Genetic study The arrival of the Near Eastern ancestry in Central Italy predates the onset of the Roman Empire

Tautalus

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Abstract

Italian genetic history was profoundly shaped by Romans. While the Iron Age was comparable to contemporary European regions, the gene pool of Central Italy underwent significant influence from Near Eastern ancestry during the Imperial age. To explain this shift, it has been proposed that during this period people from Eastern Mediterranean regions of the Empire migrated towards its political center. In this study, by analyzing a new individual (1.25x) and published Republican samples, we propose a novel perspective for the presence of Near Eastern ancestry in the Imperial gene pool. In our scenario, the spread of this genetic ancestry took place during the late Republican period, predating the onset of the Empire by ~200 years. The diffusion of this ancestry may have occurred due to early East-to-West movements, since Eastern Mediterranean regions were already under Roman political influence during the Republic, or even as a result of migration from Southern Italy where Greeks and Phoenicians settled.

A) PCA with the newly reported individual and relevant ancient (colored) and modern (gray) samples from the literature. The main Italian Iron Age and Imperial clusters are indicated together with the Iron Age individuals with Near Eastern ancestry. B) Unsupervised admixture analysis (K=4), on the left Italian Iron Age and Imperial individuals are represented; on the right, populations representative of the main European genetic ancestries.


17yCAws.png
 
In this study, by analyzing a new individual (1.25x) and published Republican samples, we propose a novel perspective for the presence of Near Eastern ancestry in the Imperial gene pool. In our scenario, the spread of this genetic ancestry took place during the late Republican period, predating the onset of the Empire by ~200 years. The diffusion of this ancestry may have occurred due to early East-to-West movements, since Eastern Mediterranean regions were already under Roman political influence during the Republic, or even as a result of migration from Southern Italy where Greeks and Phoenicians settled.
Yet again, a summary where the terms "Greek" and "Near Eastern" are used as interchangeable terms.

As to the Phoenicians I doubt their genetic footprint was significant in Central Italy as they were themselves a small minority in the Greek South even before supposingly migrating to Central Italy.
 
Yet again, a summary where the terms "Greek" and "Near Eastern" are used as interchangeable terms.

As to the Phoenicians I doubt their genetic footprint was significant in Central Italy as they were themselves a small minority in the Greek South even before supposingly migrating to Central Italy.
Maybe they meant Punic influences from North Africa rather than from Tyre and Sidon in modern Lebanon.

At least the paper gives Magna Graecia under the Late Republic as the main source of East Med. ancestry in the central Italy of the Empire.
 
The Near East represents a large geographical area, but it is incorrectly applied by the authors of the study, who even include Macedonia and Greece in this area. The presence of the Iran Neolithic genetic component will essentially be due to migratory flows from Magna Graecia or Greece itself.

“First, Rome annexed some of the rich and densely populated Near Eastern territories decades, if not centuries, before the onset of the Empire (Macedonia and Greece between 168 and 146 BCE; Western part of Anatolia in 133 BCE and soon afterwards Cilicia, the Southern part of Anatolia, from 100 BCE; and Syria in 64 BCE (Piganiol 1927; Rinaldi Tufi et al. 1971; Brizzi 1997)) suggesting that migrations from those regions might have started much earlier.”​
 
Abstract

Italian genetic history was profoundly shaped by Romans. While the Iron Age was comparable to contemporary European regions, the gene pool of Central Italy underwent significant influence from Near Eastern ancestry during the Imperial age. To explain this shift, it has been proposed that during this period people from Eastern Mediterranean regions of the Empire migrated towards its political center. In this study, by analyzing a new individual (1.25x) and published Republican samples, we propose a novel perspective for the presence of Near Eastern ancestry in the Imperial gene pool. In our scenario, the spread of this genetic ancestry took place during the late Republican period, predating the onset of the Empire by ~200 years. The diffusion of this ancestry may have occurred due to early East-to-West movements, since Eastern Mediterranean regions were already under Roman political influence during the Republic, or even as a result of migration from Southern Italy where Greeks and Phoenicians settled.



