New Felsina Etruscan Paper by Zaro et alia 2024

Why do they refer to sample CAS054 as SubSaharan when figure 6.15 shows that this sample from Casalecchio is over 80pc Anatolian Neolithic+Yamnaya_Samara (no WHG) with under 20pc Moroccan Early Neolithic.

Only the mtDNA is typically SubSaharan but also found in North Africa.
In my opinion the idea that CAS054 has a direct and recent SSA contribution is highly doubtful. They're almost certainly north african mixed of some type and I imagine this individual to be around half iron age punic and half iron age etruscan. We see these kinds here and there uncommonly in Moots study of imperial rome and they seem to be the least common type of ancestry found in Italy. They disappear with the few actual levantine ingressed samples immediately after the imperial era which again reinforces the idea that whoever these people were - they did not occupy a place of permanence in Italian society. They were probably travellers or slaves and suffered from low fertility or high mortality.

The only type of "new" ancestry that survives into late antiquity is the aegean type as far as central Italy is concerned. I'd be surprised if Felsina ends up being at all any different. Modern Emilia Romagna certainly does not retain any north african ancestry from individuals like this.
 
Thanks for clarifying this. I haven't had time to check the paper yet.

You're welcome.

Likely Southern Italians who had received a large amount of ancestry from assimilated Magna Graecians. Magna Graecians in turn of course originate from both sides of the Aegean, and as all Greeks do, bare significant ancestry from the neolithic Caucasus (most specifically the Armenian highlands) which was transported in large amounts to the whole of Anatolia during the early copper age and tail end of the late neolithic.

A less likely theory that others have proposed is that Italy was swamped Greek migrations directly from the Aegean at the end of the republic. This I have a harder time believing due to a lack of historic documentation on this phenomenon. Because there is no obvious cultural/linguistic overturn, but there does appear to be huge genetic overturn in central Italy, the phenomenon almost certainly occurred through the conduit of a heavily latinized population with a lot of Greek DNA. Magna Graecia is the only area that fits the bill here culturally and genetically.


Sample CAS090, who is J2-L24 (J2a1a4), may indeed have a Greco-Ionian marker. We hope there will be many studies on Magna Graecia.

While, sample CAS067, dating from the time of the Roman Empire, has DNA Y R1b1a1b1a2b3c (R1b U152?) and mtDNA H13a1a4, uniparental markers that are undoubtedly Western European. If it ends up in the Bologna Empire cluster it is because he might be mixed, not because he comes from the Aegean, Anatolia or Iran.
 
I understand that you would love for the whole world to come from Iran, but at some point one should grow up and stop dreaming. Life is very short. The Etruscans had nothing to do with Iran.




Trojan origin traditions are fables, devoid of historical corroboration. The Odyssey was for centuries the most popular soap opera of the ancient world. Clearly everyone wanted to be descended from the Trojans, not because it was true but because everyone wanted to belong to the myth by ennobling their origins.

The French Wikipedia has an interesting article showing that the myth of Trojan origins is a founding myth for the most diverse peoples. Even the Franks claimed to be of Trojan origin. None of these really had Trojan origins.

The Trojan origin story is effectively impossible to prove or disprove through aDNA to begin with. We are not talking about a scenario in which the Trojans kill off the native inhabitants of Latium to repopulate central Italy, but where one distant ancestor of Romulus and Remus through the albanese line of Rhea Silvia bears aristocratic ancestry from the Anatolian late bronze age. You're not going to find that kind of an answer in population genetics unless we can somehow verifiably recover the twins' aristocratic line.
 
