1
This may be a big stretch, but I have concluded through many samples I have seen on 23andme, GEDmatch and so on, that there are at least four genetic clusters within Sicily, and of those four, two of them may largely be due to the source of Greek settlement:
- Messina, Catania, and (parts of) Palermo, which are genetically similar to one another, were Ionian,
- Ragusa, Syracuse, and southern Sicily were Doric
Ionic Greeks were the "eastern" subset of Greeks, from the Aegean islands, Euboea, and Anatolia. Doric Greeks were centered on the Peloponnese. Today, we notice the similarities between NE Sicily and the Aegean islands, while people in Syracuse and Ragusa are drifting toward, if not plotting with, the Peloponnese. I can provide proof of this should anyone ask.
Might these genetic divisions be, in part, due to large settlements of Doric Greeks in Syracuse, Ragusa and so on, while the Greeks in Messina and Catania may have been from the Aegean and Anatolia.
Of course, there are also Sicilians in Palermo who are genetically higher than average SW Asian and NW African and drift toward Moroccan Jews, while some people in Trapani have elevated Norman and shift northwest, but all in all I think a large part of the genetic differences may be due to the sources of Greek settlement being from different Greek tribes.
Bookmarks