A) PCA with the newly reported individual and relevant ancient (colored) and modern (gray) samples from the literature. The main Italian Iron Age and Imperial clusters are indicated together with the Iron Age individuals with Near Eastern ancestry. B) Unsupervised admixture analysis (K=4), on the left Italian Iron Age and Imperial individuals are represented; on the right, populations representative of the main European genetic ancestries.


17yCAws.png
I come out as:

78.4pc Italy IA Tarquinia Monterozzi

21.0pc Italy IA Tarquinia Monterozzi - origin Levent

0.6pc Moroccan-Iberomaurusian

@ 1.5782
 
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lack of detail again....it should be stated as western central italy....there was no greek or phoencian in the adriatic sea......until
most notable Greek colonies was Pharos (modern-day Stari Grad on the island of Hvar). It was founded by settlers from the island of Paros in the Aegean Sea around 385 BCE. Pharos became a significant cultural and economic center in the Adriatic.

corinthian cities of durres and appolonia

even with this the greeks are on the western balkan side.
 
liburnians did trade their baltic amber from corfu to the egyptians in the late bronze-age.

Romans did take modern albania from the macedonians at start of the hannibal war as macedonia was an ally of hannibal.
Romans kept the area forever.
 
these fabricated messaging and attack on adriatic italian populace, pre roman.... is not going to help anybody
 
Maybe they meant Punic influences from North Africa rather than from Tyre and Sidon in modern Lebanon.

At least the paper gives Magna Graecia under the Late Republic as the main source of East Med. ancestry in the central Italy of the Empire.
punic lasted from 806Bc to 136Bc.

where is Magna Graecia ? .....does it also count greek cities in southern france or greek owned corsica ?
 
Hope we do not rely on this
Data from 30 individuals from 4 central Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Age archaeological sites,
showing in Fig. 2A: Kerkouane in Tunisia (n=12), Sant’Imbenia in Sardinia (n=3), and Pian Sultano (n=4)
and Tarquinia in central Italy (n=11). In our analyses, the new data are supplemented with 9 previously
published Iron Age Sardinians dating from 818- 208 BCE (7, 8) and 11 additional Iron Age Italians dating
from 963 - 200 BCE (9).
We radiocarbon-dated 19 individuals (Fig. 2b, Dataset S3). These confirm the archaeologically attested
dates of use for the Kerkouane necropolis to the mid-Iron Age (650 - 250 BCE), when Carthage was the
Mediterranean's dominant maritime power. In Italy, the individuals from Tarquinia spanned the Iron Age,
from the city’s growth in the early Iron Age through its incorporation into the growing Roman Republic in
the 3rd century BCE.
 
punic lasted from 806Bc to 136Bc.

where is Magna Graecia ? .....does it also count greek cities in southern france or greek owned corsica ?
Magna Graecia usually refers only to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy.
 
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liburnians did trade their baltic amber from corfu to the egyptians in the late bronze-age.
Liburnians were an ancient people in the Near East, for example the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (884 – 859 BC) says: I had brought under my sway, from the land of Suhi, and from the whole of the land of Lake, and from the land of Sirku on the other side of the Euphrates, and from the farthest border of the land of Zamua, from Bit-Adini and the land of Hatte, (the people of) Liburna, (ruler) of the land of Hattini, I took and I settled them therein.

source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ancient_records_of_Assyria_and_Babylonia/4hrcDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq="(the+people+of)+Liburna"&pg=PA186&printsec=frontcover
 
The authors of this study are simply echoing Antony 2019 and Moots 2023. We have seen this kind of study before, where geneticists back each other up, with circular argumentation, then repeating errors in a chain. The narrative of the previous papers must be kept alive.

The author of this study backdates the arrival of this alleged ancestry from the eastern Mediterranean by 200 years, i.e. backdating from the Roman imperial era to the last Roman republican phase. But a study that relies on a single individual analysed from Tarquinia is ridiculous, it talks about the spread of Near Eastern ancestry and how does it prove this with just one individual? It is not Covid, DNA is not a virus. A Near Easterner arrives in Tarquinia and by magic Near Eastern ancestry spreads around him, everyone he meets becomes a bit Near Eastern. Tarquinia at this time has already been undergoing Romanisation for at least a couple of centuries, a very very complicated phase, but a single individual has no statistical value. The only reasonable thing he writes is that it cannot be excluded that it is due to movements from the "Greek! southern Italy to central Italy.

