Comparing Ancient Greek populations to modern Greeks and Italians

[Jovialis]

There are two BA Palace of Nestor samples that cluster with Modern Cyprus.

However, the majority of them do cluster in the 1:10 Yamna/Minoan ratio.

 

[Jovialis]

These were the formative migrations that spawned modern Northern and Southern Europeans:

IA Sicily, these averages? What does it really prove? Again, Fernandes modeled Sicily EBA with Minoan. The same could be done with Daunians, as Aneli showed. Lazaridis showed that many Balkanites could be modeled with the Northern model.

We also know that Minoans had some various percentages of CHG/Levant_PPN.

Also, I do think there was some impact from the Eastern Mediterranean people in the Imperial era, but not to a major extent. I do think some of the extra levant could have come from the Greek Colonies too by the way. But whole sale population replacement is preposterous.

Southern Italy is an amalgamation of this BA Balkan continuum, but also influenced from the continuum adjacent of Latins/Etruscans.

It is really not a hard concept to comprehend. It is Iron clade in terms of history. I find it stunning that some people deny reality. Even when academic analysis insists it to be true.

 

[torzio]

Southern Italy is an amalgamation of this BA Balkan continuum, but also influenced from the continuum adjacent of Latins/Etruscans.
It is really not a hard concept to comprehend. It is Iron clade in terms of history. I find it stunning that some people deny reality. Even when academic analysis insists it to be true.

All the samples that have Caucasus ( red ) do not match the ancient samples that where also found .............seems like two different waves

 

[Francesco]

Southern Italy is an amalgamation of this BA Balkan continuum, but also influenced from the continuum adjacent of Latins/Etruscans.
It is really not a hard concept to comprehend. It is Iron clade in terms of history. I find it stunning that some people deny reality. Even when academic analysis insists it to be true.

Where would Sal 003 and Sal 010 samples plot in a PCA?

 

[Dianatomia]

I do not think we should discard Logkas. Back when everyone was saying Logkas was just an outlier, a dead end, having nothing to do with modern people, before Southern Arc even came out, a Greek friend on discords, DFST was pointing out to me that using Logkas for modern Greeks and Albanians was giving viable runs. To be honest, we were trying every sample we could. But the point is that everyone was discarding those samples a priori, because their profile at the time was a total outlier, even in the paper they came out in they were described as such IIRC.

Ps. I understand that nationalism is very strong in the wider region, and Greeks hold history with pride, as they should. But what I fail to grasp is why everything has to immediately be covered with the label Greek even on semi serious fora. Greek Minoans, Greek Myceneans, Greek Logkas, Greek Anatolians, lol. I mean this in a reasonable way, although I obviously find it funny. How can Logkas, Anatolians, as well as Myceneans be simultaneously Greek despite their differences in culture and genetics... seems contradictory.
I am not even an expert in any of these fields, but a contradiction is a contradiction.

Edit: I also think this very paper will try to answer the questions you raised, and clarify what synthesis of peoples and cultures took place in Greece. Is it known how many samples it contains?

I would argue that there is also the other side of the coin. Some argue that Greeks are only truly Greek if they genetically overlap with Mycenaens. While the habitat of the Greek people has expanded since the Bronze Age. Somehow though, ancient people from areas like Epirus and Thessaly are not truly Greek because they do not overlap with Mycenaeans further South. Even though proto-Greek came from that exact area. I understand that genetic signature of Logkas type people might have disolved somewhat. But I doubt the people from Thessaly were identical to Mycenaenas during that era.

And what about Greek speaking people living in Western Anatolia in antiquity. Some calculate that they are Mycenaean + something else. So by these standards many ancient Greeks were not Greek because they were not fully Mycenaean? Even though the Ancient Greeks who are most known to us lived in the Classical Age or the Hellenistic Age.So Homer, Herodotus, Diogenes etc. were not fully Mycenaean and therefore not truly Greek?

Should we perhaps instead argue that the Ancient Greeks are the biological product of their environment which is centered along the Aegean? And that they encompassed Mycenaean, Balkanic and Anatolian elements.