Come lei sa, Roman tradition also involves an East Med (Aegean-Anatolian) component, the "Trojans", that could mean people from that part of the Mediterranean or even hellenic people, which I still think played a relevant role on the expansion of this clade in the western part of "Mare Nostrum". Saluti

If the story of Aeneas and the Trojans escaping the fall of Troy and founding Alba Longa in the Latium is true, then I would imagine that they were mostly R1b-Z2103. That's because the Trojans were in Indo-Europeans most probably related to the ancient Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, etc. Besides, R1b-Z2103 was found among Iron-age Latins alongside the Italo-Celtic R1b-U152, but if memory serves me well R1b-Z2103 wasn't found among the Etruscans (I would need to double check).

So if there was indeed a minority of R1b-Z2103 among Latins since the early Iron Age but not among other Italic tribes or the Etruscans (except for parts of southern Italy that had contact with Greek colonists), that could be a sign that there is some truth to the Trojan story. However I highly doubt that Aeneas would have come all by himself. It might have been a small group of a few dozens or even a few hundreds of migrants from Troy and the neighbouring countryside, or from nearby even allies towns fleeing the Mycenaeans. It's hard to found a new city all by yourself.
 
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You're welcome.




Sample CAS090, who is J2-L24 (J2a1a4), may indeed have a Greco-Ionian marker. We hope there will be many studies on Magna Graecia.

While, sample CAS067, dating from the time of the Roman Empire, has DNA Y R1b1a1b1a2b3c (R1b U152?) and mtDNA H13a1a4, uniparental markers that are undoubtedly Western European. If it ends up in the Bologna Empire cluster it is because he might be mixed, not because he comes from the Aegean, Anatolia or Iran.
The Carthaginians in particular were extremely heavily admixed with Sicani/Elymian and Greek populations based off the Kerkouane study and other leaked PCAs. Evidence from grave markers, which list ancestor names and occupations also indicate an abundance of Oscan names amongst Carthaginian citizens after the Pyrrhic wars so the amount of genetic influx from southern Italy into Tunisia during the iron age was enough to represent the vast bulk of Punic ancestry. Because of this it would not be surprising to find J2 in a Punic admixed individual.

TfJdYFM.jpg
 
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If the story of Aeneas and the Trojans escaping the fall of Troy and founding Alba Longa in the Latium is true, then I would imagine that they were mostly R1b-Z2103. That's because the Trojans were in Indo-Europeans most probably related to the ancient Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, etc. Besides, R1b-Z2103 was found among Iron-age Latins alongside the Italo-Celtic R1b-U152, but if memory serves me well R1b-Z2103 wasn't found among the Etruscans (I would need to double check).

So if there was indeed a minority of R1b-Z2103 among Latins since the early Iron Age but not among other Italic tribes or the Etruscans (except for parts of southern Italy that had contact with Greek colonists), that could be a sign that there is some truth to the Trojan story. However I highly doubt that Aeneas would have come all by himself. It might have been a small group of a few dozens or even a few hundreds of migrants from Troy and the neighbouring countryside, or from nearby even allies towns fleeing the Mycenaeans. It's hard to found a new city all by yourself.

R1b-Z2103 seems more related to Yamnaya than anything else. We currently have no genetic information about the Trojans. Ethnically and linguistically there is also no certainty about the Trojans. In general, the Trojan one is considered to be a fairy tale, which is unlikely to have any historical corroboration. If the Trojans spoke a Luwian language, as some claim without being able to prove it, it was not due to Steppe/Yamanya as Lazaridis and others claim (see their theory on the Anatolian Indo-European language family). So consequently the uniparental markers of the Trojans will not have been related to Yamnaya.



The Trojan origin story is effectively impossible to prove or disprove through aDNA to begin with. We are not talking about a scenario in which the Trojans kill off the native inhabitants of Latium to repopulate central Italy, but where one distant ancestor of Romulus and Remus through the albanese line of Rhea Silvia bears aristocratic ancestry from the Anatolian late bronze age. You're not going to find that kind of an answer in population genetics unless we can somehow verifiably recover the twins' aristocratic line.

The Trojan origin story is a bit like asking what sex angels have.