In her Twitter post Hannah Moots states the false as usual, even contradicting the results of her study. First of all, the non-locals in her study (which is based on 22 samples from Latium and Abruzzi, including Latins, Etruscans and 1 Protovillanovan from Abruzzi) are 36% not 40% (but there are even fewer if we exclude those who still plott close to the local population and are therefore only partially of non-local ancestry), and of this 36% only fewer come from other areas of the Mediterranean, because Moots obviously forgets to mention for example the Celts found in central Italy. This is not a causal omission, because the Celts are not functional to the narrative she likes so much.


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Someday maybe we'll understand why they push this narrative, as if they were trying to overstate non-European inputs (even "smuggling" them through the European Aegean direct input, in this specific case). Of course scientists don't live in a bubble and they also have a cultural formation and political leanings I guess...

Besides, it's not like Central Italians at that time were illiterate cavemen. If major migrations had occurred to Central Italy from all over the Mediterranean, to the point that 40% of Central Italy was inhabited by people coming from other regions of the Mediterranean, we would have written records of that.
 
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If major migrations had occurred to Central Italy from all over the Mediterranean, to the point that 40% of Central Italy was inhabited by people coming from other regions of the Mediterranean, we would have written records of that.
On this topic, it is also important to note sampling bias.
If you explore urban centers, you expect to see a larger fraction of foreigners.
But at the same, pre-modern time urban centers were demographic black-holes always repopulated from the surrounding countrysides.
Thus you can have a very biased impression about the genetic composition of an autochtonous population if you look only at snapshot of Urban centers (particularly for important cultural centers).

That said, Iron-age was clearly seing long distance movements of population (even without invasions), in particular for important cultural centers ... we have many haplogroups allowing to trace such population movements.


Of course scientists don't live in a bubble and they also have a cultural formation and political leanings I guess...

Academics are overwhelmingly left leaning (if not clearly communists-leaning) :
As it is expect for a population having mostly underwent through studying (non-productive life), and heavily dependent on public founds (obtained from the taxes paid by the productive parts of the population).
Being a scientist comes with an international cosmopolit lifestyle, that is a biased sampling of multi-culturalism (in a positive way, by being mostly exposed to educated and respectfull peoples) that may affect the objective perception of such concept (on the other side, observing only multiculturalism in poorly-educated sectors of the society might lead to a bias on the other side).

As a moderate/right-winger scientist ... On the political topics you feel a little bit lonely in the academic sector.

Someday maybe we'll understand why they push this narrative, as if they were trying to overstate non-European inputs (even "smuggling" them through the European Aegean direct input, in this specific case).

This is just the currently "popular" ideological alignement in their sphere of the society.
Western society underwent through many such ideological biases, sometimes having migrationists being heavily pushed, sometimes diffusionism being heavily pushed.
Historians (including genetisists) are often going way beyond the facts when trying to "tell a story", often projecting there own conceptions of the societies.
 
The findings from ancient DNA research can be politically sensitive, there is a concern in the scientific community about the potential to support nationalistic narratives about the purity and origins of populations. There is a concern of the misuse of these findings to advance some agendas or narratives, as seen in various instances where genetic research has been leveraged to justify claims about ethnic or national identity.
Simplistic interpretations of ancient DNA can be exploited to support some agendas or narratives, similar to the way cultural and archaeological history has been used in previous eras, for example the use in Nazi Germany of the work of early 20th century German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna about Corded Ware.
Ancient DNA findings can either challenge or reinforce national narratives about the origins and purity of populations, impacting national identity and heritage, and influencing how people perceive their history and cultural roots.
In the spirit of the time, where ideologies of diversity and inclusion predominate, greater relevance is given today to aspects of diversity and migration over the concept of homogenous ancient groups.
By highlighting genetic diversity and migration, these scientists hope to help combat the misuse of genetic research to support nationalist or ethnic purity narratives. To avoid falling into one extreme, there is a tendency to go to the other extreme.
A more correct interpretation is not at one extreme or the other but will be more nuanced.
 
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