Which part of South Italy is the most "unmixed" -- best representation of pre-Greek population?

[Sikeliot]

This is what I have been trying to figure out for Sicily.

My conclusion is that despite there being a lot of Greek genetic influence throughout the entire southern Italy, some traces of Norman in far NW Sicily, and some elevated North African and Levantine affinity on the south and west coasts of Sicily, there is a belt from southern Calabria through Messina/Catania and into inland central Sicily that is virtually unchanged since ancient times and best represents the pre-Greek, pre-Phoenician, pre-Norman population in close to undiluted form.

I conclude this for the following reasons:
- Southernmost Calabria, northeast Sicily, and inland central Sicily all have very different histories, but they all cluster closely together, and have a lot of IBD sharing on GEDmatch (a lot of people in Messina, Caltanissetta, and southern Calabria are coming up cousins).
- There is inflated Caucasus and SW Asian affinity on GEDmatch calculators, but lower North African and SSA affinity than the rest of Sicily, supporting the notion of a population once heavily West Asian in character that became more "European".
- North European components as well as "Atlanto-Med" and West Med are lower than elsewhere in the South, implying little to no Norman influence of meaningful significance.
- Baltic influence is lower than in any Greeks.

It is also worth noting Messina has been destroyed by earthquakes, so the original population may have been destroyed and the people there today may be originally from Calabria or the inland who were resettled in those towns. This has been suggested to me by surnames and history.

The people in these regions seem to be genetically almost like Cretans with minor North African, or even close to the Dodecanese islanders that are most outlying from the mainland.

This is in contrast to Apulia and southeast Sicily which seem to shift toward mainland Greece, Campania which shifts toward central Italy, and other places in Sicily with evidence of minor North African, Norman, and Phoenician/Jewish.

Do others agree, or do they think there has been too much movement from region to region to say?

[Peter Nirsch]

Simple: that part of Italy wasn't colonized by ancient greeks

Anyway I don't see much similarities between Sicilians/Calabrians and Greeks, they look extremely different IMHO.

[Sikeliot]

Simple: that part of Italy wasn't colonized by ancient greeks

Anyway I don't see much similarities between Sicilians/Calabrians and Greeks, they look extremely different IMHO.

How so?

Anyway, all of the region was colonized by ancient Greeks or influenced by them. The question I have is not only about Greek influence but also Norman, Jewish, Phoenician and so on.

[Inquizzzitor]

Greeks look very similar to Sicilians/Calabrians. No idea why anyone would say otherwise, though of course there are plenty of people who could pass in Greece but not in Sicily and vice versa. It's like a Venn Diagram, of course, but with a major overlapping part.

Moreover, those areas did of course have Greek settlements, some of the largest and most important. Messina, Giardini-Naxos, tons of places in Calabria, some towns in Calabria STILL speak Greek for crying out loud. Where my family is from in the hills to the west of Messina exist still the remnants of "Basilian" i.e. Greek Orthodox monasteries, and the population spoke Greek there until the Catholic Counter-Reformation standardized Latin Rite practice in Sicily. No Greek settlemnts...ha.

Sikeliot, I think you're onto something and I want to know whether the Siculi were in fact Italic (as we suspect) and what their genetic impact is. If they serve as the base of the pre-Greek population one would expect more of an affinity among Messina, the middle of Sicily on the one hand, and mainland Italians/Italic groups on the other. But that seems not to be the case, meaning either the Siculi were not as Italic as we think or they did not provide a substantial genetic base for the modern-day Messina/Caltanissetta population, which as you mention clusters with Calabrians.

[wvwvw]

Simple: that part of Italy wasn't colonized by ancient greeks

Anyway I don't see much similarities between Sicilians/Calabrians and Greeks, they look extremely different IMHO.

I wouldn't say "extremely" different.

[Sikeliot]

Greeks look very similar to Sicilians/Calabrians. No idea why anyone would say otherwise, though of course there are plenty of people who could pass in Greece but not in Sicily and vice versa. It's like a Venn Diagram, of course, but with a major overlapping part.

Moreover, those areas did of course have Greek settlements, some of the largest and most important. Messina, Giardini-Naxos, tons of places in Calabria, some towns in Calabria STILL speak Greek for crying out loud. Where my family is from in the hills to the west of Messina exist still the remnants of "Basilian" i.e. Greek Orthodox monasteries, and the population spoke Greek there until the Catholic Counter-Reformation standardized Latin Rite practice in Sicily. No Greek settlemnts...ha.

Sikeliot, I think you're onto something and I want to know whether the Siculi were in fact Italic (as we suspect) and what their genetic impact is. If they serve as the base of the pre-Greek population one would expect more of an affinity among Messina, the middle of Sicily on the one hand, and mainland Italians/Italic groups on the other. But that seems not to be the case, meaning either the Siculi were not as Italic as we think or they did not provide a substantial genetic base for the modern-day Messina/Caltanissetta population, which as you mention clusters with Calabrians.

But the evidence for the DNA also doesn't suggest massive Greek presence in Calabria and NE Sicily (genetic influence yes of course, mass replacement no), for one because of the similarity to inland Caltanissetta which was never conquered by Greeks, and the fact that by contrast people in SE Sicily (Syracuse/Ragusa) are closer genetically to mainland Greeks than the northeast or Calabria.

As for appearance, I'd say far southern Greeks and islanders are close, but I don't think people in Epirus, Thessaly, Thrace, or Macedonia look much like Sicilians or Calabrese.

[Peter Nirsch]

I wouldn't say "extremely" different.

Having visited both countries, I do think Greeks don't look like people from Sicily and Calabria, although they are the most hellenized regions of Italy.

[wvwvw]

Having visited both countries, I do think Greeks don't look like people from Sicily and Calabria, although they are the most hellenized regions of Italy.

Those were not Hellenized places, they were as Greek as Peloponnesus or Thessaly. The first aboriginals there were the Greeks according to Ancient writers. In fact all kind of Greek tribes settled there not just the Hellenes, Minoans, Arcadians and all kind of Greek tribes.

[wvwvw]

Having visited both countries, I do think Greeks don't look like people from Sicily and Calabria, although they are the most hellenized regions of Italy.

I noticed the opposite.

[Sikeliot]

Having visited both countries, I do think Greeks don't look like people from Sicily and Calabria, although they are the most hellenized regions of Italy.

The people of Calabria and Sicily have as much Greek DNA as do Cretans and the southern Aegean islanders (who they are genetically close to). The question is, how much?

A lot of the pre-Greek people of Sicily would have passed through the Aegean before landing there, also, like Elymians and probably Sicanians.