The Trojan origin is not believed to be true by archaeologists. Not least because the Trojan War is dated around 1200 BC. As to who the Trojans were ethnically there is only conjecture. It is not even known what language they spoke with certainty. Recently Godart has proposed that they were actually Greeks. To others they are Luwians or ancestors of the Luwians. It is simply not known. If they were very few individuals as you say, their impact was so insignificant that it vanished almost immediately.

But let us assume for a moment that this is true and that some Trojan refugees arrive in Latium around 1200 B.C., that is, when there are the Urnfield/Protovillanovian cultures in Lazio. There is an obvious problem of anachronism. And then these Trojan refugees do what in Lazio around 1200 a.C.? Do they hibernate and wait for the Romans to arrive centuries later like in the movie Interstellar? Rome and Alba Longa did not even exist in the most primitive forms at that time. Stories such as the Trojan one, such as the Lydian origin of the Etruscans, and the many other fables that arose in the Greek world, arise many centuries after the alleged events, and represent the willingness of the Greeks (and others) to connect or not to the various peoples. In fact, if I'm not mistaken in the Aeneid, written more than a thousand years after the alleged events by a Roman, Aeneas' arrival is a kind of return to Italy, because Dardanus, Aeneas' ancestor, is of Italic origin.
 
I understand that you would love for the whole world to come from Iran, but at some point one should grow up and stop dreaming. Life is very short. The Etruscans had nothing to do with Iran.




Trojan origin traditions are fables, devoid of historical corroboration. The Odyssey was for centuries the most popular soap opera of the ancient world. Clearly everyone wanted to be descended from the Trojans, not because it was true but because everyone wanted to belong to the myth by ennobling their origins.

The French Wikipedia has an interesting article showing that the myth of Trojan origins is a founding myth for the most diverse peoples. Even the Franks claimed to be of Trojan origin. None of these really had Trojan origins.

I understand perfectly well that Trojan wars were a Myth, that's why I used the quotation marks on the word "trojan".
Ancient people normally used Myths to support their migration movements. My point was related to explain the "East Med" movement to central south of the Italian peninsula from that part of the Mediterranean.
The facts, until now are:
1) We have a few latin and/or italic people samples to state that J2a Z435 was not part of their Y HG.
2) Today in Lazio, Marche , Molise and Abruzzo you can find this subclade on small towns and remote villages.
As I. Lazaridis told me once, on an interesting exchange of views, we should scrutinize on ancient myths to understand some facts that now are being confirmed by genetics.
 
Sorry, Maciamo, but this J2a is not an Etruscan, CAS090 is considered by the paper an Imperial Roman sample.

So, it is not true that J2a was found among Etruscans and Latins. To date it can only be said that J2a was found in Roman times.

From over 100 Etruscans tested so far, it is now clear that the Etruscans are R1b predominantly, with a minority of G2a and I2a. The only type of J2 found among the Etruscans, but which is a very tiny minority, is J2b.
R1b-U152>L2+ branches (occasionally other U152+ & L51+) and G2a-L497 are the Etruscan core. G2a-L497 spread from Central Europe with the Bell Beakers it's not a local EEF lineage i.e. one that survived in the Toscana and surroundings. The J2b is J2b-L283 and comes from contacts with the Western Balkans for which there is archeological and historical evidence in the Italian peninsula. The very minor R1b-Z2103 probably comes from the Balkans too.
 
Likely Southern Italians who had received a large amount of ancestry from assimilated Magna Graecians. Magna Graecians in turn of course originate from both sides of the Aegean, and as all Greeks do, bare significant ancestry from the neolithic Caucasus (most specifically the Armenian highlands) which was transported in large amounts to the whole of Anatolia during the early copper age and tail end of the late neolithic.

