Just researching my own results, and having a good memory for details from the pop gen papers and from history texts has led to a lot of my predictions being accurate, if I say so myself.
For example, as I said, I knew from 23andme that I originally scored about 1-2% East Asian. From other testing services I realized that I had a higher than average ratio of east steppe to west steppe than do, for example, northwestern Europeans. There were papers which showed East Asian like haplos definitely in groups like Maykop Yamnaya, in eastern steppe groups, and even in some Yamnaya samples closer to the west.
Obviously, after the fall of Rome numerous groups could have brought that ancestry to the Balkans and Italy. However, Scythians could have brought it in the first millennium BCE given that I remembered reading Greek writers talking about the Scythians, and some of the elite among the Greeks even admixing with their elites.
Coincidentally, when the Scythian samples were published, it turned out that I had matches to the admixed ones. I knew there were admixed Scythians from years before, and discussed the issue here, because a lot of the Scythians had EEF like mtDna. So, my having matches among them was no surprise.
I didn't need the Antonio et al paper or this paper to tell me that.
My matching some of the Szolad and Collegno samples was also no surprise, because quite a few of the samples were closest to people from Tuscany and Emilia/Romagna, and I have ancestry from both places.
In the field of population genetics you have to have read widely both the genetics papers and the history of the various areas if you're going to be anywhere near correct in your predictions. You also have to have been at it for more than a hot minute, as they say. I knew, for example, 25 years ago, from reading many papers and books by Cavalli-Sforza that Northern Italians would turn out to be close to Northern Balkanites, and Tuscans pretty close to Albanians. The only difference would basically be was the majority more steppe heavy admixing agent be northwestern or northeastern. Clearly, Balkanites would be more admixed with Northeastern Europeans if speaking about the period after the fall of Rome, and Italians more admixed with Northwestern Europeans. Once again, my own results corroborated that theory.
You can see what I'm talking about in general terms here. I have a plethora of Balkan matches, and people north of me in Italy are even closer.
[TABLE="class: cms_table_distances"]
[TR]
[TH="align: center"]Distance to:[/TH]
[TH="align: center"]Angela[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #C8FF00, align: right"]5.88072274[/TD]
[TD]I3313_Balkans_BronzeAge[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #D7FF00, align: right"]6.32650773[/TD]
[TD]I8475_NE_Iberia_RomP_atypical[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #D7FF00, align: right"]6.32865705[/TD]
[TD]I9123_Bronze_Age_Armenoi_Crete[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #DBFF00, align: right"]6.44030279[/TD]
[TD]R1285_Medieval_Era_Cancelleria[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #DCFF00, align: right"]6.46676117[/TD]
[TD]Szolad43[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #DEFF00, align: right"]6.53661992[/TD]
[TD]R1287_Medieval_Era_Cancelleria[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #E1FF00, align: right"]6.62573015[/TD]
[TD]C.Italy_Early.Medieval_undated:Chiusi(Siena_Tuscan y):ETR010[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #EDFF00, align: right"]6.95926002[/TD]
[TD]C.Italy_Early.Medieval:Tarquinia(Viterbo_Lazio)_10 18-1151CE:TAQ022[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #EFFF00, align: right"]7.03668956[/TD]
[TD]I3499_NWBalkans_PannonianPlain_Vucedol_EN[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #F0FF00, align: right"]7.04472143[/TD]
[TD]I1979_Bronze_Age_Beaker_Northern_Italy[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #F1FF00, align: right"]7.09619616[/TD]
[TD]I2176_Balkans_BronzeAge[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #F3FF00, align: right"]7.14881808[/TD]
[TD]R111_Imperial_Era_Via_Paisiello_Necropolis[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FDFF00, align: right"]7.44927513[/TD]
[TD]I2175_Balkans_BronzeAge[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FEFF00, align: right"]7.46848043[/TD]
[TD]C.Italy_Early.Medieval

oggioPelliccia(Grosseto_Tu scany)_772-960CE

OP001[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFF200, align: right"]7.88178279[/TD]
[TD]Collegno36[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFEE00, align: right"]7.98552440[/TD]
[TD]C.Italy_Etruscan:Vetulonia(Grosseto_Tuscany)_750-406BCE:VET001[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFED00, align: right"]8.01499844[/TD]
[TD]C.Italy_Etruscan_undated:Tarquinia(Viterbo_Lazio)_ :TAQ006[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFE500, align: right"]8.25132717[/TD]
[TD]scy197_Scythian[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFE200, align: right"]8.36475343[/TD]
[TD]Szolad28[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFDA00, align: right"]8.58821285[/TD]
[TD]C.Italy_Imperial:Tarquinia(Viterbo_Lazio)_89-236CE:TAQ020[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFD400, align: right"]8.77719773[/TD]
[TD]Bul10_Balkans_BronzeAge[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFD300, align: right"]8.79924429[/TD]
[TD]C.Italy_Etruscan:Vetulonia(Grosseto_Tuscany)_790-550BCE:VEU001[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCF00, align: right"]8.92554760[/TD]