 

[Archetype0ne]

I would argue that there is also the other side of the coin. Some argue that Greeks are only truly Greek if they genetically overlap with Mycenaens. While the habitat of the Greek people has expanded since the Bronze Age. Somehow though, ancient people from areas like Epirus and Thessaly are not truly Greek because they do not overlap with Mycenaeans further South. Even though proto-Greek came from that exact area. I understand that genetic signature of Logkas type people might have disolved somewhat. But I doubt the people from Thessaly were identical to Mycenaenas during that era.

And what about Greek speaking people living in Western Anatolia in antiquity. Some calculate that they are Mycenaean + something else. So by these standards many ancient Greeks were not Greek because they were not fully Mycenaean? Even though the Ancient Greeks who are most known to us lived in the Classical Age or the Hellenistic Age.So Homer, Herodotus, Diogenes etc. were not fully Mycenaean and therefore not truly Greek?

Should we perhaps instead argue that the Ancient Greeks are the biological product of their environment which is centered along the Aegean? And that they encompassed Mycenaean, Balkanic and Anatolian elements.

As I said, I do not know the answers to these questions. Hence I look forward to this paper.
I think in the broader popular media landscapes maybe these arguments help the nationalist base, but for semi serious forums I think they actually hurt the discourse.

In my opinion Myceneans were the proto-Greek core. And while I do not know which was the exact core tribe or denomination, later ancient Greeks around the Iron Age left enough art and science to make a mark in history. This can not be argued. The colonies around Anatolia and Italy, do not mean that these regions were the Greek core, and the later spread of Hellenic culture all the way to Pakistan by the Macedonians, likewise says little about the original core.

Right now, I am conflicted between J2a and R1b as to the original Greek core (language, IE autosomal). So far J2a branches seem to predate IE peoples, Myceneans etc, and to be spread from Greece to Croatia to Moldova already in the Neolithic. Making me think the R1b clades are a better candidate, conveniently they connect the Albanians, Armenians and Greeks, not only accounting for some of the genetics that are directly linked to early IE expansion, but also phylogenic trees, and thus these R1b's are very likely the core we speak of.

I doubt what I am saying is controversial.

 

[bigsnake49]

History & archaeology should be used as a guide to what inputs to use. We have to be careful though in using urban sample from Classical Athens, Imperial Rome, Thessaloniki, Constantinople to model the hinterland. I believe that we should use sample from the smaller cities and villages to model a population. Also we need to be careful with using modern sample from people that clearly migrated from Anatolia (Pontus, Constantinople, Izmir, etc) or Eastern Romelia or Eastern Thrace to represent Greek continuity with Ancient Greeks. There has been a lot of mixing since the early 1900's.

 

[mount123]

So far J2a branches seem to predate IE peoples, Myceneans etc, and to be spread from Greece to Croatia to Moldova already in the Neolithic.

First, J2a what? The J2a-M410 samples from ancient Greece are very diverse many clades having a most recent common ancestor in the upper Paleolithic and late Mesolithic even. Also a lot of dead end Anatolian CA/BA derived branches come solely from Minoan sites in Crete, these are absolutely absent in the Balkan Neolithics. I have talked about this in the Balkan BA thread.

What you mean is probably J2a1-Y7010>Y13128, a late farmer haplogroup that consistently pops up in ancient Greek contexts. A solid consistent presence of G2a-L91 is also noticeable as well as already discussed R1b-PF7562>PF7563+.

 

[Jovialis]

Where would Sal 003 and Sal 010 samples plot in a PCA?

From my recollection one plots with Etruscans/Latins. The other plots with samples like R437.

 

[Jovialis]

All the samples that have Caucasus ( red ) do not match the ancient samples that where also found .............seems like two different waves

If you use Lasithi, Perta or Zakros minoans, you would see a lot of the extra CHG get eaten up. I don't think Daunians are native to Apulia. I believe they came from the Balkans in the LBA.