A less likely theory that others have proposed is that Italy was swamped Greek migrations directly from the Aegean at the end of the republic. This I have a harder time believing due to a lack of historic documentation on this phenomenon. Because there is no obvious cultural/linguistic overturn, but there does appear to be huge genetic overturn in central Italy, the phenomenon almost certainly occurred through the conduit of a heavily latinized population with a lot of Greek DNA. Magna Graecia is the only area that fits the bill here culturally and genetically.
By considering recent studies which show the homeland of Indo-Europeans in the south of Caucasus, like Heggarty et al., Science (2023), I see no reason to talk about these strange theories. Greeks and Italians had a common origin.
 
R1b-U152>L2+ branches (occasionally other U152+ & L51+) and G2a-L497 are the Etruscan core. G2a-L497 spread from Central Europe with the Bell Beakers it's not a local EEF lineage i.e. one that survived in the Toscana and surroundings. The J2b is J2b-L283 and comes from contacts with the Western Balkans for which there is archeological and historical evidence in the Italian peninsula. The very minor R1b-Z2103 probably comes from the Balkans too.

Regard to G2a-L497, it's true, because it formed in Central Europe and it is true that G2a-L497 seems to be the core of the G2a found among the Etruscans. But its timing of formation (basal clade) is much earlier than the Bell Beaker migrations in Italy. Can it really be ruled out that none arrived earlier?
 
By considering recent studies which show the homeland of Indo-Europeans in the south of Caucasus, like Heggarty et al., Science (2023), I see no reason to talk about these strange theories. Greeks and Italians had a common origin.

In fact, it is not really true that Greeks and Italians have completely common origins. If they resemble each other today it is because they have mixed a lot, but the Greek and Latin (Italian) languages really have different origins in the context of IE languages.
 
Regard to G2a-L497, it's true, because it formed in Central Europe and it is true that G2a-L497 seems to be the core of the G2a found among the Etruscans. But its timing of formation (basal clade) is much earlier than the Bell Beaker migrations in Italy. Can it really be ruled out that none arrived earlier?
That is no contradiction. Downstream branches expand in total sync with L51+ branches e.g. U152+ clades. G2a-L497+ is found from Italian BB derived cultures to Central European BB derived cultures. It's omnipresent.
 
In fact, it is not really true that Greeks and Italians have completely common origins. If they resemble each other today it is because they have mixed a lot, but the Greek and Latin (Italian) languages really have different origins in the context of IE languages.
The south of Caucasus was the homeland of all IE languages, not just Greek and Italian languages, this study talks about "a close genetic link to ancient Caucasian populations", they certainly know the difference between ancient Caucasian and Greek populations. This thing that ancient Greeks had also this ancestry doesn't mean that Italians came from Greece.
 
R1b-Z2103 seems more related to Yamnaya than anything else. We currently have no genetic information about the Trojans. Ethnically and linguistically there is also no certainty about the Trojans. In general, the Trojan one is considered to be a fairy tale, which is unlikely to have any historical corroboration. If the Trojans spoke a Luwian language, as some claim without being able to prove it, it was not due to Steppe/Yamanya as Lazaridis and others claim (see their theory on the Anatolian Indo-European language family). So consequently the uniparental markers of the Trojans will not have been related to Yamnaya.





The Trojan origin story is a bit like asking what sex angels have.

The Trojan origin is not believed to be true by archaeologists. Not least because the Trojan War is dated around 1200 BC. As to who the Trojans were ethnically there is only conjecture. It is not even known what language they spoke with certainty. Recently Godart has proposed that they were actually Greeks. To others they are Luwians or ancestors of the Luwians. It is simply not known. If they were very few individuals as you say, their impact was so insignificant that it vanished almost immediately.

