European populations. However, previous SNP array-based studies failed to investigate the full spectrum of Italian variation, generally neglecting low-frequency genetic variants and examining a limited set of small effect size alleles, which may represent important determinants of population structure and complex adaptive traits. To overcome these issues, we analyzed *38 high-coverage whole-genome sequences representative of population clusters at the opposite ends of the cline of Italian variation, along with a large panel of modern and ancient Euro-Mediterranean genomes.*
*Results*We provided evidence for the *early divergence of Italian groups dating back to the Late Glacial and for Neolithic and distinct Bronze Age migrations having further differentiated their gene pools.* We inferred *adaptive evolution at insulin-related loci in people from Italian regions with a temperate climate, while possible adaptations to pathogens and ultraviolet radiation were observed in Mediterranean Italians. Some of these adaptive events may also have secondarily modulated population disease or longevity predisposition.*
*Conclusions*We disentangled the contribution of multiple migratory and adaptive events in shaping the heterogeneous Italian genomic background, which exemplify population dynamics and gene-environment interactions that played significant roles also in the formation of the Continental and Southern European genomic landscapes.


So far so good. As I always proposed, a good part of the longevity of Italians can be attributed to genes. Good habits certainly also play a factor, especially food and low alcohol intake.

I have one major problem with it already, however. Most Italians aren't "at" the extremes of the genetic variation. They're isn't a wall just south of Rome, even if it is a "break". Variation in Italy is still clinal.

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## Angela

Is it just me, or is there a big problem with assuming that variants more associated with continental Europe actually represent continued ancestry from the Upper Paleolithic versus those variants being re-introduced to Italy during subsequent migrations from the north?

Did they check the Neolithic inhabitants of Northern Italy to see if they have those variants? Wouldn't that be the only way of knowing?
Do

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## Pax Augusta

> Is it just me, or is there a big problem with assuming that variants more associated with continental Europe actually represent continued ancestry from the Upper Paleolithic versus those variants being re-introduced to Italy during subsequent migrations from the north?
> 
> Did they check the Neolithic inhabitants of Northern Italy to see if they have those variants? Wouldn't that be the only way of knowing?
> Do


Sazzini once again proves that he is not a very capable population geneticist.

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## Ack

" However, the appreciable frequency of some maternal strains, especially in southern Italy, suggested a link with the populations of the Caucasus and the Levant, which predates the Neolithic and may support the role of this area as a refugee during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)"

Perhaps this explains why part of the Italian population goes more towards the eastern Mediterranean - different from the Sardinians. Not that this is anything new, but I was generally in doubt whether this difference was before or after the EEF colonization of Europe. 

I don't know if there is another country in Europe with as much internal diversity as Italy, but France also seems to be quite diverse if you compare Brittany with Occitania or Provence. Anyway, I believe that diversity is good and each region has its own customs, traditions and why not; genetic variability

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## Angela

I think perhaps they should have applied some more critical thinking to some of these associations. I can see that there might, in fact undoubtedly are, pigmentation genes in Southern Italy, leaching into the center, which promote rapid and dark tanning. I used to occasionally visit an expat site where Americans living in Southern Italy would exclaim over how much "lighter" the locals were in the winter than the summer.

Likewise, perhaps there is something to the claim that southern Italians have immune systems more aggressive toward pathogen infection. Hot climates equal more pathogens, so it makes sense. It might even have a bit to do with lower Covid 19 rates there. Who knows? 

The finding about obesity and diabetes, by which I assume they mean Type 2 Diabetes, needs further investigation. (I'll have to check that when I go through everything more carefully, including the Supplement.) 

Just generally, diabetes doesn't have much to do with meat and fat consumption, except in so far as it adds to the total calories. From what I've seen the first thing that specialists advise is to cut out too processed carbohydrates.

Here is a diabetes incidence map. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one which broke out Type 1 diabetes from the total; however, it seems Type 1 only represents 1-3% at the most.



Furthermore, the obesity figures don't bear this out. They are extremely high in Great Britain, high in the east and northeast etc. areas which have quite a bit more WHG/EHG ancestry. The U.S., predominantly northwestern European as far as "white" people are concerned, are if not the most obese people in the world, one of the most obese. You should try walking around the Walmarts in Alabama/Mississippi or Michigan etc. As one more example, Spain has more WHG than even Northern Italy, but obesity figures are higher. 



Really, before publishing I think they should have done some more research.

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## Ack

> I think perhaps they should have applied some more critical thinking to some of these associations. I can see that there might, in fact undoubtedly are, pigmentation genes in Southern Italy, leaching into the center, which promote rapid and dark tanning. I used to occasionally visit an expat site where Americans living in Southern Italy would exclaim over how much "lighter" the locals were in the winter than the summer.
> 
> Likewise, perhaps there is something to the claim that southern Italians have immune systems more aggressive toward pathogen infection. Hot climates equal more pathogens, so it makes sense. It might even have a bit to do with lower Covid 19 rates there. Who knows? 
> 
> The finding about obesity and diabetes, by which I assume they mean Type 2 Diabetes, needs further investigation. (I'll have to check that when I go through everything more carefully, including the Supplement.) 
> 
> Just generally, diabetes doesn't have much to do with meat and fat consumption, except in so far as it adds to the total calories. From what I've seen the first thing that specialists advise is to cut out too processed carbohydrates.
> 
> Here is a diabetes incidence map. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one which broke out Type 1 diabetes from the total; however, it seems Type 1 only represents 1-3% at the most.
> ...


I haven't finished reading it all yet, but the article claims to be the broadest ever done in Italian populations. I think the issue of pigmentation is the most irrelevant in genomic terms - generally pigmentation genes represent a miniscule / negligible amount of the total genome of a person or population.



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In fact: there is a Sicilian rap clip that I love and people are very tanned - even rap discusses discrimination with Southern Italians. I believe that most southern Italians are happy to be from the south.



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## Jovialis

^^That sentiment seems to exist in Portugal as well, when I was in the airport in Porto, the buffoon airport officer asked us where we had stayed. We told him we were in Lisbon, and he felt the need to express how much he disliked people from that region, because of "different culture". To an outsider, the culture seemed fairly the same to me.

The guy in Porto sort of looked like that Sicilian guy in that video, actually.

In terms of phenotype, Sardinians are darkest people in Italy. Perhaps the high amount of EEF in both Sardinians and Iberians can partly explain why they look as dark, or are darker than some Southern Italians. Despite being genetically "North" of Northern Italians:



At any rate, this isn't a sociology thread, so lets get back on topic.

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## Pax Augusta

> 



Sicilian rapper Ensi untanned.

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## Palermo Trapani

Pax: Glad you posted it, Ensi looks like someone who tans in the summer and winter months gets fair. So freaking what? Ack most not understand the term "Terrone" it has a link back to people who were and are economically tied to agriculture, small family farmers or working for large land owners in Olive and Grape industry. For the record, I don't know who Ensi is as I don't folllow American rap much less Sicilian rap music. However, I have noticed on lots of the Italian shows on Mhz, there is lots of this music on the police shows like Inspector Coliandro, which I like, and the Roberto Saviano's Gommorah (hmm not so much).

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## torzio

> Sazzini once again proves that he is not a very capable population geneticist.



was this what annoyed you about marco Sazzini from Uni of Bologna ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDvqAkyc4sw

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## Pax Augusta

> was this what annoyed you about marco Sazzini from Uni of Bologna ?
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDvqAkyc4sw



Sazzini's papers are all mouth and no trousers. Tanto fumo e niente arrosto.

This is from his last 2020 study. Does that make sense to you?

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## torzio

> Sazzini's papers are all mouth and no trousers. Tanto fumo e poco arrosto.
> 
> This is from his last 2020 study. Does that make sense to you?


reminds me of Laz and his ....north italy = bulgaria-Bergamo-south france- basque theory

did you click on the supplementary addition at bottom of the paper?

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## Pax Augusta

> reminds me of Laz and his ....north italy = bulgaria-Bergamo-south france- basque theory



It is certainly not his theory, but the most banal observation of any PCA. Throwing in Bulgaria with the south of France and the Basques is amateurish stuff in 2020 though.

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## torzio

> It is certainly not his theory, but the most banal observation of any PCA. Throwing in Bulgaria with the south of France and the Basques is amateurish stuff in 2020 though.


was it Miles , some say Laz, I doubt it was haak...............we can blame Laz on that ..............then again as some say here and other threads, papers more than 2 years old are useless ...............Laz, Haak ( 2015 ) etc ............it is not my thoughts

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## Pax Augusta

> we can blame Laz on that ..............then again as some say here and other threads, papers more than 2 years old are useless ...............Laz, Haak ( 2015 ) etc ............it is not my thoughts



There's a difference between paper and paper. Haak 2015 is based on the comparison between acient DNA and modern samples, other papers, like Sazzini's, are the usual speculations based on modern samples only.

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## bigsnake49

> It is certainly not his theory, but the most banal observation of any PCA. Throwing in Bulgaria with the south of France and the Basques is amateurish stuff in 2020 though.


You run any kind of 4 participant Oracle will give you strange combinations because they are trying to best fit your ethnicity. Some of the combinations make sense from what we know of history and archaeology, others not so much.

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## Angela

The admixture stuff is amateurish indeed, embarrassing, really, given it's 2020.

I think Sazzini worked with Hellenthal last time, and he's using the same programs Hellenthal used. You know, the one which found Armenian input in Poles in the Medieval Era. Oy veh! 

I thought after the Moots/Stanford paper it would have been clear that those tools don't date admixture properly. They just show you the most recent admixture, and even then not very accurately. Remember Hellenthal said there was a big admixture event of "Southeastern/Near Eastern" types with the more northwestern locals in AFTER the fall of Rome, i.e. the Byzantine Era, and proposed a migration at that time into Italy.

The absurdity of that was made clear by ancient dna. Aegean/coastal Anatolian ancestry was already in Italy in *600 BC*. In 350 BC? we have a Cretan like member of a Latin tribe. There was no mass migration from Byzantine areas to Italy. There was Langobard entry into parts of a very Mediterranean local population, but it was only the latest in a string of migrations via Central Europe, just as any "Southeastern" ancestry was just the latest string in migrations from the southeast, which began at least by the beginning of the Bronze Age.

My goodness, didn't Sazzini and company realize that ancient dna completely nullified those findings they came to by working with Hellenthal?

Honestly, as I said, as an Italian it's embarrassing to see them put out stuff like this. 

Another more general issue I have with the paper and the prior one, and Hellenthal et al: At what point does ancestry from Anatolia/northern Syria start becoming "Near Eastern"? Same question for Iran Neo/CHG ancestry. Words are my business, and definitions, and this kind of analysis is the absolute worst in terms of clarity of terms. Is the 45-50% EEF in the English and the Germans "Near Eastern" Is the Iran Neo/CHG in the Slavs "Near Eastern"?

According to this paper, apparently not. So, when does it become Near Eastern? Late Bronze Age? Iron Age? Classical Era? Why does it suddenly become alien?

As I've said before, to me it's just same old, same old. Same components in different percentages, coming from the same part of the world, using the same routes. The only difference is the time period, and additional Iran Neo. Big whoops. 

Also, given how all standard analyses show the similarity between Southern Italians and Greeks, especially Peloponnese and Island Greeks, and Northern Italians and Albanians, Bulgarians, etc. how come these groups are modeled so differently? Didn't that question ever occur to them? It invalidates the approach.

God, don't they teach critical thinking any more?

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## Ailchu

> I haven't finished reading it all yet, but the article claims to be the broadest ever done in Italian populations. I think the issue of pigmentation is the most irrelevant in genomic terms - generally pigmentation genes represent a miniscule / negligible amount of the total genome of a person or population.


quite possible for me that, after the findings of Mathiesen, SL24A5 and those FZD genes are the only really important factors for pigmentation in westeurasia. SL24A5 gives the base while the darker populations are just tanning way faster maybe because of those FZD genes and never have long enough sunless periods to turn lighter.

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## Joey37

Oh yeah, the tanning. My stepfather is 7/8 Italian (all southern) and even though I tan much better than my mother (who is 99.4% Northwest European, predominantly English), he makes me look like a Swede in the summer.

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## torzio

> Sazzini's papers are all mouth and no trousers. Tanto fumo e niente arrosto.
> 
> This is from his last 2020 study. Does that make sense to you?