[TD]R1016_Iron_Age_Castel_di_Decima[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCE00, align: right"]8.94997207[/TD]
[TD]Bul6_Balkans_BronzeAge[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFC700, align: right"]9.13925599[/TD]
[TD]scy192_Scythian[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The matches are even closer in mytrueancestry.com, which I think is just basically Eurogenes K13.
. Central Roman
590 AD - Genetic Distance: 3.614 - SZ43
Top 100 %
match vs all users
2. Central Roman
630 AD - Genetic Distance: 4.508 - CL36
Top 100 %
match vs all users
3. Ancient Middle Helladic Elati-Logkas Greece
1861 BC - Genetic Distance: 5.447 - Log02_cap
Top 100 %
match vs all users
4. Tuscan Medieval Villa Magna Italy
905 AD - Genetic Distance: 5.964 - R60
Top 100 %
match vs all users
5. Protovillanovia Martinsicuro
930 BC - Genetic Distance: 6.241 - R1
Top 99 %
match vs all users
6. Etruscan Tarquinii Italy
800 BC - Genetic Distance: 6.39 - TAQ003
Top 100 %
match vs all users
7. Central Roman
590 AD - Genetic Distance: 6.771 - SZ36
Top 100 %
match vs all users
8. Ancient Middle Helladic Elati-Logkas Greece
1861 BC - Genetic Distance: 7.044 - Log02_wgs
Top 99 %
match vs all users
9. Ancient Venosa Samnite
400 BC - Genetic Distance: 7.92 - VEN016
Top 100 %
match vs all users
10. Roman Outlier Lombard Grave
590 AD - Genetic Distance: 8.346 - SZ37
Top 99 %
match vs all users
Fwiw, these are the closest populations to the Bronze Age North Italian (Parma) Beaker sample to which I get a match of 7.04.
[TABLE="class: distances"]
[TR]
[TH="align: right"]Distance to:[/TH]
[TH="align: left"]I1979:Olalde_2018[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFF900, align: right"]7.66583981[/TD]
[TD]French_Corsica[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFC700, align: right"]9.15438146[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Lombardy[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFBF00, align: right"]9.36782792[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Liguria[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFB300, align: right"]9.72487018[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Emilia[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFAE00, align: right"]9.86970618[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Tuscany[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF7000, align: right"]11.69194595[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Romagna[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF7000, align: right"]11.71190420[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Piedmont[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF6900, align: right"]11.90674441[/TD]
[TD]Swiss_Italian[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF5E00, align: right"]12.23369118[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Veneto[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF2E00, align: right"]13.63891858[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Trentino[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF2700, align: right"]13.84391939[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Marche[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0900, align: right"]14.74565699[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Baleares[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0500, align: right"]14.84070416[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Friuli_VG[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0300, align: right"]14.90914820[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Lazio[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0012, align: right"]15.53721661[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Aosta_Valley[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0018, align: right"]15.71857182[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Castilla-Leon[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF001C, align: right"]15.83608853[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Valencia[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF002D, align: right"]16.32088233[/TD]
[TD]Portuguese[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0036, align: right"]16.58355209[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Catalonia[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF003C, align: right"]16.77931167[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Canarias[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0048, align: right"]17.11851921[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Andalusia[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF004F, align: right"]17.32825438[/TD]
[TD]Albanian_Kosovo[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0052, align: right"]17.40040804[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Aragon[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0052, align: right"]17.40597886[/TD]
[TD]Albanian[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF0066, align: right"]17.98685909[/TD]
[TD]Spanish_Galicia[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
That French Corsica sample, which is at almost the same distance to the Beaker sample as I am, is often my closest modern match on the Vahaduo K12b, and is a French admixed Corsican. Corsicans were admixed with settlers from Liguria and Toscana, areas from which I have ancestry, and Emilia, which constitutes 50% of my ancestry is north of them, so it probably is all pretty legit.