But let us assume for a moment that this is true and that some Trojan refugees arrive in Latium around 1200 B.C., that is, when there are the Urnfield/Protovillanovian cultures in Lazio. There is an obvious problem of anachronism. And then these Trojan refugees do what in Lazio around 1200 a.C.? Do they hibernate and wait for the Romans to arrive centuries later like in the movie Interstellar? Rome and Alba Longa did not even exist in the most primitive forms at that time. Stories such as the Trojan one, such as the Lydian origin of the Etruscans, and the many other fables that arose in the Greek world, arise many centuries after the alleged events, and represent the willingness of the Greeks (and others) to connect or not to the various peoples. In fact, if I'm not mistaken in the Aeneid, written more than a thousand years after the alleged events by a Roman, Aeneas' arrival is a kind of return to Italy, because Dardanus, Aeneas' ancestor, is of Italic origin.
I don't see an issue with the dating. I think many fail to realize the scope of how distantly related Romulus actually would be to Aeneas assuming the legend is true. Romulus and Remus would have been the 14th generation of Aeneas' line of descent based off their reported genealogy as can be seen in this infographic:

aeneastoromulus2.jpg


If we assume each generation was created every 30 years on average then the twins would be 420 years removed from Aeneas of Troy and Lavina, the daughter of the legendary King Latinus. If we assume Romulus and Remus were roughly 30 years of age when founding Rome in 753BC that would put their birth at somewhere around 783BC. 783BC + 420 years = 1203BC which is only 23 years of variance from the Troy layer VIIa destruction date of 1180 BC found in the bronze age collapse. Chronologically, the timeline is extremely plausible. That of course doesn't lend strong proof or evidence to whether this crossing of Aeneas into Italy did or did not happen, but it does support the plausibility of the generational dating. As far as what the Trojan refugees do for this time period, I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at here. Like anywhere else, towns and cities will be built and abandoned in varying contexts and locals will find novel ways to mingle and integrate into newly constructed proto-urban centers by a complex array of social relationships and heirarchies. We are talking about prehistoric Italy so little to none of it would've been recorded other than by word of mouth. To be clear I am not argueing that Aeneas definitevely was an ancestor of Romulus/Remus. I am simply argueing that I don't think it can really be disproven either right now or maybe ever.

I'm less familiar with Dardanus, though. I can't speak much on that aspect. One thing is very clear, however, and this is that the Romans very much bore a dual case of respect and disdain for their Greek counterparts within their writings. Greek populations were certainly favored above all other foreigners in the Roman political system with Roman colonies typically being built atop of those of Greek centers whenever possible. The Greeks were seen as civilized, scientifically advanced, literate and educated, along with the fact that their Gods were identified as identical or nearly identical to that of the Roman pantheon. These qualities and similarities, along with the prior expansions of the Greek world were certainly admired by the Romans and much of their philosophies, inventions and ways of life were certainly integrated into Italian society. That being said there was also a degree of seperation put forth by types like Cato the Elder, who expounded upon the rustic, hardworking, militant and disciplined virtues which he associated with the Italics in detriment to luxury, softness and indolance which were thought of as Greek and also more broadly eastern vices.

The takeaway from all of this is that the Romans were broadly intent on associating with but not identifying themselves with the Greek ethnocultural sphere. It seems apparant that they wanted to be understood as similar to but superior to the Greek world and the story of Aeneas and the fall of Troy reinforces this idea of furnished rivalry between similar nations that at one point in the past were much closer to one another. The Roman conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean fits indeed almost as a revenge story for the destruction of Troy. Whether Aeneas actually came to Italy and created a line which would ultimately found Rome can continue be debated but the story itself is convenient for the Roman narrative.
 
I understand perfectly well that Trojan wars were a Myth, that's why I used the quotation marks on the word "trojan".
Ancient people normally used Myths to support their migration movements. My point was related to explain the "East Med" movement to central south of the Italian peninsula from that part of the Mediterranean.
The facts, until now are:
1) We have a few latin and/or italic people samples to state that J2a Z435 was not part of their Y HG.
2) Today in Lazio, Marche , Molise and Abruzzo you can find this subclade on small towns and remote villages.
As I. Lazaridis told me once, on an interesting exchange of views, we should scrutinize on ancient myths to understand some facts that now are being confirmed by genetics.
The Trojan wars are archaeologically supported with the Troy VIIa destruction layer. Their fine details are unknown but the fact of the matter is that Troy was razed to the ground by roughly 1180BC before the mycenean world would fall into steep decline.