Any paper that only includes the Near-East ( Anatolia , Asia Minor ) for Italy and not the Caucasus is basically wrong ........the populace of Italy also included the people around the black sea , which was smaller in size and not linked to the med ................they also ignore Ghirotto 2013 paper that etruscans have been in Italy since 3000BC , so this Anatolian/near-east only for Italy is garbage

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## Ack

> ^^That sentiment seems to exist in Portugal as well, when I was in the airport in Porto, the buffoon airport officer asked us where we had stayed. We told him we were in Lisbon, and he felt the need to express how much he disliked people from that region, because of "different culture". To an outsider, the culture seemed fairly the same to me.
> 
> The guy in Porto sort of looked like that Sicilian guy in that video, actually.
> 
> In terms of phenotype, Sardinians are darkest people in Italy. Perhaps the high amount of EEF in both Sardinians and Iberians can partly explain why they look as dark, or are darker than some Southern Italians. Despite being genetically "North" of Northern Italians:
> 
> 
> 
> At any rate, this isn't a sociology thread, so lets get back on topic.


At no time did I assume that tanning was in any way specific to Sicilians - I even mentioned that pigment alleles are a small part of the genome. Regardless of the total genome, whether more or less south, the tanning capacity seems to exist throughout southern Europe - it would risk including all western Europe. The purpose was not to imply that Sicilians are darker - on the contrary, I reaffirmed that the issue of pigmentation is a minority in the genotype. I have been to Iberia, France, Bergamo and other Western countries and in all of them I have seen white and tanned people. I believe that the phenotypic difference between north and south of Italy is more related to the color of eyes and hair, but in terms of tanning response all south / west of Europe - I think outside the British - have. There is absolutely no demerit in that. I don't understand why some people are sensitive to the topic.


It makes no evolutionary sense to expect southern Europeans to be as pale as northern ones - regardless of whether they are in Iberia, Italy, Greece or any other southern region

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## Ack

> Sicilian rapper Ensi untanned.


.No surprise. This is called tanning and is common throughout western Europe - regardless of whether it is in Sicily, Lombardy, France or Iberia. I think the difference between north and south of Italy is not in the color of the skin or the ability to tan, but in the color of the eyes and hair. Maybe I have been misunderstood, but there is no need to chase photos where he is not tanned to 'prove' something because at no time did I want to imply anything negative about it. 
The ability to tan is useful in Western Europe and there is no reason to react sensitively to the topic. Tanning is a useful skill, not a demerit.

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## Ack

Another fact: Sardinians may have less alleles for light eyes and hair than Sicilians, but the western appearance is not limited to pigmentation and the facial features of Sardinians are very Western - unlike many Sicilians and even people from the Lazio region - Which is obviously not a demerit for Sicilians or for any population more related to the Middle East - including some Iberians who also have more 'Semitic' traits, although the EEF predominance in Iberia is much greater. Although Sicilians and other southern Italians group together with Ashkenazi Jews in autosomes, the perception of pigmentation of Ashkenazi Jews is different - many are red, blond and have an 'east' pigmentation, although the autosomal issue is different. The autosomal issue does not always effectively predict the phenotype. For this reason, it is complicated to generalize any European population based on autosomes. Probably many Sicilians have 'western' characteristics while others do not. Fortunately, diversity exists in the overwhelming majority of populations and this should never be understood as a demerit.

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## Angela

> These are the participants of the Portuguese big brother. Nothing particularly light or dark by Southern European standards. Lighter or darker people than usual can be brought in anywhere in Europe, but some stereotypes are suitable for some people's personal fantasies. 
> 
> 
> 
> I cannot say that this is the case, but some northern Italians are unable to overcome the fact that they are not genetically north of the Iberians despite centuries of Moorish political domination in Iberia. Somehow they try to compensate for the discomfort by feeding stereotypes about pigmentation as much as the Iberians and the Italians are within the usual for southern Europe and really significant changes in phenotype are from Paris upwards. Iberians, northern Italians and French have more in common than differences. The intrigue is completely meaningless.
> 
> Unfortunately, some northern Italians are known to have this type of complex even with their closest countrymen from central or southern Italy. But I still believe that most do not have this type of complex and they know that they are not Austrians - and even if they were: it would not be any kind of pride or demerit to the point of reacting badly to any association with everything that is from the south.


I have no idea what you're carrying on about. The only one posting off topic after off topic post about pigmentation is you. There's also no one here now who is comparing the pigmentation of various Southern European communities except you. Cut it out. There are sites where people do that. This isn't one of them.

As for Sardinians, you can hunt for pictures of exceptionally light ones all you want. Clearly you have never been there. They are noticeably darker not only in hair and eyes but in skin pigmentation, which is borne out by the results of snp analysis. Some of them in the interior also have a very "unique" look definitely not found in the mainland or elsewhere in Europe.

Likewise you've obviously never spent decades surrounded by Askenazim as I have. They do not, minus some exceptions, look like eastern Europeans. That's why it was so difficult for them to hide during the 30s and 40s. All I see here is the nonsense you've read on racialist sites, which is completely ungrounded in reality and scientific data.

There will be no more off topic posts on this thread by anyone.

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## Anfänger

> I have no idea what you're carrying on about. The only one posting off topic after off topic post about pigmentation is you. There's also no one here now who is comparing the pigmentation of various Southern European communities except you. Cut it out. There are sites where people do that. This isn't one of them.
> 
> As for *Sardinians*, you can hunt for pictures of exceptionally light ones all you want. Clearly you have never been there. They are noticeably darker not only in hair and eyes but in skin pigmentation, which is borne out by the results of snp analysis. Some of them in the interior also have a very "unique" look definitely not found in the mainland or elsewhere in Europe.
> 
> Likewise you've obviously never spent decades surrounded by Askenazim as I have. They do not, minus some exceptions, look like eastern Europeans. That's why it was so difficult for them to hide during the 30s and 40s. All I see here is the nonsense you've read on racialist sites, which is completely ungrounded in reality and scientific data.
> 
> There will be no more off topic posts on this thread by anyone.


Just deleted it because it was off topic. I should have read the last sentence, sorry Angela.

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## Palermo Trapani

> Any paper that only includes the Near-East ( Anatolia , Asia Minor ) for Italy and not the Caucasus is basically wrong ........the populace of Italy also included the people around the black sea , which was smaller in size and not linked to the med ................they also ignore Ghirotto 2013 paper that etruscans have been in Italy since 3000BC , so this Anatolian/near-east only for Italy is garbage


Valid points about the CHG and just lumping it together. As Angela noted, all those populations in Near East should be defined with appropriate terminology. I always hate when anything Anatolian/Near East is all lumped together. Anyone who has been on youtube where Genetics videos are discussed or blogs sees this kind of crap all the time. With respect to the Sazzinni et al 2020 paper that Angela linked in post #1 in this thread. A couple of criticisms I have related to the Authors Literature review and the Editorial review process. 

1) The article was received by the Journal (From the authors) for peer review on 1 October 2019. It was accepted for publication on 1 April 2020 (6 month review process) and published 22 May 2020

2) Raveane et al 2019 (Figure 2) was able to document a CHG (Green) component in every Italian regional sample from Sicily1 to NorthItaly2. Antonio et al 2019 (p.709) documents a CHG (or Iran Neolithic) type ancestry appearing in Neolithic era Rome (Referred to Supplementary Figure S12). The Raveane et al 2019 study was published 4 September 2019 and the Antonio et al 2019 paper 8 November 2019

3) In light of points 1 and 2 above, why did Sazzinni et al 2020 not do their analysis in light of the 2 papers findings above, 1 which was in print before they submitted and the other early on in the review process for their own paper. As noted in point 2, both Raveane et al 2019 and Antonio et al 2019 document CHG type ancestry

4) As I think Pax noted, this is 2020, and readers expect more from scholars.

5) In conclusion, and speaking from personal experience as someone who has reviewed papers for publication in my own field and published as well, the failure to include both the Raveane et al 2019 and Antonio et al 2019 paper in their literature review and references and thus failure to model their results in light of those 2 recent papers indicates a weakness of their part and the part of the editorial and review process of the journal, "In My Opinion."

As and addendum, if someone in the forum knows some of the authors and has contacted them before, maybe there is an explanation for why those 2 papers were not included. Not sure I would still agree with their explanation but maybe their are professional disagreements among one group of researchers vs. others.

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## Salento

a map of Ancient Italy 

...  :Thinking:  once upon a time the Salentini were called Calabresi and the Calabresi were the Brutti,  :Thinking:  lol :)

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## torzio

> Valid points about the CHG and just lumping it together. As Angela noted, all those populations in Near East should be defined with appropriate terminology. I always hate when anything Anatolian/Near East is all lumped together. Anyone who has been on youtube where Genetics videos are discussed or blogs sees this kind of crap all the time. With respect to the Sazzinni et al 2020 paper that Angela linked in post #1 in this thread. A couple of criticisms I have related to the Authors Literature review and the Editorial review process. 
> 
> 1) The article was received by the Journal (From the authors) for peer review on 1 October 2019. It was accepted for publication on 1 April 2020 (6 month review process) and published 22 May 2020
> 
> 2) Raveane et al 2019 (Figure 2) was able to document a CHG (Green) component in every Italian regional sample from Sicily1 to NorthItaly2. Antonio et al 2019 (p.709) documents a CHG (or Iran Neolithic) type ancestry appearing in Neolithic era Rome (Referred to Supplementary Figure S12). The Raveane et al 2019 study was published 4 September 2019 and the Antonio et al 2019 paper 8 November 2019
> 
> 3) In light of points 1 and 2 above, why did Sazzinni et al 2020 not do their analysis in light of the 2 papers findings above, 1 which was in print before they submitted and the other early on in the review process for their own paper. As noted in point 2, both Raveane et al 2019 and Antonio et al 2019 document CHG type ancestry
> 
> 4) As I think Pax noted, this is 2020, and readers expect more from scholars.
> ...



because as some scholars say EEF, CHG, WHG is too old , more than 5 years old .............why is it mentioned, did not Reich and another I cannot recall backtrack on some of their recent findings because they relied on these EEF, WHG etc 

I do not know if Sazzini is right or wrong, but let us not stick to Laz stuff either

Papers are started a long way out, sometimes it takes years to publish, either due to lack of funding or the reluctance of national governments ( france and italy being the worse ) to find out the truth

BTW, just because I ask the question does not mean I support Sazzini ....................it seems the youth of today are reluctant to find details on any topic, only interested in one line summaries of topics

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## torzio

> a map of Ancient Italy 
> 
> ...  once upon a time the Salentini were called Calabresi and the Calabresi were the Brutti,  lol :)


how accurate is it ?............the 2 tribes in apulia and the calabrian tribe all speak the same exact messapic language that originated in the northern parts of the adriatic ................maybe the calabrians here got greek influence more than their autosomal brothers in Apulia ........................see the tribe above the word Dalmatia , that is the origins of the messapic and apulian tribes

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## Salento

> how accurate is it ?............the 2 tribes in apulia and the calabrian tribe all speak the same exact messapic language that originated in the northern parts of the adriatic ................maybe the calabrians here got greek influence more than their autosomal brothers in Apulia ........................see the tribe above the word Dalmatia , that is the origins of the messapic and apulian tribes


... multidimensional, the map calls the same places different names ...

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## Palermo Trapani

> because as some scholars say EEF, CHG, WHG is too old , more than 5 years old .............why is it mentioned, did not Reich and another I cannot recall backtrack on some of their recent findings because they relied on these EEF, WHG etc 
> 
> I do not know if Sazzini is right or wrong, but let us not stick to Laz stuff either
> 
> Papers are started a long way out, sometimes it takes years to publish, either due to lack of funding or the reluctance of national governments ( france and italy being the worse ) to find out the truth
> 
> BTW, just because I ask the question does not mean I support Sazzini ....................it seems the youth of today are reluctant to find details on any topic, only interested in one line summaries of topics


Torzio: I took nothing in your post to say you support Sazzini one way or the other. I think your posts were neutral and post raised legitimate questions (i.e. failure to consider CHG) about what was published in the final version of Sazzini et al 2020. Research projects in STEM fields (Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) do require extensive amounts of funding more so that most Social Science fields so I understand the financial constraints for doing in this case Genetics (Science) based research. Nevertheless, I still find it puzzling why the Sazzini et al 2020 paper could not acknowledge in their discussion the findings of Raveane et al 2019 and Antonio et al 2019, even if they did not have the enough data to model it?, they still could point out that what they are modelling as Near East in the table you posted likely contains CHG type ancestry as well (given the recent findings of Raveane et al 2019 and Antonio et al 2019). 


With respect to modern Youth, yes, your description is accurate. Not sure how many young people today know how or are capable to sit down and read a book. As for the politics of modern Italy, well I can't speak directly to that but there is a line of thinking in terms of language used in some of this genetic research that has lets see if I can say it as civilly as possible, has suggestions that the authors have strong EU/NGO/open border ideology. But EU/NGO/open border are political issues so I will stop here on that front.

