Tag: Rome

R1b-L23-rich Bell Beaker-derived Italic peoples from the West vs. Etruscans from the East

final-bronze-age-italy

New paper (behind paywall) Ancient Rome: A genetic crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean, by Antonio et al. Science (2019).

The paper offers a lot of interesting data concerning the Roman Empire and more recent periods, but I will focus on Italic and Etruscan origins.

NOTE. I have updated prehistoric maps with Y-DNA and mtDNA data, and also the PCA of ancient Eurasian samples by period including the recently published samples, now with added sample names to find them easily by searching the PDFs.

Apennine homeland problem

The traditional question of Italic vs. Etruscan origins from a cultural-historical … Read the rest “R1b-L23-rich Bell Beaker-derived Italic peoples from the West vs. Etruscans from the East”

European hydrotoponymy (V): Etruscans and Rhaetians after Italic peoples

italy-mediterranean-bronze-age

There is overwhelming evidence that the oldest hydrotoponymic layer in Italy (and especially Etruria) is of Old European nature, which means that non-Indo-European-speaking (or, at least, non-Old-European-speaking) Etruscans came later to the Apennine Peninsula.

Furthermore, there is direct and indirect linguistic, archaeological, and palaeogenomic data supporting that the intrusive Tursānoi came from the Aegean during the Late Bronze Age, possibly through the Adriatic, and that their languages spread to Etruria and probably also to the eastern Alps.

Hydrotoponymic layer

The following are translated excerpts (emphasis mine) from Lenguas, genes y culturas en la Prehistoria de Europa y … Read the rest “European hydrotoponymy (V): Etruscans and Rhaetians after Italic peoples”

Pre-Roman and Roman mitogenomes from Southern Italy

vagnari-cemetery-haplogroups-superimposed

Ph.D. thesis Assessing Migration and Demographic Change in pre-Roman and Roman Period Southern Italy Using Whole-Mitochondrial DNA and Stable Isotope Analysis, or The Biogeographic Origins of Iron Age Peucetians and Working-Class Romans From Southern Italy, by Matthew Emery, McMaster University (2018).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Assessing population diversity in southern Italy has traditionally relied on archaeological and historic evidence. Although informative, these lines of evidence do not establish specific instances of within lifetime mobility, nor track population diversity over time. In order to investigate the population structure of ancient South Italy I sequenced the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 15

… Read the rest “Pre-Roman and Roman mitogenomes from Southern Italy”