 

[Angela]

Perhaps the comparisons using ancient samples should be done with the Peloponnesian samples used in George Stamatoyannopouloset al, given that...

"Subjects were includedin the study if all four grandparents originated from the same village or fromvillages that were o10 kilometers apart. The ages of most participants rangedbetween 70 and 90 years (the oldest subject was 107 years old); hence theirgrandparents were born between 1860 and 1880. In the 1861 census thepopulation of Peloponnese was 578 598 individuals. At that time the economyof Peloponnese was exclusively agricultural and over 85% of the population wasliving in small villages and hamlets. We sampled all the districts of Peloponnese(Figure 1a and Supplementary Table 1) and also focused on two culturallydistinct subpopulations, the Tsacones and the Maniots."

One can thus be assured that the "modern" samples are not from Athens, and certainly are not from people admixed with refugees arriving in the 20th century.

See: Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks (purdue.edu)

 

[torzio]

If you use Lasithi, Perta or Zakros minoans, you would see a lot of the extra CHG get eaten up. I don't think Daunians are native to Apulia. I believe they came from the Balkans in the LBA.

yep ,,,,,,we know they came from modern croatia

and the other

states the messapic arrived in Italy circa 600BC ( 400 years after the Daunians ) but from where ??

The daunians would have already mixed with their neighbours the Samnites and would have most likely lost their balkan language before the messapics arrived in Italy

 

[Francesco]

The other plots with samples like R437.

So, basically SAL010 it's already in the C6 cluster, isn't it?

 

[Jovialis]

Perhaps the comparisons using ancient samples should be done with the Peloponnesian samples used in George Stamatoyannopouloset al, given that...
"Subjects were includedin the study if all four grandparents originated from the same village or fromvillages that were o10 kilometers apart. The ages of most participants rangedbetween 70 and 90 years (the oldest subject was 107 years old); hence theirgrandparents were born between 1860 and 1880. In the 1861 census thepopulation of Peloponnese was 578 598 individuals. At that time the economyof Peloponnese was exclusively agricultural and over 85% of the population wasliving in small villages and hamlets. We sampled all the districts of Peloponnese(Figure 1a and Supplementary Table 1) and also focused on two culturallydistinct subpopulations, the Tsacones and the Maniots."
One can thus be assured that the "modern" samples are not from Athens, and certainly are not from people admixed with refugees arriving in the 20th century.
See: Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks (purdue.edu)

Yes, I think that would be illuminating to see in a model. Eastern Peloponnesians as shown on Raveane et al. 2022, like Apulians, have a very high affinity to Neolithic Greece. Which would make them the closest of all, considering they're actually Greeks in the Peloponnese.

So, basically SAL010 it's already in the C6 cluster, isn't it?

Indeed, when the paper first came out, I had pointed out the closeness to R437 on the PCA. If anything, the father could have been similar to R850, which Antonio et al 2019 said specifically forms a clade with Anatolia ChL. Which is similar to Anatolia BA Isparta. That's why I don't buy what that other guy is saying. Which from my recollection Isparta was about 35% CHG, the rest Anatolian_N, and 5% what the paper refered to as Levantine farmers (Levant_PPN?). Anatolian_ChL less so.

The Anatolians of the copper age and Bronze age are most similar to modern people from places like Kos. They predate the Sidon BA, which came to genetically define the Middle East.

 

[Jovialis]

These were the formative migrations that spawned modern Northern and Southern Europeans:

IA Sicily, these averages? What does it really prove? Again, Fernandes modeled Sicily EBA with Minoan. The same could be done with Daunians, as Aneli showed. Lazaridis showed that many Balkanites could be modeled with the Northern model.

We also know that Minoans had some various percentages of CHG/Levant_PPN.

Also, I do think there was some impact from the Eastern Mediterranean people in the Imperial era, but not to a major extent. I do think some of the extra levant could have come from the Greek Colonies too by the way. But whole sale population replacement is preposterous.

Regarding Odigitria Minoans, the Daunian paper modeled IA_Roman Republic (i.e. Latin and Etruscans) with Odigitria.