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## Angela

The Reich Lab and Planck are the two premier population genetics research teams in the world. There is no comparison.

As for WHG, EEF, EHG, steppe who in hell is saying those components are outdated????

If you're talking about ancient dna those are the components which have to be discussed.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like ALICE after she fell down the rabbit hole.

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## Palermo Trapani

> The Reich Lab and Planck are the two premier population genetics research teams in the world. There is no comparison.
> 
> As for WHG, EEF, EHG, steppe who in hell is saying those components are outdated????
> 
> If you're talking about ancient dna those are the components which have to be discussed.
> 
> Honestly, sometimes I feel like ALICE after she fell down the rabbit hole.


Angela: For clarification purposes and in the context of addressing you as moderator/advisor, my issue was clearly why didn't Sazzini et al 2020 take into account Raveane et al 2019 and Antonio et al 2019 and not do a better job of parsing out the CHG ancestry that those 2 studies documented, and thus by extension better model EEF, WHG, EHG, CHG/Iran Neolithic, etc. type admixture. So I just want to be clear where I am in this discussion and where I am not. Since the samples in this recent study included 3 Southern Regions (1 of them from Sicily) to model the Southern Italian admixture that was presented earlier in the thread (Table S1), I would have hoped that Sazzini et al 2020 would have done a better job parsing out what was in the Near East (91%) of the Major Source Ancestry in the Southern Italian samples (68% Major). What are the damn components in the 91% Near East? pardon me. Not taking into account what both Raveane et al and Antonio et al documented (Anatolian EEF, CHG and Iran Neolithic) to me was a weakness of their study and a failure on the editorial and review process of the journal that published the study

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## real expert

> These are the participants of the Portuguese big brother. Nothing particularly light or dark by Southern European standards. Lighter or darker people than usual can be brought in anywhere in Europe, but some stereotypes are suitable for some people's personal fantasies. 
> 
> 
> 
> I cannot say that this is the case, but some northern Italians are unable to overcome the fact that they are not genetically north of the Iberians despite centuries of Moorish political domination in Iberia. Somehow they try to compensate for the discomfort by feeding stereotypes about pigmentation as much as the Iberians and the Italians are within the usual for southern Europe and really significant changes in phenotype are from Paris upwards. Iberians, northern Italians and French have more in common than differences. The intrigue is completely meaningless.
> 
> Unfortunately, some northern Italians are known to have this type of complex even with their closest countrymen from central or southern Italy. But I still believe that most do not have this type of complex and they know that they are not Austrians - and even if they were: it would not be any kind of pride or demerit to the point of reacting badly to any association with everything that is from the south.


Northern Italians, the local ones may not be more Northern when going by their genotype but phenotypically they are more Northern looking than Iberians. When I visited the different Northern Italian regions I was surprised to see pretty many Germanic looking Northern Italians. Don't get me wrong I don't mistake Italians with blond hair and blue eyes for Germanic looking since many with light pigmentation still look typical Italian when going by their facial features. Hence I know what I'm talking about. However, Iberians with the real Germanic look are very rare. Besides, I remember vividly how some Spaniards/Iberians on a certain forum pretend to be closer to Celts from Britain than to other Southern Europeans. So there are Iberians that bash Italians and vise versa.
The bottom line Italians, Iberians, Greeks are one of the most trolled people on the internet, just look at Quora. Furthermore, among Southern Europeans, Italians have the highest frequency of blue eyes from what I have observed from real-life experience. 

People here talk a lot about Nordicism that is not relevant in Germany or Scandinavia at all. I was staggered by the fact that many Nordicists are not even German or Swedes. My American friends told me that they have encountered plenty of Mexicans in the USA who told them that their European ancestors were all blond, blued eyed, and tall Nordic people. Geez. On another forum a Mexican user couldn't emphasize enough ho much European admixed Mexicans are and that many of them are blue-eyed and blond. The thing is that those who obsess with the Nordic look are actually neither Germans nor Scandinavians but often Southern Europeans, people from the Balkan, Eastern Europe, or even Non-whites. On the contrary in Scandinavia and Germany dark skin and dark hair are considered highly desirable while the Nordic look is viewed as boring, nothing special, and out.

----------


## ThirdTerm

> Environmental conditions characterized by a mean value of annual solar radiation nearly double with respect to Northern Italy [89] might have played a role in the evolution of S_ITA-specific selection signatures at FZD/Wnt genes that are involved in melanogenesis (Fig. 4). In fact, being responsible for basal and ultraviolet (UV)-induced melanin production, melanocytes expressing these genes represent a frontline defense against harmful UV-B radiation. FZD genes found to have adaptively evolved in S_ITA act as receptors of Wnt protein ligands that showed comparable selection signatures and regulate the expression of the microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) [90]. By controlling pigmentation genes (e.g., TYR, TYRP1, and TYRP2), MITF is the main modulator of melanogenesis in response to environmental stimuli and was also proposed to exert an oncogenic role in several skin cancers [91]. This might explain the involvement of the identified FZD/Wnt genes under selection in the basal cell carcinoma pathway. Overall, these selective events could have mediated adaptations of S_ITA ancestors aimed at preventing skin micronutrient photodegradation and/or impairment of sweat gland-mediated thermoregulation due to UV damage [92]. Because substantial UV exposure represents the main risk factor for developing basal cell carcinoma and other types of skin malignancies, these adaptive mechanisms might have also indirectly contributed to reduce the predisposition of modern S_ITA to such diseases (Fig. 4). This hypothesis seems to be in agreement with the almost halved incidence of melanomas reported for Southern Italian regions with respect to northern ones [93].


The environmental explanation completely overlooks the fact that the ancestors of S_ITA were ancient Romans, while the ancestors of N_ITA were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Roman Empire. In the northernmost part of Italy, the percentage of blonde hair is 20-25% because the ancestors of N_ITA settled mostly in northern Italy, and kept themselves largely apart from the Roman population. Environmental adaptations of S_ITA ancestors to prevent UV damage could not have been completed in the last 1,600 years after the sack of Rome in 410 A.D., then differentiating themselves from N_ITA ancestors based on differing values of annual solar radiation.







> So far, the Langobards are all R1b U-106. Other groups may have carried some I. Even if you add both of them together, the percentages even in Northern Italy are very low.
> 
> As for this small population being responsible for the higher proportion of blondes in the north, I don't think that's necessarily the case, although I'm sure there was some influence. We know from ancient dna that some of the Italics were lighter haired and eyed, although not the majority, perhaps, and the Gauls certainly had a fair share of light haired and eyed people as well. The people of the northern Apennines tend to have a certain percentage of blondes and redheads, and while Gauls settled there, the Germanics did not.




It was an oversimplification and the northern genetic influence in the N_ITA population is actually less than 20% (green). Both Italian population groups also share similar proportions of DNA segments (purple) with Sardinians (N_ITA, 48%; S_ITA, 43%), which may point to a complex history of admixture in northern Italy as it is shown in Figure 1. 



Fig.1 - Clustering analysis and inference of admixture proportions performed on the “high-density Euro-Mediterranean dataset”. a fineSTRUCTURE hierarchical clustering reporting population clusters defined by collapsing branches of the obtained dendrogram that split with a posterior probability lower than 80%. N_ITA formed a cluster with Iberians and continental Balkan individuals from Bulgaria and Albania (C_Balkans). b Percentages of chromosome chunks shared between Italian and Euro-Mediterranean population clusters obtained with CHROMOPAINTER. Painting profiles showed in the pie charts are color-coded according to the palette used for fineSTRUCTURE clusters. c Ancestry proportions of the Italian population clusters inferred with the GLOBETROTTER pipeline from CHROMOPAINTER outputs. For each cluster, the bar on the left represents the major source of admixture, while the bar on the right represents the minor one. For details on the different subcomponents of these admixture sources, see Additional file 1: Table S1. To infer potentially different mixing proportions of N_ITA e S_ITA groups with respect to the other identified population clusters, all Euro-Mediterranean individuals were considered as recipients, while the two Italian groups were excluded from the donors. Admixture proportions showed in the bar charts are color-coded according to the palette used for the fineSTRUCTURE clusters.

----------


## Angela

> Angela: For clarification purposes and in the context of addressing you as moderator/advisor, my issue was clearly *why didn't Sazzini et al 2020 take into account Raveane et al 2019 and Antonio et al 2019 and not do a better job of parsing out the CHG ancestry that those 2 studies documented, and thus by extension better model EEF, WHG, EHG, CHG/Iran Neolithic, etc. type admixture.* So I just want to be clear where I am in this discussion and where I am not. Since the samples in this recent study included 3 Southern Regions (1 of them from Sicily) to model the Southern Italian admixture that was presented earlier in the thread (Table S1), I would have hoped that Sazzini et al 2020 would have done a better job parsing out what was in the Near East (91%) of the Major Source Ancestry in the Southern Italian samples (68% Major). What are the damn components in the 91% Near East? pardon me. Not taking into account what both Raveane et al and Antonio et al documented (Anatolian EEF, CHG and Iran Neolithic) to me was a weakness of their study and a failure on the editorial and review process of the journal that published the study


So I said in one of the first posts on this thread. 

This group is doing an autosomal analysis of modern Italians using other modern populations to model them. That is an essentially flawed approach, in my opinion, because the dating programs are inaccurate, and so it cannot tell you when certain ancestry arrived in location X.

If they did wish to do that, they should at least, imo, have incorporated what we know from ancient dna. That might have led them to realize there were real problems with their analysis, and they might have made adjustments in order to get a more accurate picture.

I was also responding to Torzio's claim that it is "outdated" to use these components when, in fact, they are essential in any analysis of ancient dna. Of course, they aren't using ancient dna, which, to circle back to the beginning, is the problem.

----------


## Palermo Trapani

> So I said in one of the first posts on this thread. 
> 
> This group is doing an autosomal analysis of modern Italians using other modern populations to model them. That is an essentially flawed approach, in my opinion, because the dating programs are inaccurate, and so it cannot tell you when certain ancestry arrived in location X.
> 
> If they did wish to do that, they should at least, imo, have incorporated what we know from ancient dna. That might have led them to realize there were real problems with their analysis, and they might have made adjustments in order to get a more accurate picture.
> 
> I was also responding to Torzio's claim that it is "outdated" to use these components when, in fact, they are essential in any analysis of ancient dna. Of course, they aren't using ancient dna, which, to circle back to the beginning, is the problem.


Ok thanks. I was just wanting to be clear I was in favor of using ancient components and where my position was since there were a few posts where Torzio and I were responding back and forth (all respectfully on both parts). These threads get long sometimes and it is hard to remember what was said and when. I will peel back to the first page of posts and re-read your earlier ones. And between this thread and the one on Sicily-Pre Greek colonization, my darn head is spinning trying to remember what I said since these 2 for me are sort of overlapping. Thanks again.

----------


## Angela

> The environmental explanation completely overlooks the fact that the ancestors of S_ITA were ancient Romans, while *the ancestors of N_ITA were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Roman Empire.* In the northernmost part of Italy, the percentage of blonde hair is 20-25% because the ancestors of N_ITA settled mostly in northern Italy, and kept themselves largely apart from the Roman population. Environmental adaptations of S_ITA ancestors to prevent UV damage could not have been completed in the last 1,600 years after the sack of Rome in 410 A.D.


I don't know where you got this impression, but it is completely incorrect, as numerous lines of investigation show. 

First of all, any analysis of samples from Lombardia or the Veneto, and perhaps even more so, Piemonte, shows that Northern Italians are extremely high in EEF, and have a good chunk of Iran Neo as well. Yes, they have steppe as well, but at lower levels than are present in Central and northwestern Europe, and those percentages are a total of all the central European migrations into the Italian peninsula, from the Ligures and the Italics and the Veneti, then on to the Gauls of the first millennium BC, and finally, yes, the Langobards, but the Langobards are the least significant, as we know from an analysis of the y dna. 

So far, the Langobards are all R1b U-106. Other groups may have carried some I. Even if you add both of them together, the percentages even in Northern Italy are very low. 

All of this makes sense given that the Langobards numbered about 60,000 people in a peninsula of millions of people. Even if they were concentrated in the North, which they were, and if there had been some de-population, which there was, there weren't enough of them to make big changes in the gene pool. Theirs was an elite take over. There weren't enough of them even to change the language, and they couldn't impose their form of Christianity either. 