Personally I believe the war was real, even if every fantastical detail as described of it in the Iliad may not have been.
 
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By considering recent studies which show the homeland of Indo-Europeans in the south of Caucasus, like Heggarty et al., Science (2023), I see no reason to talk about these strange theories. Greeks and Italians had a common origin.
The Magna Graecian colonization of Italy is archaeologically backed as real in countless of sites with several cities hosting populations that were larger than Rome. We have definitive proof large sums of greeks were already living in Italy by the early iron age. This is not a strange theory but a well validated reality.

The link between greek and italian transmigrations is a gradual one that seems to have started during the neolithic and culminated into creating essentially genetically homogenous (but culturally differentiated) populations by the late republic/imperial age. It's an extremely complex topic and it is not as simple as the two having the same genetic origin from the get go. Despite having IE roots, the original bronze age Italic speakers were very likely well seperated from that of the Bronze age Greeks when they entered both peninsulas, but their similarity in geography and mediterranean trade contacts brought them into each other's demographic and political stomping grounds as time went on. I honesty look at it similar as to what happened between the Anglos and Saxons of the Jutland peninsula and their fusion with the Britons. Another example is that of the Jastorf culture and its integration into the preexisting Celtic tribes of Germany or also the medieval bavarian migrations into priorly celtic areas of Switzerland. There are countless examples of this phenomenon in Europe in which effectively new genetically hybridized ethnic groups are formed.
 
R1b-Z2103 seems more related to Yamnaya than anything else. We currently have no genetic information about the Trojans. Ethnically and linguistically there is also no certainty about the Trojans. In general, the Trojan one is considered to be a fairy tale, which is unlikely to have any historical corroboration. If the Trojans spoke a Luwian language, as some claim without being able to prove it, it was not due to Steppe/Yamanya as Lazaridis and others claim (see their theory on the Anatolian Indo-European language family). So consequently the uniparental markers of the Trojans will not have been related to Yamnaya.





The Trojan origin story is a bit like asking what sex angels have.

The Trojan origin is not believed to be true by archaeologists. Not least because the Trojan War is dated around 1200 BC. As to who the Trojans were ethnically there is only conjecture. It is not even known what language they spoke with certainty. Recently Godart has proposed that they were actually Greeks. To others they are Luwians or ancestors of the Luwians. It is simply not known. If they were very few individuals as you say, their impact was so insignificant that it vanished almost immediately.

But let us assume for a moment that this is true and that some Trojan refugees arrive in Latium around 1200 B.C., that is, when there are the Urnfield/Protovillanovian cultures in Lazio. There is an obvious problem of anachronism. And then these Trojan refugees do what in Lazio around 1200 a.C.? Do they hibernate and wait for the Romans to arrive centuries later like in the movie Interstellar? Rome and Alba Longa did not even exist in the most primitive forms at that time. Stories such as the Trojan one, such as the Lydian origin of the Etruscans, and the many other fables that arose in the Greek world, arise many centuries after the alleged events, and represent the willingness of the Greeks (and others) to connect or not to the various peoples. In fact, if I'm not mistaken in the Aeneid, written more than a thousand years after the alleged events by a Roman, Aeneas' arrival is a kind of return to Italy, because Dardanus, Aeneas' ancestor, is of Italic origin.

You make some valid points about the historicity of the Iliad. But excavations at the site of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann and others have uncovered evidence of a city that was destroyed around the time traditionally associated with the Trojan War, adding some credibility to the story.

You mention the long gap between The Trojan War and the foundation of Rome. However Aeneas didn't found Rome but Lavinium.His son Ascanius founded Alba Longa c. 1200 BCE according to the legend. Archaeological evidence confirms that Alba Longa was founded around the 12th or 11th century BCE. Excavations at the site have revealed artifacts and structures dating back to this period. Alba Longa was abandoned by 700 BCE.

