Tacitus
02-25-2015, 12:18 AM
http://www.nationalgeographic.it/popoli-culture/2013/02/07/news/gli_etruschi_sono_tra_noi-1499113/
Translation (courtesy of yours truly):
From where the Etruscans arrived, were they present on our peninsula since at least the 8th century BCE? Herodotus supported that they came from Anatolia, while according to the historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus they were a population already established for many years in Italy.
A new study (coordinated by Guido Barbujani, lecturer of genetics at the University of Ferrara, and Davide Caramelli, lecturer of anthropology at the University of Florence, in collaboration with the Biomedical Technology Institute of CNR in Milan) could give credence to Dionysius: the Etruscans, apparently, had nothing to do with Anatolia or with other Asiatic populations as suggested by previous research.
Thanks to new generation sequencing technology (NGS), the Florentine team of Caramelli has had the possibility of regaining unprecedented genetic information from a great number of bone remnants from over 2,000 years ago, which have revealed not only big news on the origins of the Etruscans, but also – thanks to the comparison to modern DNA – that their genetic heritage still survives today in a minority of contemporary Tuscans.
"The comparison with DNA from Asia shows that between Anatolia and Italy there were migrations, but they occurred many years ago, during prehistoric times, and thus have no relationship with the appearance of the Etruscan civilization in the 8th century BCE," explains Guido Barbujani. "Thus the idea of an eastern origin of the Etruscans is refuted, resumed a few years ago by genetic studies based only on modern DNA."
"Reading the DNA of a person so ancient is difficult," continues Barbujani. "The little DNA so far available did not establish genetic links between the Etruscans and our contemporaries. Last years, the Florentine group of Davide Caramelli managed to study a greater number of bone remains; so we realized that communities separated by a few kilometers can be very genetically diverse between them and we have seen as the biological inheritance of the Etruscans is still alive, also in a minority of Tuscans."
The new analysis on ancient examples of the universities of Ferrara and Florence answer the millennial-old questions on the biological origin and on the genetic fate of the Etruscans, adding some important pieces to the great mystery that still envelops the culture, the rise, and decline of these people. Now the ball passes into the hands of the archaeologists.
I believe this is the study the article was referring to: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055519
Abstract
The Etruscan culture is documented in Etruria, Central Italy, from the 8th to the 1st century BC. For more than 2,000 years there has been disagreement on the Etruscans’ biological origins, whether local or in Anatolia. Genetic affinities with both Tuscan and Anatolian populations have been reported, but so far all attempts have failed to fit the Etruscans’ and modern populations in the same genealogy. We extracted and typed the hypervariable region of mitochondrial DNA of 14 individuals buried in two Etruscan necropoleis, analyzing them along with other Etruscan and Medieval samples, and 4,910 contemporary individuals from the Mediterranean basin. Comparing ancient (30 Etruscans, 27 Medieval individuals) and modern DNA sequences (370 Tuscans), with the results of millions of computer simulations, we show that the Etruscans can be considered ancestral, with a high degree of confidence, to the current inhabitants of Casentino and Volterra, but not to the general contemporary population of the former Etruscan homeland. By further considering two Anatolian samples (35 and 123 individuals) we could estimate that the genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan culture developed locally, and not as an immediate consequence of immigration from the Eastern Mediterranean shores.
Translation (courtesy of yours truly):
From where the Etruscans arrived, were they present on our peninsula since at least the 8th century BCE? Herodotus supported that they came from Anatolia, while according to the historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus they were a population already established for many years in Italy.
A new study (coordinated by Guido Barbujani, lecturer of genetics at the University of Ferrara, and Davide Caramelli, lecturer of anthropology at the University of Florence, in collaboration with the Biomedical Technology Institute of CNR in Milan) could give credence to Dionysius: the Etruscans, apparently, had nothing to do with Anatolia or with other Asiatic populations as suggested by previous research.
Thanks to new generation sequencing technology (NGS), the Florentine team of Caramelli has had the possibility of regaining unprecedented genetic information from a great number of bone remnants from over 2,000 years ago, which have revealed not only big news on the origins of the Etruscans, but also – thanks to the comparison to modern DNA – that their genetic heritage still survives today in a minority of contemporary Tuscans.
"The comparison with DNA from Asia shows that between Anatolia and Italy there were migrations, but they occurred many years ago, during prehistoric times, and thus have no relationship with the appearance of the Etruscan civilization in the 8th century BCE," explains Guido Barbujani. "Thus the idea of an eastern origin of the Etruscans is refuted, resumed a few years ago by genetic studies based only on modern DNA."
"Reading the DNA of a person so ancient is difficult," continues Barbujani. "The little DNA so far available did not establish genetic links between the Etruscans and our contemporaries. Last years, the Florentine group of Davide Caramelli managed to study a greater number of bone remains; so we realized that communities separated by a few kilometers can be very genetically diverse between them and we have seen as the biological inheritance of the Etruscans is still alive, also in a minority of Tuscans."
The new analysis on ancient examples of the universities of Ferrara and Florence answer the millennial-old questions on the biological origin and on the genetic fate of the Etruscans, adding some important pieces to the great mystery that still envelops the culture, the rise, and decline of these people. Now the ball passes into the hands of the archaeologists.
I believe this is the study the article was referring to: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055519
Abstract
The Etruscan culture is documented in Etruria, Central Italy, from the 8th to the 1st century BC. For more than 2,000 years there has been disagreement on the Etruscans’ biological origins, whether local or in Anatolia. Genetic affinities with both Tuscan and Anatolian populations have been reported, but so far all attempts have failed to fit the Etruscans’ and modern populations in the same genealogy. We extracted and typed the hypervariable region of mitochondrial DNA of 14 individuals buried in two Etruscan necropoleis, analyzing them along with other Etruscan and Medieval samples, and 4,910 contemporary individuals from the Mediterranean basin. Comparing ancient (30 Etruscans, 27 Medieval individuals) and modern DNA sequences (370 Tuscans), with the results of millions of computer simulations, we show that the Etruscans can be considered ancestral, with a high degree of confidence, to the current inhabitants of Casentino and Volterra, but not to the general contemporary population of the former Etruscan homeland. By further considering two Anatolian samples (35 and 123 individuals) we could estimate that the genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan culture developed locally, and not as an immediate consequence of immigration from the Eastern Mediterranean shores.