As for this small population being responsible for the higher proportion of blondes in the north, I don't think that's necessarily the case, although I'm sure there was some influence. We know from ancient dna that some of the Italics were lighter haired and eyed, although not the majority, perhaps, and the Gauls certainly had a fair share of light haired and eyed people as well. The people of the northern Apennines tend to have a certain percentage of blondes and redheads, and while Gauls settled there, the Germanics did not. 

Who the Romans were genetically is time dependent. We have the dna of the Republican Era Romans, the "founders", and they were somewhere between modern North Italians and Iberians, so not very classical Greek like, but certainly Southern European like. However, by 650 BC we have a Roman tribesmen who already showed an increase of Iran Neo lke ancestry, and by 350 BC we have one who is very much like modern Greeks from Crete.

You might want to familiarize yourself with Raveane et al and Antonio et al.

----------


## torzio

> Northern Italians, the local ones may not be more Northern when going by their genotype but phenotypically they are more Northern looking than Iberians. When I visited the different Northern Italian regions I was surprised to see pretty many Germanic looking Northern Italians. Don't get me wrong I don't mistake Italians with blond hair and blue eyes for Germanic looking since many with light pigmentation still look typical Italian when going by their facial features. Hence I know what I'm talking about. However, Iberians with the real Germanic look are very rare. Besides, I remember vividly how some Spaniards/Iberians on a certain forum pretend to be closer to Celts from Britain than to other Southern Europeans. So there are Iberians that bash Italians and vise versa.
> The bottom line Italians, Iberians, Greeks are one of the most trolled people on the internet, just look at Quora. Furthermore, among Southern Europeans, Italians have the highest frequency of blue eyes from what I have observed from real-life experience. 
> 
> People here talk a lot about Nordicism that is not relevant in Germany or Scandinavia at all. I was staggered by the fact that many Nordicists are not even German or Swedes. My American friends told me that they have encountered plenty of Mexicans in the USA who told them that their European ancestors were all blond, blued eyed, and tall Nordic people. Geez. On another forum a Mexican user couldn't emphasize enough ho much European admixed Mexicans are and that many of them are blue-eyed and blond. The thing is that those who obsess with the Nordic look are actually neither Germans nor Scandinavians but often Southern Europeans, people from the Balkan, Eastern Europe, or even Non-whites. On the contrary in Scandinavia and Germany dark skin and dark hair are considered highly desirable while the Nordic look is viewed as boring, nothing special, and out.


are you confusing the terms for North-italy ............do you mean Noric ?

The *Noric race* (German: _Norische Rasse_) was a racial category. The term derived from Noricum, a province of the Roman Empire roughly equivalent to southern Austria and northern Slovenia. *The term is not to be confused with Nordic.* 

Norics were characterized by tall stature, brachycephaly, nasal convexity, long face and broad forehead. Their complexion was said to be light, and blondness combined with light eyes to be their anthropologic characteristic.[5]


Veneti evolved with the indigenous Euganei peoples of modern Veneto and Friuli circa 1150BC , the euganei are "first cousins " of the Rhaeti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euganei
The Euganei are part of the Polada Culture and maybe even the Este Culture

----------


## Regio X

> Northern Italians, the local ones may not be more Northern when going by their genotype but phenotypically they are more Northern looking than Iberians. When I visited the different Northern Italian regions I was surprised to see pretty many Germanic looking Northern Italians. Don't get me wrong I don't mistake Italians with blond hair and blue eyes for Germanic looking since many with light pigmentation still look typical Italian when going by their facial features. Hence I know what I'm talking about. However, Iberians with the real Germanic look are very rare. Besides, I remember vividly how some Spaniards/Iberians on a certain forum pretend to be closer to Celts from Britain than to other Southern Europeans. So there are Iberians that bash Italians and vise versa.
> The bottom line Italians, Iberians, Greeks are one of the most trolled people on the internet, just look at Quora. Furthermore, among Southern Europeans, Italians have the highest frequency of blue eyes from what I have observed from real-life experience. 
> People here talk a lot about Nordicism that is not relevant in Germany or Scandinavia at all. I was staggered by the fact that many Nordicists are not even German or Swedes. My American friends told me that they have encountered plenty of Mexicans in the USA who told them that their European ancestors were all blond, blued eyed, and tall Nordic people. Geez. On another forum a Mexican user couldn't emphasize enough ho much European admixed Mexicans are and that many of them are blue-eyed and blond. The thing is that those who obsess with the Nordic look are actually neither Germans nor Scandinavians but often Southern Europeans, people from the Balkan, Eastern Europe, or even Non-whites. On the contrary in Scandinavia and Germany dark skin and dark hair are considered highly desirable while the Nordic look is viewed as boring, nothing special, and out.


Most people don't really care about pigmentation and other stuff such being less or more "European", thankfully. Many have just a more "technical" interest on pigmentation, or intellectual curiosity. But I agree that there're few Southern Europeans obsessed with this subject, and so are few Northern Europeans, yes; generally some immature young men, but there must be exceptions.

Well, that said, here we go. There're certainly variations within North Italy itself in phenotype. When it comes to genotype, admixture is one perspective. There is also the actual genetic distance/Fst between populations. So, perhaps the table below helps to dissolve the "dichotomy"? It comes from the paper The Italian genome reflects the history of Europe and the Mediterranean basin. See: n.it, c.it, ibe, fra, ceu, gbr etc.



Perhaps an explanation would be possible even under the perspective of admixture, if we consider selective process and timing. I mean, we've to keep in mind that these "light" traits were uncommon in all ancient populations, and that they become more frequent through selection (more in some areas, less in others). We associate them to certain modern populations, and that may be misleading in this case. So, I wonder if it's possible that what you observed could be explained also by the fact that the relevant "conditions" that shifted North Italians towards North (in a modern perspective) were more recent than those that shifted Iberia (beginning from Neolithic, if Bicicleur is right in saying that Iberian farmers had more WHG than Central European/North Italian farmers). It would mean that, when Steppe-rich folks arrived in Iberia to add up with farmers and WHGs, the selective process was in an earlier stage, at the same time that "later" migrations from Central Europe haven't had the same impact over Iberians than they had over North Italians, and also at the same time that selective process in Iberia itself was not that strong (as it was in Central Europe), due to geographical reasons. On the other hand, when these pops Angela just listed reached Italy, some selection has already been done. Perhaps it helps to explain it too?
Finally, still regarding this perspective, Iberians must get extra-WHG compared to Bergamo, and fewer extra-CHG/Iran. The former component is weak in "West Asians", so it's naturally more strongly related to the North in some of these tools, even if indirectly, while the latter is shared with "West Asians", being Southern or Northern depending on the other components associated. The CHG/Iran in Steppe must be associated to North, but the extra-CHG/Iran must be Southern. That's possibly why other people such Romanians may plot South as well (if the North reference is not East Europe), compared to Iberians. Some Westerners (such S. English and N. Spanish) may even plot closer to each other than to Easterners, depending on the PCA. 
Possibly there're other components involved, of course, and not just these two.

----------


## torzio

> Most people don't really care about pigmentation and other stuff such being less or more "European", thankfully. Many have just a more "technical" interest on pigmentation, or intellectual curiosity. But I agree that there're few Southern Europeans obsessed with this subject, and so are few Northern Europeans, yes; generally some immature young men, but there must be exceptions.
> Well, that said, here we go. There're certainly variations within North Italy itself in phenotype. When it comes to genotype, admixture is one perspective. There is also the actual genetic distance/Fst between populations. So, perhaps the table below helps to dissolve the "dichotomy"? It comes from the paper The Italian genome reflects the history of Europe and the Mediterranean basin. See: n.it, c.it, ibe, fra, ceu, gbr etc.
> 
> Perhaps an explanation would be possible even under the perspective of admixture, if we consider selective process and timing. I mean, we've to keep in mind that these "light" traits were uncommon in all ancient populations, and that they become more frequent through selection (more in some areas, less in others). We associate them to certain modern populations, and that may be misleading in this case. So, I wonder if it's possible that what you observed could be explained also by the fact that the relevant "conditions" that shifted North Italians towards North (in a modern perspective) were more recent than those that shifted Iberia (beginning from Neolithic, if Bicicleur is right in saying that Iberian farmers had more WHG than Central European/North Italian farmers). It would mean that, when Steppe-rich folks arrived in Iberia to add up with farmers and WHGs, the selective process was in an earlier stage, at the same time that "later" migrations from Central Europe haven't had the same impact over Iberians than they had over North Italians, and also at the same time that selective process in Iberia itself was not that strong (as it was in Central Europe), due to geographical reasons. On the other hand, when these pops Angela just listed reached Italy, some selection has already been done. Perhaps it helps to explain it too?
> Finally, still regarding this perspective, Iberians must get extra-WHG compared to Bergamo, and fewer extra-CHG/Iran. The former component is weak in "West Asians", so it's naturally more strongly related to the North in some of these tools, even if indirectly, while the latter is shared with "West Asians", being Southern or Northern depending on the other components associated. The CHG/Iran in Steppe must be associated to North, but the extra-CHG/Iran must be Southern. That's possibly why other people such Romanians may plot South as well (if the North reference is not East Europe), compared to Iberians. Some Westerners (such S. English and N. Spanish) may even plot closer to each other than to Easterners, depending on the PCA. 
> Possibly there're other components involved, of course, and not just these two.


that paper was not treated well because nearly all the adriatic side italians where excluded ...................IIRC , the author wanted to point out an iberian connection with Italy, be it a non-adriatic side

----------


## Regio X

> that paper was not treated well because nearly all the adriatic side italians where excluded ...................IIRC , the author wanted to point out an iberian connection with Italy, be it a non-adriatic side


Hmm... I don't know how the paper itself was treated, but I'm affraid the fact that Eastern parts of Italy were not well covered doesn't change the point, even if more coverage is generally a good thing. At the end it's an additional attempt on my side to make sense of these differences between Iberians and N. Italians when it comes to certain traits, using actual genetic distance. Se non è vero, è bene trovato. :) The paper was discussed here more deeply. 
Perhaps these genetic distances are somehow related to this "timing" I mentioned in my previous post?

Finally, as a side note, I'd say that even some admixture tool may reinforce this notion, depending on how it was built. An example is perhaps the similarity map based on K36 (see post here), with huge fragmentation of clusters. My own results show a certain overlap between N. Italy and vicinities (likely due to natural contacts along history) - including C. Italy, obviously -, but certainly contained by the Alps, an important genetic barrier. That's also why North Italy is into Italian cline in the first place, not in another cline. :)
By the way, interesting to notice that both the mentioned similarity map and the table of genetic distance I posted above evidence N. Italians and C. Italians are pretty close to each other, more than to Iberians, for example. It may be not in agreement with certain admixture tools. Those which shows Tuscans as the closest for N. Italians are likely right.
ED: Angela commented some times that the major gap happens from C. Italy to S. Italy, which is also shown by these tools above.

----------


## torzio

> Hmm... I don't know how the paper itself was treated, but I'm affraid the fact that Eastern parts of Italy were not well covered doesn't change the point, even if more coverage is generally a good thing. At the end it's an additional attempt on my side to make sense of these differences between Iberians and N. Italians when it comes to certain traits, using actual genetic distance. Se non è vero, è bene trovato. :) The paper was discussed here more deeply. 
> Perhaps these genetic distances are somehow related to this "timing" I mentioned in my previous post?
> Finally, as a side note, I'd say that even some admixture tool may reinforce this notion, depending on how it was built. An example is perhaps the similarity map based on K36 (see post here), with huge fragmentation of clusters. My own results show a certain overlap between N. Italy and vicinities (likely due to natural contacts along history) - including C. Italy, obviously -, but certainly contained by the Alps, an important genetic barrier. That's also why North Italy is into Italian cline in the first place, not in another cline. :)
> By the way, interesting to notice that both the mentioned similarity map and the table of genetic distance I posted above evidence N. Italians and C. Italians are pretty close to each other, more than to Iberians, for example. It may be not in agreement with certain admixture tools. Those which shows Tuscans as the closest for N. Italians are likely right.
> ED: Angela commented some times that the major gap happens from C. Italy to S. Italy, which is also shown by these tools above.