So the Trojan immigrants didn't need to hibernate for centuries. What doesn't make sense is the genealogy of the kings of Alba Longa, as some generations seem to be missing (although not necessarily). But even if it was the case that would be understandable. Society was still relatively primitive back then and they needed simple (which means often 'simplified') stories to tell the people. Or the people themselves simplified it over time as they couldn't remember everything through oral tradition.


We cannot know for sure which language the Trojans spoke, but it was almost certainly Indo-European, like most of the languages in the region at the time.

The dominant Indo-European haplogroup in the region (Bulgaria, Greece, Western Anatolia) was R1b-Z2103.

The Trojan War was immediately followed by the Bronze Age collapse and the invasion of the Sea Peoples, who happened to be genetically closest to the inhabitants of Thrace and Western Anatolia at the time (based on the analysis of the Philistines, a group of Sea Peoples, in Israel at the time of the Bronze Age collapse). If the Sea Peoples could travel over all the Eastern Mediterranean to raid and conquer and they came from the same region as Troy, I don't see why a group of people from Troy in the same period could not have settled in the Latium. It's nearer than Israel or Egypt.


The oldest Latin sample we have from Iron Age Latium is R1016 from Castel di Decima (between Rome and Lavinium) dating from 900-700 BCE and this sample happens to be R1b-Z2103. It could be a coincidence. We certainly need more samples from the Latium from that period. But I wouldn't completely discredit the hypothesis yet.
 
That is no contradiction. Downstream branches expand in total sync with L51+ branches e.g. U152+ clades. G2a-L497+ is found from Italian BB derived cultures to Central European BB derived cultures. It's omnipresent.

You make some valid points about the historicity of the Iliad. But excavations at the site of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann and others have uncovered evidence of a city that was destroyed around the time traditionally associated with the Trojan War, adding some credibility to the story.

You mention the long gap between The Trojan War and the foundation of Rome. However Aeneas didn't found Rome but Lavinium.His son Ascanius founded Alba Longa c. 1200 BCE according to the legend. Archaeological evidence confirms that Alba Longa was founded around the 12th or 11th century BCE. Excavations at the site have revealed artifacts and structures dating back to this period. Alba Longa was abandoned by 700 BCE.

So the Trojan immigrants didn't need to hibernate for centuries. What doesn't make sense is the genealogy of the kings of Alba Longa, as some generations seem to be missing (although not necessarily). But even if it was the case that would be understandable. Society was still relatively primitive back then and they needed simple (which means often 'simplified') stories to tell the people. Or the people themselves simplified it over time as they couldn't remember everything through oral tradition.


We cannot know for sure which language the Trojans spoke, but it was almost certainly Indo-European, like most of the languages in the region at the time.

The dominant Indo-European haplogroup in the region (Bulgaria, Greece, Western Anatolia) was R1b-Z2103.

The Trojan War was immediately followed by the Bronze Age collapse and the invasion of the Sea Peoples, who happened to be genetically closest to the inhabitants of Thrace and Western Anatolia at the time (based on the analysis of the Philistines, a group of Sea Peoples, in Israel at the time of the Bronze Age collapse). If the Sea Peoples could travel over all the Eastern Mediterranean to raid and conquer and they came from the same region as Troy, I don't see why a group of people from Troy in the same period could not have settled in the Latium. It's nearer than Israel or Egypt.


The oldest Latin sample we have from Iron Age Latium is R1016 from Castel di Decima (between Rome and Lavinium) dating from 900-700 BCE and this sample happens to be R1b-Z2103. It could be a coincidence. We certainly need more samples from the Latium from that period. But I wouldn't completely discredit the hypothesis yet.

Of course, you are free to believe the fairy tales. After all, fairy tales are meant to be believed. Including the Bible and all religious texts.