These are the closest modern populations to my Imperial Roman match. They weren't all East Med.[TABLE="class: distances"]
[TR]
[TH="align: right"]Distance to:[/TH]
[TH="align: left"]Via_Paisiello_Necropolis_Imperial_Rome:R111:Antonio_2019[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #95FF00, align: right"]4.37268796[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Romagna[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #96FF00, align: right"]4.40196547[/TD]
[TD]French_Corsica[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #9AFF00, align: right"]4.52567122[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Tuscany[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #B6FF00, align: right"]5.34800374[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Marche[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #CDFF00, align: right"]6.02374468[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Emilia[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #E0FF00, align: right"]6.60205271[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Lazio[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #EDFF00, align: right"]6.97389418[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Liguria[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFBD00, align: right"]9.43665725[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Lombardy[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF9F00, align: right"]10.32837354[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Piedmont[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF9400, align: right"]10.64679294[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Abruzzo[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF8B00, align: right"]10.91365200[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Veneto[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF7800, align: right"]11.46594523[/TD]
[TD]Albanian[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF5E00, align: right"]12.24593810[/TD]
[TD]Greek_Thrace[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF5B00, align: right"]12.31293223[/TD]
[TD]Greek_Thessaly[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF5900, align: right"]12.37012530[/TD]
[TD]Albanian_Kosovo[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF5700, align: right"]12.44505524[/TD]
[TD]Greek_Central[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF5400, align: right"]12.52507086[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Campania[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF4900, align: right"]12.85758920[/TD]
[TD]Greek_Athens[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF4100, align: right"]13.07603533[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Friuli_VG[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF3C00, align: right"]13.23058956[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Apulia[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF3C00, align: right"]13.23207089[/TD]
[TD]Greek_Peloponnese[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF3200, align: right"]13.53561090[/TD]
[TD]Swiss_Italian[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF2F00, align: right"]13.62172529[/TD]
[TD]Italian_Sicily[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF2B00, align: right"]13.74291454[/TD]
[TD]Greek_Thessaloniki[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #FF2A00, align: right"]13.76111551[/TD]
[TD]Macedonian_South[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
For all we know, this could have been a North Italian visitor to Rome who happened to die there.
Just a general comment about the difficulty both the academics who worked on Antonio et al and this paper, and the internet hobbyists are having in getting good fits for modern Italians or even Medieval Italians and fits that make historical sense as well.
It's essentially because none of these people seem to accept the to me inescapable fact that Italy, as center of the Empire, and as the seat of the Papacy, was always crawling with traders, business men of all sorts, politicians from the provinces, ambassadors, tourists visiting the Pope, and yes, slaves, the vast majority of whom may never have left a single descendant to contribute to the Italian gene pool. This is what happens when, unlike the situation with the Amorim paper on the Lombards, the authors don't bother to do isotope analysis of the remains.
This was discussed at some length in the Antonio et al thread, where I concurred with Maciamo that it was clear that some of the Late Antiquity samples were obviously Northern Europeans probably just visiting Rome.
The same kind of common sense has to be applied to all of the samples from Antonio et al and the subject paper. They can't be treated as blocks of people who lived their lives and left descendants in the areas where their bones were found.