I cannot see it

here is mine .................not much diversity for me



is K36 too much to be reliable?

the alpine people of france , italy, swiss, austrian etc are mostly all similar ............if they create an admixture of only alpine peoples, then one can at least see differences, but no, everyone wants to use nationalistic borders for admixture results...............fine, nations began after 1750 , why are we using national theories for pre 17 century results

----------


## Jovialis

> Hmm... I don't know how the paper itself was treated, but I'm affraid the fact that Eastern parts of Italy were not well covered doesn't change the point, even if more coverage is generally a good thing. At the end it's an additional attempt on my side to make sense of these differences between Iberians and N. Italians when it comes to certain traits, using actual genetic distance. Se non è vero, è bene trovato. :) The paper was discussed here more deeply. 
> Perhaps these genetic distances are somehow related to this "timing" I mentioned in my previous post?
> 
> Finally, as a side note, I'd say that even some admixture tool may reinforce this notion, depending on how it was built. An example is perhaps the similarity map based on K36 (see post here), with huge fragmentation of clusters. My own results show a certain overlap between N. Italy and vicinities (likely due to natural contacts along history) - including C. Italy, obviously -, but certainly contained by the Alps, an important genetic barrier. That's also why North Italy is into Italian cline in the first place, not in another cline. :)
> By the way, interesting to notice that both the mentioned similarity map and the table of genetic distance I posted above evidence N. Italians and C. Italians are pretty close to each other, more than to Iberians, for example. It may be not in agreement with certain admixture tools. Those which shows Tuscans as the closest for N. Italians are likely right.
> ED: Angela commented some times that the major gap happens from C. Italy to S. Italy, which is also shown by these tools above.


Actually according to Raveane et al. 2019, Central Italians are closer to Southern Italians. However, Tuscans cluster with Northern Italians.




> A sharp north-south division in cluster distribution was detected, the separation between northern and southern areas being shifted north along the peninsula (Fig. 1B) (12). The reported structure dismissed the possibility that the Central Italian populations differentiated from the Northern and Southern Italian groups (Fig. 1A) (13). Individuals from Central Italy were, in fact, assigned mostly to the Southern Italian clusters, except for samples from Tuscany, which grouped instead with the Northern Italian clusters (Fig. 1, A and B) (12). Contrary to previous results, no outliers were detected among the Northern Italian clusters (12).
> 
> https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/9/eaaw3492.full

----------


## Regio X

> I cannot see it
> 
> here is mine .................not much diversity for me
> 
> 
> 
> is K36 too much to be reliable?
> 
> the alpine people of france , italy, swiss, austrian etc are mostly all similar ............if they create an admixture of only alpine peoples, then one can at least see differences, but no, everyone wants to use nationalistic borders for admixture results...............fine, nations began after 1750 , why are we using national theories for pre 17 century results


It's just one more reference, a subsidiary tool to add up to the table, with the difference that the genetic similarity map is an "amateur" one. It'd be kind of an improved Oracle with so many clusters, but at the expense of their individual meaning. 
I'm not discussing politics. Notice that you're closer to Tuscans than to Iberians and Central Europeans according also to this tool, and so am I. The exception is my mother, but I trust more on the non-amateur tool anyway. I'd like to check her also in Dodecad.
Additionally, you seem to share something more with the vicinities, yes. Especially with part of France, Switzerland, Austrian Tyrol/South Germany...

Admixture and genetic distance are different things; both have their use and limitations. The former is useful to break down ancestry, for example. 
I mean, if you married an English woman and had a child with her, you'd be closer to other North Italians than to this child in ancestry, right? However, you'd be still closer to your child genetically, in absolute terms.





> >=85; >= 80; >=75; >=70; >= 60; >=50. Roughly.

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## Regio X

> Actually according to Raveane et al. 2019, Central Italians are closer to Southern Italians. However, Tuscans cluster with Northern Italians.


Thanks, Jovialis. So it "more or less" corresponds to the maps above.

I wonder if c.it means Tuscans in Fiorito et al. then. If not, who are they? (I'll check later.)

----------


## Angela

> Most people don't really care about pigmentation and other stuff such being less or more "European", thankfully. Many have just a more "technical" interest on pigmentation, or intellectual curiosity. But I agree that there're few Southern Europeans obsessed with this subject, and so are few Northern Europeans, yes; generally some immature young men, but there must be exceptions.
> Well, that said, here we go. There're certainly variations within North Italy itself in phenotype. When it comes to genotype, admixture is one perspective. There is also the actual genetic distance/Fst between populations. So, perhaps the table below helps to dissolve the "dichotomy"? It comes from the paper The Italian genome reflects the history of Europe and the Mediterranean basin. See: n.it, c.it, ibe, fra, ceu, gbr etc.
> 
> Perhaps an explanation would be possible even under the perspective of admixture, if we consider selective process and timing. I mean, we've to keep in mind that these "light" traits were uncommon in all ancient populations, and that they become more frequent through selection (more in some areas, less in others). We associate them to certain modern populations, and that may be misleading in this case. So, I wonder if it's possible that what you observed could be explained also by the fact that the relevant "conditions" that shifted North Italians towards North (in a modern perspective) were more recent than those that shifted Iberia (beginning from Neolithic, if Bicicleur is right in saying that Iberian farmers had more WHG than Central European/North Italian farmers). It would mean that, when Steppe-rich folks arrived in Iberia to add up with farmers and WHGs, the selective process was in an earlier stage, at the same time that "later" migrations from Central Europe haven't had the same impact over Iberians than they had over North Italians, and also at the same time that selective process in Iberia itself was not that strong (as it was in Central Europe), due to geographical reasons. On the other hand, when these pops Angela just listed reached Italy, some selection has already been done. Perhaps it helps to explain it too?
> Finally, still regarding this perspective, Iberians must get extra-WHG compared to Bergamo, and fewer extra-CHG/Iran. The former component is weak in "West Asians", so it's naturally more strongly related to the North in some of these tools, even if indirectly, while the latter is shared with "West Asians", being Southern or Northern depending on the other components associated. The CHG/Iran in Steppe must be associated to North, but the extra-CHG/Iran must be Southern. That's possibly why other people such Romanians may plot South as well (if the North reference is not East Europe), compared to Iberians. Some Westerners (such S. English and N. Spanish) may even plot closer to each other than to Easterners, depending on the PCA. 
> Possibly there're other components involved, of course, and not just these two.


It's good to be reminded that there are other tools besides Admixture and the newer statistical measures, but fst is a more "blunt" tool imo.

It does, of course, show overall genetic similarity. My usual take away from looking at it, though, is how similar most Europeans are to one another. :)

Be that as it may, I definitely think and have previously said that the extra WHG in Spain, which was present even in the Neolithic, and the fact they have less CHG/Iran Neo is what makes them plot slightly "north" of Italians. You can see it on any PCA.

----------


## Regio X

> It's good to be reminded that there are other tools besides Admixture and the newer statistical measures, *but fst is a more "blunt" tool imo*.
> 
> It does, of course, show overall genetic similarity. My usual take away from looking at it, though, is how similar most Europeans are to one another. :)
> 
> Be that as it may, I definitely think and have previously said that the extra WHG in Spain, which was present even in the Neolithic, and the fact they have less CHG/Iran Neo is what makes them plot slightly "north" of Italians. You can see it on any PCA.


Yes, fst won't break down ancestry given a timeframe. Not its goal. That's something to other tools do. It just provides a raw genetic distance.

Indeed, Europeans seem very similar to each other genetically. Physical traits, for example, may distract us from this fact. :)

----------


## Angela

> It's just one more reference, a subsidiary tool to add up to the table, with the difference that the genetic similarity map is an "amateur" one. It'd be kind of an improved Oracle with so many clusters, but at the expense of their individual meaning. 
> I'm not discussing politics. Notice that you're closer to Tuscans than to Iberians and Central Europeans according also to this tool, and so am I. The exception is my mother, but I trust more on the non-amateur tool anyway. I'd like to check her also in Dodecad.
> Additionally, you seem to share something more with the vicinities, yes. Especially with part of France, Switzerland, Austrian Tyrol/South Germany...
> Admixture and genetic distance are different things; both have their use and limitations. The former is useful to break down ancestry, for example. 
> I mean, if you married an English woman and had a child with her, you'd be closer to other North Italians than to this child in ancestry, right? However, you'd be still closer to your child genetically, in absolute terms.


Yours makes it look like "Central" Italy begins in southern Toscana and goes to the border of Campania? That might be pretty accurate.

It was Novembre et al, in first talking about genetic "breaks" in Europe, which said there was a pronounced break at the Alps, and a smaller one "just south of Rome". So, in this two part bifurcation, it's just about where the originally Campanian areas of Lazio are located? 

The difficulty with all of this is the population of Lazio itself. In relatively recent times (I don't mean post 1950) wasn't there a very large migration from the Abruzzi into Lazio? That's in addition to the incorporation of former areas of Campania. 

All that complicates our understanding of the more ancient borders.

"Central Italy" might have become more "southern" relatively recently.

I wish we had more samples from Umbria. That might clarify matters. Are they more like Tuscans or more like Lazio?

The one thing that is clear is that Toscana is more related to northern Italy, and I think that increases the more north in Toscana you go. At the end, I don't think there's probably much difference between some Tuscans and some Romagnoli.

----------


## Ailchu

> With respect to modern Youth, yes, your description is accurate. Not sure how many young people today know how or are capable to sit down and read a book. As for the politics of modern Italy, well I can't speak directly to that but there is a line of thinking in terms of language used in some of this genetic research that has lets see if I can say it as civilly as possible, has suggestions that the authors have strong EU/NGO/open border ideology. But EU/NGO/open border are political issues so I will stop here on that front.


why that? can you explain why for example the use of the term "near eastern" here is EU/NGO/open border ideology? if the standpoint is that borders should be closed because of genetic difference then i understand why you would think terminology that puts emphasis on genetic similarity could be there because of EU/NGO/open border ideology. else i see no logic behind this. and it's not even wrong terminology it's just that it's a bit broad. it might provocate some people but that's it.

----------


## Palermo Trapani

Ailchu: I am not for open borders anywhere. I have stated that numerous times on the political forums on this site. People crashing borders and demanding legal status in countries not their own is not something I am for. Period. Yes, I understand I am part of the Italian-diaspora, the large number of Italian immigrants that left Italy between 1880 and 1920, mostly from the South of Rome and Sicily, but "all of my Ancestors, again ALL" immigrated through "legal ports of entry in the USA" and have the appropriate documentation as to who they are and where they were from. Nobody left Italy and went to Canada or Mexico and crashed the border. Doing my own research, I have all the ship manifest that documents when my great-grandparents arrived in the USA that were "Required to be given to USA Port and Immigration officials". I am not for open borders that allows migrants to come in to a country and those migrants and immigrants demand the host country conform its culture and history and traditions to the newcomers, often from cultures that are fundamentally different than the country that they illegally immigrate to. None of my ancestors came here and demanded the USA conform its culture to the culture of Sicily and Southern Italy, which would include religion as well. Most Italian immigrants lived in their tight ethnic neighborhoods and kept their family, ethnic, and religious customs that they brought over from the regions they immigrated from but they did not expect nor demand the USA conform its culture to them. They kept their cultural traditions but in the secular world, they integrated and adapted to the broader USA political, social, and economic, legal, etc culture.

I have been through this with you before. I am not for the EU/NGO/UN policies of immigration and migrants nor am I for similar policies in the USA. Period, end of discussion. You want to immigrate to a country or culture not your own, you go through the legal process and legally immigrant, etc, just as what my ancestors did when they immigrated here.

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## Ailchu

@Palermo i didn't want to discuss immigration, i asked why you think that the used terminology in this paper is EU/NGO/open border ideology.

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## Palermo Trapani

> @Palermo i didn't want to discuss immigration, i asked why you think that the used terminology in this paper is EU/NGO/open border ideology.


Ailchu: I think some of the authors when words in the text had some political leanings. That is of course my opinion and I am not saying it is reality. Some of the samples they used for comparison purposes to the ancient Italians could have been better done. Some of the authors in quotes to Science news magazines I think made statements that reflected lets say political leanings consistent with EU/NGO/UN open border policies. Again, reading quotes from the authors like "Moots", and others (most of these are American Academics quoted in the article) the language they use to me indicates political leanings. I don't see what they see in the data, that is this huge turnover in population that these select set of authors find. I see the ancient Romans in the Antonio/Moots et al 2019 paper pretty much clustering between Northern Italy, along with Southern France to Southern Iberia with I think 8 of the 11 Iron Age samples and Southern Italy, with shifts between those 2 points. I don't see in the data ancient Romans ever being shifted anywhere but pretty much along what is modern Italy.

https://www.genengnews.com/news/dna-...mediterranean/

This article has a segment on "Migration is nothing new" and then goes into a discussion about that, etc.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news...romans-0012832


I think there are some authors engaging what in Theological Scholarship is Eisegesis vs. Exegesis, The former being where one has pre-conceived positions and then reads into the text, in the case of Theological scholarship, or in this case reading into the DNA data notions that fit your modern Political leanings. Some of the authors it is my view engaged in Eisegesis although I think there were enough different authors on the paper that it did not go to far to what the likes of Moots wanted to say and Pritchard.