Taking ancient sources literally is a typical mistake made among amateur enthusiasts. I have often been confronted with archaeologists and anthropologists on these issues. And very few take them seriously and think they are real events.

But I completely understand that people need to believe in something. I don't. I am simply interested in ancient history and these topics do not touch my identity. Sorry, but I do not need to believe. And there is no evidence to believe that a group of Trojans really flew by charter to Latium and gave birth to a dynasty of Alba Longa. Beautiful fable, no doubt about it.
 
I don't see an issue with the dating. I think many fail to realize the scope of how distantly related Romulus actually would be to Aeneas assuming the legend is true. Romulus and Remus would have been the 14th generation of Aeneas' line of descent based off their reported genealogy as can be seen in this infographic:

aeneastoromulus2.jpg


If we assume each generation was created every 30 years on average then the twins would be 420 years removed from Aeneas of Troy and Lavina, the daughter of the legendary King Latinus. If we assume Romulus and Remus were roughly 30 years of age when founding Rome in 753BC that would put their birth at somewhere around 783BC. 783BC + 420 years = 1203BC which is only 23 years of variance from the Troy layer VIIa destruction date of 1180 BC found in the bronze age collapse. Chronologically, the timeline is extremely plausible. That of course doesn't lend strong proof or evidence to whether this crossing of Aeneas into Italy did or did not happen, but it does support the plausibility of the generational dating. As far as what the Trojan refugees do for this time period, I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at here. Like anywhere else, towns and cities will be built and abandoned in varying contexts and locals will find novel ways to mingle and integrate into newly constructed proto-urban centers by a complex array of social relationships and heirarchies. We are talking about prehistoric Italy so little to none of it would've been recorded other than by word of mouth. To be clear I am not argueing that Aeneas definitevely was an ancestor of Romulus/Remus. I am simply argueing that I don't think it can really be disproven either right now or maybe ever.

I'm less familiar with Dardanus, though. I can't speak much on that aspect. One thing is very clear, however, and this is that the Romans very much bore a dual case of respect and disdain for their Greek counterparts within their writings. Greek populations were certainly favored above all other foreigners in the Roman political system with Roman colonies typically being built atop of those of Greek centers whenever possible. The Greeks were seen as civilized, scientifically advanced, literate and educated, along with the fact that their Gods were identified as identical or nearly identical to that of the Roman pantheon. These qualities and similarities, along with the prior expansions of the Greek world were certainly admired by the Romans and much of their philosophies, inventions and ways of life were certainly integrated into Italian society. That being said there was also a degree of seperation put forth by types like Cato the Elder, who expounded upon the rustic, hardworking, militant and disciplined virtues which he associated with the Italics in detriment to luxury, softness and indolance which were thought of as Greek and also more broadly eastern vices.

The takeaway from all of this is that the Romans were broadly intent on associating with but not identifying themselves with the Greek ethnocultural sphere. It seems apparant that they wanted to be understood as similar to but superior to the Greek world and the story of Aeneas and the fall of Troy reinforces this idea of furnished rivalry between similar nations that at one point in the past were much closer to one another. The Roman conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean fits indeed almost as a revenge story for the destruction of Troy. Whether Aeneas actually came to Italy and created a line which would ultimately found Rome can continue be debated but the story itself is convenient for the Roman narrative.

It is undoubtedly a beautiful fairy tale. But I am sorry Vitruvius I stopped believing in fairy tales many years ago. It has symbolic value, but only true scholars are capable of analyzing this symbolic value, certainly not forumists, including myself.
 
And we have another I2a ydna in Italy or the west Balkans who people will insist is a slavic marker....how WRONG are these people

G2a-L497 as per the Berger paper is very much an Austrian/Alpine marker............check his paper (IIRC 2013)...........I think its origin is from Varna culture

Other G2a are from modern slovenia and north croatian lands ................typical north Illyric marker
 
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