Of course, we know the Latins and Etruscans did not decend from the Minoans.

However, Central Italian Neolithic is actually pretty close to Odigitria, this is something I am noticing now:

Relatively speaking 5 is pretty close, and it is much closer than it is to other Minoans.

From my recollection C_Italian Neo can be modeled as 95% C_Anatolian_ChL 5% WHG.

 

[eupator]

Perhaps the comparisons using ancient samples should be done with the Peloponnesian samples used in George Stamatoyannopouloset al, given that...

This wouldn't be representative of the Northern Greeks, before or after the population exchange.

 

[Angela]

This wouldn't be representative of the Northern Greeks, before or after the population exchange.

I'm aware of that possibility. However, looking at the analysis Jovialis did, except for Greek Macedonia, I don't see major differences between the Peloponnesian Greeks and the other more northern areas. A slight cline, perhaps, but no "break". So, that leaves two possibilities: the admixture was not large enough to significantly change the gene pool, or, the newcomers were relatively close genetically to the locals and so that muted the effect of the admixture.

At any rate, testing the samples from that paper against the ancients would certainly tell us how close the Peloponnesians of various areas are to those ancients.

I'd also like to see a comparison of the samples from the various areas of the Peloponnese against Southern Italians of various areas. I'm thinking of areas like the Salento and the Griko speaking areas of Calabria, and the northeastern coast of Sicily (not Messina, of course).

I don't even know if we have access to the samples from that paper, but it would be interesting to see. Perhaps it's been done already. I don't know. I'm not on here very much anymore.

 

[Francesco]

Perhaps the comparisons using ancient samples should be done with the Peloponnesian samples used in George Stamatoyannopouloset al, given that...

In my opinion, if we want to compare ancient Greeks with modern Greeks, we should take in to account two considerations: a chronological and a geographical one.

Speaking of the chronological consideration, we have to keep in mind that archaic era and classical Greeks may have been pretty similar to Myceneans, but they also might show some differences. So far we have very few samples from Iron age Greeks and some of them seem a little bit more pulled towards the current east med cline. This could be due to interaction both with the northern regions and with the poleis of the anatolian coast.

This brings us to the geographical consideration: unless I missed them, we still have very few samples from Northern Greece (we have samples from north Macedonia, but if I remember correctly it's contemporary Republic of North Macedonia and not ancient Macedonia) and we should not assume they could have looked the same as bronze age myceneans from Southern Greece. At the same time, we already know that Greek colonies on the anatolian coast experience significant amount of admixture with the autoctonous elements.

I believe all this points should be taken in to account of we want to speculate the degree of continuity between modern and classical Greeks.

 

[epirus1000]

In my opinion, if we want to compare ancient Greeks with modern Greeks, we should take in to account two considerations: a chronological and a geographical one.

Speaking of the chronological consideration, we have to keep in mind that archaic era and classical Greeks may have been pretty similar to Myceneans, but they also might show some differences. So far we have very few samples from Iron age Greeks and some of them seem a little bit more pulled towards the current east med cline. This could be due to interaction both with the northern regions and with the poleis of the anatolian coast.

This brings us to the geographical consideration: unless I missed them, we still have very few samples from Northern Greece (we have samples from north Macedonia, but if I remember correctly it's contemporary Republic of North Macedonia and not ancient Macedonia) and we should not assume they could have looked the same as bronze age myceneans from Southern Greece. At the same time, we already know that Greek colonies on the anatolian coast experience significant amount of admixture with the autoctonous elements.

I believe all this points should be taken in to account of we want to speculate the degree of continuity between modern and classical Greeks.

You will never have published samples from ancient South Macedonia and ancient South Epirus. All that pileus (plis in Albanian) in those coins that is still used in Albania shows a little bit of what the DNA could hold. Too risky

 

[eupator]

So what if they are. Northern Greece is (eastern) Roman Orthodox clay.

Pagan/heathen larps are a few millennia too late, courtesy of Theodosius the Great (and others).