And for the record, I like the Antonio et al 2019 paper, I think overall it was pretty good but some of the text (hmmm) and some of the samples used for comparison purposes (hmm) but more so some of the authors (not all of them not even a majority of them] own quotes to the Scientific press are what caused me to tie in EU/NGO/UN Open border political leanings.

----------


## Jovialis

> Yours makes it look like "Central" Italy begins in southern Toscana and goes to the border of Campania? That might be pretty accurate.
> 
> It was Novembre et al, in first talking about genetic "breaks" in Europe, which said there was a pronounced break at the Alps, and a smaller one "just south of Rome". So, in this two part bifurcation, it's just about where the originally Campanian areas of Lazio are located? 
> 
> The difficulty with all of this is the population of Lazio itself. In relatively recent times (I don't mean post 1950) wasn't there a very large migration from the Abruzzi into Lazio? That's in addition to the incorporation of former areas of Campania. 
> 
> All that complicates our understanding of the more ancient borders.
> 
> *"Central Italy" might have become more "southern" relatively recently.*
> ...


I think there may have been at least some southern Italian-like people in Central Italy, since at least the Iron Age, with samples like R437, and R850. But It probably really ramped up from Medieval times, with samples seen in Villa Magna.

----------


## Regio X

> Yours makes it look like "Central" Italy begins in southern Toscana and goes to the border of Campania? That might be pretty accurate.
> 
> It was Novembre et al, in first talking about genetic "breaks" in Europe, which said there was a pronounced break at the Alps, and a smaller one "just south of Rome". So, in this two part bifurcation, it's just about where the originally Campanian areas of Lazio are located? 
> 
> The difficulty with all of this is the population of Lazio itself. In relatively recent times (I don't mean post 1950) wasn't there a very large migration from the Abruzzi into Lazio? That's in addition to the incorporation of former areas of Campania. 
> 
> All that complicates our understanding of the more ancient borders.
> 
> "Central Italy" might have become more "southern" relatively recently.
> ...


After all these studies, I think it's evident at this point that Tuscans are very close to North Italians, indeed.
Dodecad K12b seems to work well for my parents and I. TSI/Tuscan is presented here as our second pop, after N_Italian (there is this O_Italian in between, but apparently it's not that informative).
Btw, the similarity map is fine. As we discussed in other threads, it just has a big problem with Sardinians (West Med in the calculator) and Basques, due to drift and correspondence between clusters and references.

Concerning Alps, recently I noticed that a far match of my mother, an old woman with all 4 grandparents from San Vito di Cadore-BL, have virtually the same results. So even those people from far North in Veneto are not so different.

I didn't know all these peculiarities about Lazio. Very interesting.

As for Umbria, even Ethnopedia was trying hard to get more results from there. Apparently the region is the most underrepresented in Italy when it comes to genetics. I'm also curious about it.

ED: Still regarding the genetic distance table, I wonder if "aos" has some issue, since it's getting too low values to other pops. It'd be interesting to see more recent tables involving these statistics (including shared IBD segments) for Euro pops.

@Jovialis
I think the impact of South Italian-like was relevant even in North Italy (with Romans), and in other parts of Europe to a lesser extent.

----------


## Ailchu

> Ailchu: I think some of the authors when words in the text had some political leanings. That is of course my opinion and I am not saying it is reality. Some of the samples they used for comparison purposes to the ancient Italians could have been better done. Some of the authors in quotes to Science news magazines I think made statements that reflected lets say political leanings consistent with EU/NGO/UN open border policies. Again, reading quotes from the authors like "Moots", and others (most of these are American Academics quoted in the article) the language they use to me indicates political leanings. I don't see what they see in the data, that is this huge turnover in population that these select set of authors find. I see the ancient Romans in the Antonio/Moots et al 2019 paper pretty much clustering between Northern Italy, along with Southern France to Southern Iberia with I think 8 of the 11 Iron Age samples and Southern Italy, with shifts between those 2 points. I don't see in the data ancient Romans ever being shifted anywhere but pretty much along what is modern Italy.
> 
> https://www.genengnews.com/news/dna-...mediterranean/
> 
> This article has a segment on "Migration is nothing new" and then goes into a discussion about that, etc.
> 
> https://www.ancient-origins.net/news...romans-0012832
> 
> 
> ...


you still couldn't explain why exactly the used terminology here should be indicating EU/NGO/open border ideology for you. about Pritchards words, migration really is nothing new, it always happened. we didn't need the moots paper about rome to know this.

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## Jovialis

> you still couldn't explain why exactly the used terminology here should be indicating EU/NGO/open border ideology for you. about Pritchards words, migration really is nothing new, it always happened. we didn't need the moots paper about rome to know this.


So when local populations are conquered by invaders, they should just tell one another, "Oh well, nothing new."?

More often than not, these "migrations", we read about in human population genetics, are done by means of conquest.

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## Ailchu

> So when local populations are conquered by invaders, they should just tell one another, "Oh well, nothing new."?
> 
> More often than not, these "migrations", we read about in human population genetics, are done by means of conquest.


of course not but who is conquered by which invaders? you are starting way too extreme. for example beeing against migration of different people just because they look different is far away from defence against a real invasion. migration and mixing is nothing unusual in human history and as a consequence we are all mixed. stating this fact has nothing to do with modern border politics for most people. only for some special ones like the identitarians it has a lot to do with each other but speaking against these ideologies doesn't mean that you are for open borders.

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## Palermo Trapani

> you still couldn't explain why exactly the used terminology here should be indicating EU/NGO/open border ideology for you. about Pritchards words, migration really is nothing new, it always happened. we didn't need the moots paper about rome to know this.


I have said all I am going to say on this particular subject in this thread. 

Best regards to you and yours.

----------


## Ailchu

is this also open border ideology?

"The village of Sumte, population 102, had to take in 750 asylum seekers. Most villagers swung into action, in keeping with Germanys strong _Willkommenskultur_, or welcome culture. But one self-described neo-Nazi on the district council told _The New York Times_ that by allowing the influx, the German people faced the destruction of our genetic heritage and risked becoming a gray mishmash. 
*In fact, the German people have no unique genetic heritage to protect. Theyand all other Europeansare already a mishmash, the children of repeated ancient migrations, according to scientists who study ancient human origins.
New studies show that almost all indigenous Europeans descend from at least three major migrations in the past 15,000 years, including two from the Middle East.* 
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...or-anyone-else

or this?
*Genetic tests of ancient settlers' remains show that Europe is a melting pot of bloodlines from Africa, the Middle East, and today's Russia.*


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/c...sting-feature/


no it's not, it's just reality. it has nothing to do with modern politics and it mostly hits those who have certain tendencies like that nazi from Sumte.

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## Jovialis

> is this also open border ideology?
> 
> "The village of Sumte, population 102, had to take in 750 asylum seekers. Most villagers swung into action, in keeping with Germany�s strong _Willkommenskultur_, or �welcome culture.� But one self-described neo-Nazi on the district council told _The New York Times_ that by allowing the influx, the German people faced �the destruction of our genetic heritage� and risked becoming �a gray mishmash.� 
> *In fact, the German people have no unique genetic heritage to protect. They�and all other Europeans�are already a mishmash, the children of repeated ancient migrations, according to scientists who study ancient human origins.*
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...or-anyone-else
> 
> or this?
> *Genetic tests of ancient settlers' remains show that Europe is a melting pot of bloodlines from Africa, the Middle East, and today's Russia.*
> 
> ...


Enough with the politics, this is genetics thread, if you want to discuss open borders, take it to an appropriate thread.

Those places have been melting pots since ancient settlers migrated from there. They have developed their own unique cultures as traditions as well, since that time. You can't use this shallow and distorted explanation as an excuse to say that people have no right to their own countries. Or to how they are allowed to govern their own countries. The same could be said for Native Americans, perhaps, since they share ANE ancestry. Why don't you lecture them, as to why they should except European colonists into their land? Perhaps you should lecture Africans, as to why they should except Europeans as well, since there was a Back to Africa migration.

Enough already.

Also, STOP accusing people of extremist positions, or I will give you an infraction, and you will be out of here for some time.

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## Ailchu

ok last comment just need to make clear that i do not think that people have no right for their own countries. why is what i wrote about the fact that europeans are a mishmash with lots of ancestry from near east a "shallow and distorted explanation as an excuse to say that people have no right to their own countries."?
how exactly is this tied together for you? i'll leave it with that. i just can't see what this has to do with "open borders".

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## Palermo Trapani

Aichu: How about we discuss this civilly in the Immigration forum. Not here. Just send me a PM saying your available and I will stop by that forum.

Regards.

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## Jovialis

> ok last comment just need to make clear that i do not think that people have no right for their own countries. why is what i wrote about the fact that europeans are a mishmash with lots of ancestry from near east a "shallow and distorted explanation as an excuse to say that people have no right to their own countries."?
> how exactly is this tied together for you? i'll leave it with that. i just can't see what this has to do with "open borders".


The source populations that make up modern Europeans are different from the modern Middle Eastern populations, genetically, and culturally. Anatolians and Caucasian people from both the Neolithic, and Copper age, are not the same as the post-medieval Middle Easterners. But, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that either. There is indeed some marginal, more recent admixture into Europeans as well. Of course they do share a lot, but they do also have their unique differences. We are all here to learn about the nuances of human population genetics. It is incorrect to make blanket statements that imply that they are the same throughout history. Especially, if inaccurate information is being used to justify political policy. I can't allow that to happen.

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## Ailchu

> The source populations that make up modern Europeans are different from the modern Middle Eastern populations, genetically, and culturally. Anatolians and Caucasian people from both the Neolithic, and Copper age, are not the same as the post-medieval Middle Easterners. But, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that either. There is indeed some marginal, more recent admixture into Europeans as well. Of course they do share a lot, but they do also have their unique differences. We are all here to learn about the nuances of human population genetics. It is incorrect to make blanket statements that imply that they are the same throughout history. Especially, if inaccurate information is being used to justify political policy. I can't allow that to happen.


but can't you see that the logical conclusion from you saying this would be, that you connect border politics with those "unique" ethnic/genetic differences? how else are you going to explain to me that putting emphasis on genetic similarity or mixture is used to justify political policy according to you? because it does not have a connection with politics for me or any other person who does not tie genetics with politics.
is this also political? it's from a paper in the new thread about france.
"Genomes from early European farmers have shown a clear *Near Eastern/Anatolian* genetic affinity with limited contribution from hunter-gatherers."
if so then they shouldn't call farmers "European" either. modern europeans are different genetically and certainly culturally.

and i heard this already so many times, anatolia, neolithic, copper age are not the same as post-medieval middle easterners. what relevance does this particular seperation have in this discussion?

i understand, when i heard from some scientific discussion that migration was always good and brought new innovations and ideas and people started to wonder why there still exists fear of migrants nowadays when migration was actually always so good then it really gets political and also stupid. but here i really just can't see the connection. we should be careful with this i read more and more from people who do not want to believe scientists anymore because they think all they do is politics.so now those were really my last words here.

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## Jovialis

> but can't you see that the logical conclusion from you saying this would be, that you connect border politics with those "unique" ethnic/genetic differences? how else are you going to explain to me that putting emphasis on genetic similarity or mixture is used to justify political policy according to you? because it does not have a connection with politics for me or any other person who does not tie genetics with politics.
> is this also political? it's from a paper in the new thread about france.
> "Genomes from early European farmers have shown a clear *Near Eastern/Anatolian* genetic affinity with limited contribution from hunter-gatherers."
> if so then they shouldn't call farmers "European" either. modern europeans are different genetically and certainly culturally.
> 
> and i heard this already so many times, anatolia, neolithic, copper age are not the same as post-medieval middle easterners. what relevance does this particular seperation have in this discussion?
> 
> i understand, when i heard from some scientific discussion that migration was always good and brought new innovations and ideas and people started to wonder why there still exists fear of migrants nowadays when migration was actually always so good then it really gets political and also stupid. but here i really just can't see the connection. we should be careful with this i read more and more from people who do not want to believe scientists anymore because they think all they do is politics*.so now those were really my last words here.*


Do not play dumb, you should now by now that the Neolithic Anatolians are a component that overlap with all West Eurasians. They are a component of both European, and Middle Eastern heritage. There were no concepts of Europe, or the middle east, culturally or genetically in prehistoric times. There weren't even geographical concepts for them either at that point. They weren't genetically, or culturally Middle Eastern, as we know it today, either. You can use flower and water, to both make a glue, and a loaf of bread. It doesn't mean they turn out to be the same thing.

That better be your last comment on this matter, btw.

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## Palermo Trapani

> but can't you see that the logical conclusion from you saying this would be, that you connect border politics with those "unique" ethnic/genetic differences? how else are you going to explain to me that putting emphasis on genetic similarity or mixture is used to justify political policy according to you? because it does not have a connection with politics for me or any other person who does not tie genetics with politics.
> is this also political? it's from a paper in the new thread about france.
> "Genomes from early European farmers have shown a clear *Near Eastern/Anatolian* genetic affinity with limited contribution from hunter-gatherers."
> if so then they shouldn't call farmers "European" either. modern europeans are different genetically and certainly culturally.
> 
> and i heard this already so many times, anatolia, neolithic, copper age are not the same as post-medieval middle easterners. what relevance does this particular seperation have in this discussion?
> 
> i understand, when i heard from some scientific discussion that migration was always good and brought new innovations and ideas and people started to wonder why there still exists fear of migrants nowadays when migration was actually always so good then it really gets political and also stupid. but here i really just can't see the connection. we should be careful with this i read more and more from people who do not want to believe scientists anymore because they think all they do is politics.so now those were really my last words here.


That statement you quoted is not political. It is a purely scientific statement. And that is talking about populations that are ancient source populations, Hunter Gather vs. Farmer are not modern European ethnic groups, they are source populations for modern European ethnic groups, just with different admixture ratios.

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## Ailchu

> 


that table has some strange values. for example the lowest value is between tur and lit 0.0000. table 3 here makes much more sense, here the relative gap between europe near east is also way lower: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...ntary-material

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## Riverman

> Do not play dumb, you should now by now that the Neolithic Anatolians are a component that overlap with all West Eurasians. They are a component of both European, and Middle Eastern heritage. There were no concepts of Europe, or the middle east, culturally or genetically in prehistoric times. There weren't even geographical concepts for them either at that point. They weren't genetically, or culturally Middle Eastern, as we know it today, either. You can use flower and water, to both make a glue, and a loaf of bread. It doesn't mean they turn out to be the same thing.
> 
> That better be your last comment on this matter, btw.


Completely agree, 60.000 years ago "Europeans" would have been Neandertals and Homo sapiens "Near Easterners". So what? Many ancestral groups to many modern populations lived in different places in the past. "Migrants" in the modern sense of the word practically didn't exist, because people moved as groups, as communities, clans, tribes and people, made alliances or conquests.

----------


## real expert

> are you confusing the terms for North-italy ............do you mean Noric ?
> 
> The *Noric race* (German: _Norische Rasse_) was a racial category. The term derived from Noricum, a province of the Roman Empire roughly equivalent to southern Austria and northern Slovenia. *The term is not to be confused with Nordic.* 
> 
> Norics were characterized by tall stature, brachycephaly, nasal convexity, long face and broad forehead. Their complexion was said to be light, and blondness combined with light eyes to be their anthropologic characteristic.[5]
> 
> 
> Veneti evolved with the indigenous Euganei peoples of modern Veneto and Friuli circa 1150BC , the euganei are "first cousins " of the Rhaeti
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euganei
> The Euganei are part of the Polada Culture and maybe even the Este Culture



I didn't confuse anything. I saw North-Italians who looked like Germans, Scandinavians, and NOT Noric. Please read my comment thoroughly. I said I know the difference between Germanic looking and typical Italian looking people with light hair and eye coloring. For instance; I have seen some Greeks with blondish hair and light eyes who apart from their light pigmentation looked like regular Greeks. 


These blond Sicilian men aside from their light hair and eyes have typical Italian features, especially their eyes. They don't look German.















I'm from Germany I know how typical Germans look like. 

Typical Germans:







Actually, some blonde Italians rather have a Slavic vibe, for instance, Trappatoni. 





However; the Germanic "Barbarians" had some genetic impact on North Italians and here and there it shows up in some Italian‘s people phenotype. Besides Germans were often described as Faelid and rarely as Noric.

----------


## Regio X

> ED: Still regarding the genetic distance table, I wonder if "aos" has some issue, since it's getting too low values to other pops. It'd be interesting to see more recent tables involving these statistics (including shared IBD segments) for Euro pops.





> that table has some strange values. for example the lowest value is between tur and lit 0.0000. table 3 here makes much more sense, here the relative gap between europe near east is also way lower: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...ntary-material


Odd values, indeed. Thanks for finding this alternative. There is another one in Raveane et al., even more recent, but I'm affraid it only compares Italians to other Euro pops (in fst and IBD), nothing more. I'd have to re-check it. As Angela said, it's good to remember sometimes that there are these alternative perspectives.
Anyway, these results for Bergamo mean that my first explanation was likely not good. Maybe the second one was better (in regards to timing and perhaps to the amount of the component that correlated more strongly to this kind of traits in certain historical context). 




> Completely agree, 60.000 years ago "Europeans" would have been Neandertals and Homo sapiens "Near Easterners". So what? Many ancestral groups to many modern populations lived in different places in the past. "Migrants" in the modern sense of the word practically didn't exist, because people moved as groups, as communities, clans, tribes and people, made alliances or conquests.


@Jovialis @Riverman
Plus, some of these components are too old. They evolved from more ancient components, became something else and likely kept changing till now under selective pressure etc. An example would be LP. It was pretty uncommon till "recently", and suffered a huge positive selection in North Europe, regardless of how the different components were combined.




> I didn't confuse anything. I saw North-Italians who looked like Germans, Scandinavians, and NOT Noric. Please read my comment thoroughly. I said I know the difference between Germanic looking and typical Italian looking people with light hair and eye coloring. For instance; I have seen some Greeks with blondish hair and light eyes who apart from their light pigmentation looked like regular Greeks. 
> 
> 
> These blond Sicilian men aside from their light hair and eyes have typical Italian features, especially their eyes. They don't look German.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes. Another example would be this internet friend from my area, full Venetian in ancestry, and completely red headed, with light eyes etc. However, if you ignore these traits specifically, she looks a typical North Italian in my opinion. Indeed, her father, who is also red headed, did a genetic test, and there's nothing different about his results, i.e., he's not too different from most of Venetians (which was expected). He just casually inherited the alleles for these traits.

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## Jovialis

> The source populations that make up modern Europeans are different from the modern Middle Eastern populations, genetically, and culturally. Anatolians and Caucasian people from both the Neolithic, and Copper age, are not the same as the post-medieval Middle Easterners. But, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that either. There is indeed some marginal, more recent admixture into Europeans as well. Of course they do share a lot, but they do also have their unique differences. We are all here to learn about the nuances of human population genetics. It is incorrect to make blanket statements that imply that they are the same throughout history. Especially, if inaccurate information is being used to justify political policy. I can't allow that to happen.


@Regio X, Indeed

We can see now from the recent studies that have come out, that places such as the Levant, also were markedly different from other parts of the middle east. For example half of the admixture of the northern Levantine population was from the previous inhabitants, which differentiated them from the clinal-hybrid of people from Anatolia, and the Caucuses, who were the incoming population. Moreover, there was an extra layer of possibly Mesopotamian-like ancestry that arrived in the late Bronze-age. Furthermore, successive waves of south-eastern European ancestry had come by means of the sea peoples and others. Not to mention all of the subsequent population changes that occurred in the Middle Ages, with the Caliphate, and Sub-Saharan African slavery; the invasion of the Turks, in Anatolia, etc.

Thus, I confidently stand by the fact that just because there is an overlap between Anatolian, and Caucasian people in Europeans, there are marked differences with the "Near East". To suggest otherwise, completely ignores the subsequent changes that have happened, which are well documented. As I said before, we are here not to gloss over, but to understand the nuances of population genetics. Frankly, papers such as the one that this thread is based on paints a shallow and ignorant picture.

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## Angela

Not to be creepy, but who is the handsome blonde Sicilian? 

I'm asking for my daughter. :)

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## Palermo Trapani

> Not to be creepy, but who is the handsome blonde Sicilian? 
> 
> I'm asking for my daughter. :)


For a second I thought he was Guido Caprino, who played the Magistrate in the movie Last God Father and plays Inspector Mannara, the Sicilian Police Chief Inspectorr stationed in a rural town in Tuscany where he find his Deputy Commander, played by Roberta Giarusso (also from Sicily),who is not so happy about him being there (he does not know why) but obviously there is a love interest between the two that becomes known by the end of the show. But Guido has a little darker hair, although maybe it is a younger Guido Caprino. I will defer to Stuvane who in my view is the resident Eupedia expert on Italian TV shows, maybe he knows.

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## Angela

I should have known. They were probably obsessing about him over at someplace like theapricity...

Alessandro D’Avenia, holds a PhD in Classical Literature, and teaches Ancient Greek, Latin and Literature at a high school in Milan. His debut novel, _Bianca come il latte, rossa come il sangue (White as Milk, Red as Blood)_, published by Mondadori in 2010, was translated into more than twenty languages and sold more than one million copies in Italy. A film version was released in 2012. His book, _L’arte di essere fragili (The Art of Being Fragile)_, published by Mondadori in 2016, was number one across all genres in Italy for more than five months and has since sold more than 400,000 copies in hardback. His latest book, _Ogni storia e’ una storia d’amore_ (_Every story is a love story_), published in October 2017, was also number one in the charts. Both these books became bestselling theatre shows directed by Gabriele Vacis. His five books combined have sold 2.5 million copies in Italy alone.

Strikingly handsome and all of that as well; talk about life not being fair. :)

Guido Caprino-also very handsome, and very Italian looking, but in a very different way, a more masculine way to me...what a difference hair makes...like him better with dyed black hair.

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## Palermo Trapani

Angela: Yes, that is Guido Caprino. Very good actor, got to know him via MHZ Rai shows like I mentioned before. Good actor, and yes, I can see why the ladies love him. The Professor D'Avenia sort of looks like Michele Riondino (from Puglia), who played Young Montalbano.

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## Regio X

Other example of how "details" can be a distraction from the actual ancestry is Mario Girotti. He looks North Italian, but his hair must have been painted for movies, along his career, which made him look something else for some people. Perhaps Katia Ricciarelli is another good example too.

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## Angela

^^Different eyes, I guess, see slightly different things.

Mario Girotti's mother was German, and I always thought, as Terence Hill, and still think he looks very German, whether dark haired or light haired.



If someone showed me picture number 1 I'd say Northern Italian. When she was older, I would say maybe Scandinavian.




It does happen; from my father's Apennines: Giuliano Razzano. No doubt where he comes from...




My father's first cousin:


My first cousin once removed i.e. the daughter of my first cousin, and completely Emilian. Now, while I can understand my father's cousin being mistaken for something other than Italian, to me my young cousin looks completely Italian, but Americans don't think so.

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## Regio X

> ^^Different eyes, I guess, see slightly different things.
> 
> Mario Girotti's mother was German, and I always thought, as Terence Hill, and still think he looks very German, whether dark haired or light haired.
> 
> 
> 
> If someone showed me picture number 1 I'd say Northern Italian. When she was older, I would say maybe Scandinavian.
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, I was referring to the younger and "natural" version of Katia Ricciarelli. :) As for Mario, I think he took after his father. Particularly, I see more Italian than German on him. Don't you think so looking to these pictures below?





Anyway I'm not great in identifying ethnicity. :)

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## Angela

> Yeah, I was referring to the younger and "natural" version of Katia Ricciarelli. :) As for Mario, I think he took after his father. Particularly, I see more Italian than German on him. Don't you think so looking to these pictures below?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Anyway I'm not great in identifying ethnicity. :)


Yes, a little bit more, but I still wouldn't have looked at him then, and said, oh yes, I definitely see the Italian in him, even with the dark Roman like hair. In old age it's the eyes, but throughout his life it's the robustness of the jaw and width of his face and maybe the not very Italian nose. Not that those features are unknown in Northern Italy; they're all over my paternal family, and they become more obvious in old age.

People do change as they age. Part of the reason I've always watched my weight is that I always had this fear that if I got heavy my face would go round or really square (yes, unfortunately I'm that vain) and I'd wind up looking like a lot of the women in my father's family, like his first cousin. We share a similar face shape, forehead, squarish jaw line, chin. My young cousin has them too, along with the long neck that runs in that part of the family. By no means did I get the more oval face of my mother, although my face is longer than that of my father's cousin. My nonna used to say I got my mother's features in her husband's face, i.e. the one I didn't like. :) Maybe that had something to do with not liking that look. :) In old age his face looked like Razzano's. In fact, quite a few of my father's male cousins looked like Razzano. OK on a man, but not my preference in a woman.

Yes, I've always been a very vain woman. It's another one of my character flaws. The nuns would tell me that when they'd see me looking in mirrors as I passed and adjusting my hair or whatever. :)

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## Angela

Appennino Parmense:



The other side of the Appennines: my mother's town...







We get people like this too:

I think she's unmistakeably Italian looking...Lady With An Ermine type (Da Vinci)





One of my mentors, completely Lunigianese, Loris Iacopo Bonomi



Absolutely smashing looking as a younger man:



https://www.facebook.com/FondazioneL...is_lookaside=1

A blonde Calabrese-distantly related to my husband...he might as well be wearing the map of Italy on his face...


Also Calabrian...


I take it back about "Terence Smith". He did look Northern Italian in his younger years. Only with age did the German really come out, imo.

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## Regio X

> Yes, a little bit more, but I still wouldn't have looked at him then, and said, oh yes, I definitely see the Italian in him, even with the dark Roman like hair. In old age it's the eyes, but throughout his life it's the robustness of the jaw and width of his face and maybe the not very Italian nose. Not that those features are unknown in Northern Italy; they're all over my paternal family, and they become more obvious in old age.
> 
> People do change as they age. Part of the reason I've always watched my weight is that I always had this fear that if I got heavy my face would go round or really square (yes, unfortunately I'm that vain) and I'd wind up looking like a lot of the women in my father's family, like his first cousin. We share a similar face shape, forehead, squarish jaw line, chin. My young cousin has them too, along with the long neck that runs in that part of the family. By no means did I get the more oval face of my mother, although my face is longer than that of my father's cousin. My nonna used to say I got my mother's features in her husband's face, i.e. the one I didn't like. :) Maybe that had something to do with not liking that look. :) In old age his face looked like Razzano's. In fact, quite a few of my father's male cousins looked like Razzano. OK on a man, but not my preference in a woman.
> 
> Yes, I've always been a very vain woman. It's another one of my character flaws. The nuns would tell me that when they'd see me looking in mirrors as I passed and adjusting my hair or whatever. :)


Looking again to the first picture I posted, I notice a "Tony Curtis aura" in Girotti, je je, but I still see more Italy than Germany.

Being vain is absolutely common. You should not blame yourself. :) 
Some people say I'm more similar to my father than to my mother, but I'm not sure. Perhaps a bit more similar to her in profile and to him in the front. 
One thing is funny is that some people may think I'm kind of a copy of one parent, but only till they know the other parent. ah ah

Nice photos. The "Da Vinci" woman represents well one of the types of beauty we see in Italy.

What about Bellucci's? Wow!

In this picture specifically she resembles a bit Olivia Hussey; this is a compliment for "Juliet". :)

Btw, Zeffirelli is perhaps another example. Italian looking when younger, and not that much after some age.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/20...relli-obituary

Am I wrong or the last Calabrian you posted has a "Roman aura"? :)

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## Angela

> Looking again to the first picture I posted, I notice a "Tony Curtis aura" in Girotti, je je, but I still see more Italy than Germany.
> 
> Being vain is absolutely common. You should not blame yourself. :) 
> Some people say I'm more similar to my father than to my mother, but I'm not sure. Perhaps a bit more similar to her in profile and to him in the front. 
> *One thing is funny is that some people may think I'm kind of a copy of one parent, but only till they know the other parent. ah ah
> *
> Nice photos. The "Da Vinci" woman represents well one of the types of beauty we see in Italy.
> 
> What about Bellucci's? Wow!
> ...


Yes, it's true about Zeffirelli. Part of it may be the gaining of weight and the "sagging" of the flesh in the face as people age, which obscures the bone structure, added to the fact that if you don't dye your hair and it goes grey or you cover the grey with a lighter pigment, you can superficially look very different. That's what happened with Katia, for example, and why she suddenly looked very Scandinavian. 

I don't know about Bertolucci. It might have gone a bit in the other direction with him; a bit more ambiguous as a young man, but progressively more North Italian as he got older.





De Niro looks northern Italian here too. :)

To me, Francesco de Gregori was unmistakably central North Italian in youth, but maybe a bit more ambiguous as he got older.


Then there's Zucchero, whom no non-Italian I've ever met thinks looks Italian, but if you've grown up in Italy is unremarkable, at least if you're talking about from Toscana north.
 

Then there's Liguria's poet laureate:



That's exactly what happens in families. :) When I was a child, particularly, what with the lighter hair and the really white skin, and that face shape, many in my father's family would swear I looked liked my sainted Aunt Ida, who died in childbirth when she was about twenty. She had been my nonna's favorite child, and I think nonna thought I was like her. My mother's family were unanimous in thinking I looked like my mother and my Ligurian grandfather. I think reality was, as I said, my mother's features in my father's family's face. I looked so much like her when young that on a visit to my family the summer I was sixteen, as I was walking down the village street, a man who had emigrated twenty years before to South America stopped dead on the street and said, my God, you have to be ^^^^^^^ daughter. :) As I got older and the facial bone structure was more prominent it wasn't as obvious.


I think both of the Calabresi look like ancient Romans, depending on the period: the blonde perhaps of the Republic going into the Augustine era and Fabio Ceravolo of the heart of the Imperial period. :)

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## Regio X

> Yes, it's true about Zeffirelli. Part of it may be the gaining of weight and the "sagging" of the flesh in the face as people age, which obscures the bone structure, added to the fact that if you don't dye your hair and it goes grey or you cover the grey with a lighter pigment, you can superficially look very different. That's what happened with Katia, for example, and why she suddenly looked very Scandinavian. 
> 
> I don't know about Bertolucci. It might have gone a bit in the other direction with him; a bit more ambiguous as a young man, but progressively more North Italian as he got older.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> De Niro looks northern Italian here too. :)
> ...


I notice I changed a bit already, even not being that old. ;)
What I also noticed is that pictures may "distort" actual appearances, tending to make them "better", "worst" or simply different, depending on the person. I saw it in myself and in many other people. Imo, videos generally capture better one's real appearance. I tend to "not see myself" in pictures (comparing them with the guy in front of the mirror, ah ah), but I do in videos. 
My point is that some of these people could look significantly different in person, and the ancestry would possibly become more "evident".

As for that guy who "recognized" you, something similar happened to me more than once. One example: I was in the theater (of a big city) and someone pointed to me and said: you are the brother of "A". je je It also happened when I was playing soccer. A guy looked to me, and looked, and kept looking... I thought "damn, he must be gay'. lol No offense. It's just that I'm not. But at the end he came and asked: are you a brother of "B"? Then I understood why he was looking so much. :) 
But in our case I must say that our similarities might have been more evident to local people, since most of them are different from us "ethnically". Preserving due proportions, it's like when we see, say, Japanese, and think they're all the same. ah ah

Yes. When I referred to Romans, I meant ancient Romans. Especially the second one. The first one called my atention by his slight resemblance to a guy that acted in a movie I recently watched.

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## Angela

Good grief! This picture just came up of the young Zucchero (Fornaciari) of Reggio Emilia.







That face shape and bone structure are not too different from mine (the nose is different, and although my chin is very "round" it doesn't project like that, thank God), and look how he wound up! Now I'm good and frightened.  :Sad:  That's why weight control and absolutely no alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes are essential. :) Also, thank God for my mother's genes. She had practically no wrinkles till the day she died, and her skin was as taut and firm as that of women twenty years younger. My father's family aged much more quickly and badly. It's definitely about the structure of the skin. They also had to watch their weight. My father got quite portly, started looking a bit like the old Jack Nicholson, until my mother took matters in hand and slashed his calorie intake by about a half. :)

In this one I don't think foreigners would ever suspect he's Italian.

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## Angela

@Regio

Imo, it's hit or miss about both photos and film versus correspondence to what people look like in real life, I think. 

My first job out of university was as an editorial assistant at a magazine. They promised me I'd work on the fiction or political articles, but because someone left unexpectedly they stuck me with fashion, although they promised to switch me over relatively soon. I couldn't BEAR it and lasted only six months. You cannot find more self-absorbed, superficial people in any other profession, even acting. I was astounded at how downright "plain" most of the models turned out to be in real life. You wouldn't have given them a second look in real life. At the same time, someone relatively attractive can take terrible pictures. I think regularity of feature is what looks attractive in photos.

Film, likewise, can work both ways. I lived in Manhattan for about seven years, and on Long Island for years more, and I saw my share of actors in "real life". You probably don't know who Hal Holbrook is, but you can look him up. In real life he was incredibly handsome. I saw both Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie because my friend lived near where they were filming and I was at her house literally down the street. Matt Damon is short, stocky, and very average looking, very "typical" American of a certain age. Angelina Jolie was tiny, elfin really, and while pretty, no raving beauty, and her face is not exotic looking at all in real life. 

Likewise I've seen both Michele Williams and Katie Holmes just walking around the city, and you can see prettier women at any shopping center. Reese Witherspoon is downright homely, with a hideous chin, and so is Nicholas Cage, and he has absolutely awful skin, I guess from teenage acne. 

The only actors I've seen in person who were really beautiful were Michele Pfeiffer a few years after she made Scarface, and Tom Selleck, who was twice as handsome in real life as he was on TV.

Years and years ago, when I was about sixteen, my cousin rented a small boat, and we went from Santa Margherita Ligure over to Portofino and I saw Marcello Mastroianni before he became really heavy, jowly and old looking. He was so unearthly beautiful that I almost fainted, I swear to you. He was tanned, in an off white linen suit, with a dashing hat on his head and he was just breathtaking, more beautiful than he was even in La Dolce Vita. Years later I saw Giorgio Armani on the same quai, in a sky blue tight tee shirt and white pants, very tan, with a full head of white hair and I couldn't believe I'd never realized how handsome he was. Anderson Cooper, one of our newscasters, is also surprisingly handsome in real life. 

So, it depends. One thing is clear: in the U.S. they no longer choose actors and actresses for their looks, more's the pity. :) There should be some fantasy in films, imo.

Oh dear, I've gone way off track. Tomorrow I'll take all these off topic posts and create a new thread for them.

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## Regio X

Regarding your previous post, completely ok with no drugs, cigarettes etc. Absolutely nothing to do with me. But alcohol? Nah. My wine is sacred, so I'll pay the price (with moderation, of course). ah ah
My maternal family tend to be "fatter" than the paternal. I don't gain nor lose weight too easily (23andMe got right this one), anyway, I'm certainly a good eater, and I have no intention to change that. lol




> @Regio
> 
> Imo, it's hit or miss about both photos and film versus correspondence to what people look like in real life, I think. 
> 
> My first job out of university was as an editorial assistant at a magazine. They promised me I'd work on the fiction or political articles, but because someone left unexpectedly they stuck me with fashion, although they promised to switch me over relatively soon. I couldn't BEAR it and lasted only six months. You cannot find more self-absorbed, superficial people in any other profession, even acting. * I was astounded at how downright "plain" most of the models turned out to be in real life. You wouldn't have given them a second look in real life. At the same time, someone relatively attractive can take terrible pictures.* I think regularity of feature is what looks attractive in photos.
> 
> Film, likewise, can work both ways. I lived in Manhattan for about seven years, and on Long Island for years more, and I saw my share of actors in "real life". You probably don't know who Hal Holbrook is, but you can look him up. In real life he was incredibly handsome. I saw both Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie because my friend lived near where they were filming and I was at her house literally down the street. Matt Damon is short, stocky, and very average looking, very "typical" American of a certain age. Angelina Jolie was tiny, elfin really, and while pretty, no raving beauty, and her face is not exotic looking at all in real life. 
> 
> Likewise I've seen both Michele Williams and Katie Holmes just walking around the city, and you can see prettier women at any shopping center. Reese Witherspoon is downright homely, with a hideous chin, and so is Nicholas Cage, and he has absolutely awful skin, I guess from teenage acne. 
> ...


Perfect! It's the tendency, indeed. 
Concerning pictures vs. videos, I was focused more on "common" videos, compared to pictures, and generally speaking. At least based on what I've seen from "amateur" cameras. But I'm aware it may be just an impression. 
"Professional" cameras and good photographers naturally tend to get more "realistic" pictures when they want, and without Photoshop etc. 

I haven't seen many famous people in person, but what you said naturally makes perfect sense to me. That's what I was talking about, but you did it better. :)
I remember to have seen many years ago a famous Brazilian actor called Edson Celulari (original family name Cellurale in Italy), considered a "heartthrob" when he was young, and he seemed very different in person. My eldest brother saw Daryl Hannah also much time ago, in a store. I don't perfectly remember his impression, but IIRC he thought she was beautiful, yes. But probably not as on the screens. 
As you said, the opposite is possible: the girl (or man) is not so good looking in pictures, and when you see her personally, she's actually very beautiful.

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