Italian Peninsula G25 Analysis

[Ethel]

G25 (scaled) maps for the averaged three main regions of the Italian Peninsula as of 03/2020 (subject to reference changes).

Southern Italy (Italia Meridionale)

https://i.imgur.com/I3BVf9q.png

Central Italy (Italia Centrale)

https://i.imgur.com/42xUtOZ.png

Northern Italy (Italia Settentrionale)

https://i.imgur.com/Xj4PkFO.png

G25 Scaled PCA

https://i.imgur.com/k4O1O7O.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/692777219772121169/692777266425626674/newplot3.png

Notes:

• Basilicata was used as an AVG reference for South Italy, as it's not as mainland-shifted as Sicilian_West, Molise and Abruzzo, but also not as outlying as Campania, Calabria and Sicily_East. Apulia could also be used but it has a notable Greek bias;
• Umbria was used as the AVG reference for Central Italy, as Lazio has a few southern-dielact speaking communities and Tuscany is too northern shifted;
• Bergamo is the AVG reference for North Italy because it's the very center of the Po Valley without the Bavarian shift that Triveneto has, nor the French one that pushes Piedmont and Aosta;
• Piedmont, Swiss_Italian and Moldavian references are broken and unreliable;
• Emilia-Romagna was estimated with an average of defective references of Piedmont and Swiss_Italian compared with Tuscan;
• Swiss Italian (Ticino) was calculated as Lombardy, as they speak the same "dialect" (they're the same people);
• Piedmont region was calculated as an average between Lombardy and Aosta;
• Moldavia_o reference was used to paint its region on the map, since the standard G25 Moldavian was causing an abnormal hotspot;
• Some countries that aren't separated into regional references by the G25 had to be separated into different tones in degradée following the patterns according to their neighboring countries. This made the gradient on the map smoother and more realistic, but it may not be completely reliable;
• Turkey was extremely difficult to place because there are many references that are contradictory and many areas without references, so it appears kinda retarded on the map compared to the other regions.

Conclusions:

× The Italian Peninsula is a genetic cline that goes from Lyon to Crete, with the Iberian and Greek Peninsulas as genetic parallels, and this is reflected on G25;
× We desperately need at least a reference for Emilia-Romagna, and a better one for Piedmont;
× Campania should also be separated into Mainland and Coastal;
× Sicilian_East is odd because it's probably based on Messina, which is quite different from Ragusa and Syracuse, the latter needing a separate sample for them;
× I still prefer K36 Taux de Similitude maps a bit more even though they aren't perfect as well.

[Samnium]

The G25 reference of Calabria is made by 2 samples coming from the same area (Reggio Calabria). :laugh:

There are other heavy problems with Italian references.

+ these similarity maps in my opinion are very inaccurate

[Token]

The G25 reference of Calabria is made by 2 samples coming from the same area (Reggio Calabria). :laugh:

There are other heavy problems with Italian references.

+ these similarity maps in my opinion are very inaccurate

Calm down dude, there would be more Calabrian samples if they existed.

[Token]

I see recent Austrian ancestry in Triveneto and recent mainland Greek ancestry in Apulia, and both are characterized by some degree of Slavic admixture.

[Jana]

Break in Med continuity on western Balkan coast is clear proof of mass Slavic invasion of our ancestors :) Meanwhile, eastern Balkans is much more Med, reflected nicely in east Romance languages surviving there.

[Ion Basescul]

Break in Med continuity on western Balkan coast is clear proof of mass Slavic invasion of our ancestors :) Meanwhile, eastern Balkans is much more Med, reflected nicely in east Romance languages surviving there.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NprEtCBVKQ

[Token]

Break in Med continuity on western Balkan coast is clear proof of mass Slavic invasion of our ancestors :) Meanwhile, eastern Balkans is much more Med, reflected nicely in east Romance languages surviving there.

If Slavic invasions had never occured Croatia would be in deep green in the North Italian map.

[Ethel]

I see recent Austrian ancestry in Triveneto and recent mainland Greek ancestry in Apulia, and both are characterized by some degree of Slavic admixture.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/692777219772121169/692777266425626674/newplot3.png

Weirdly enough, Apulia is less Greek-shifted than Basilicata here, which is a very "neutral" or isolated Southern Italian region :icon_ask:
It’s sad that a big country like Germany is so underrepresented, there are only two references, I had a hard time trying to divide it, then you have Catalonia with a dozen references :lol:.
This also makes it difficult to tell which way Triveneto is shifting towards to, and you won't see it at the similarity map because it was made based on Bergamo.
I think that the lack of a Piedmont reference leaves Aosta misplaced. In all genetic reports I've seen, Northern Italy is bifurcated into two clines, one towards Bavaria (which we can't confirm because there's no reference for it) and other to France.
One thing we can confirm is what I've always thought: Liguria, Lombardy (and possibly Emilia Romagna) are the most similar regions to Sardinia and Iberia.

I'm adding this PCA to the main post too.

[Raizen]

Interesting. My Venetian side is Veronese and Italian_Lombardy/Italian_Bergamo are the best references for this side of my ancestry. I think it makes sense since this part of Veneto was inhabited by Gallo-Romans, similar to Lombardy, and Orobic Lombard is still spoken in some cities of Verona. I'm a mix of many things anyway, so maybe this is just G25 not being able to separate my ancestries with full accuracy.
Couldn't this Austrian shift in eastern Veneto be an ancient Adriatic Veneti thing?

[Ethel]

Interesting. My Venetian side is Veronese and Italian_Lombardy/Italian_Bergamo are the best references for this side of my ancestry. I think it makes sense since this part of Veneto was inhabited by Gallo-Romans, similar to Lombardy, and Orobic Lombard is still spoken in some cities of Verona. I'm a mix of many things anyway, so maybe this is just G25 not being able to separate my ancestries with full accuracy.
Couldn't this Austrian shift in eastern Veneto be an ancient Adriatic Veneti thing?

I suppose Verona follows a similar pattern to Brescia (East Lombardy), it's in Vicenza where things start to get weird. Usually they group Venetians with Cisalpine Gauls because they were quite similar and their language still fits in the Gallo-Italic group, I remember a study that Token shared here showing that the Venetic language had more similarities with Gallic, but also strongly similar to the Italic ones.

I think it's safe to say that Triveneto is more Bavarian shifted than Austrian, the latter being more distant from them and more eastern too. What makes Triveneto uniquely shaped like that is a combination of those Gallic-Venetic plus Rhaetian/Adriatic influence, and it also seems to be the most affected region by Germanic invasions. I think consistent slavic input is only seen in the eastern fringes of Friuli, bordering Slovenia, not in Triveneto as a whole.

[Samnium]

Calm down dude, there would be more Calabrian samples if they existed.

Southern Italy is really understudied, but damn there are regions/provinces that are more than understudied.

Basilicata/Salento/Cosenza/Benevento

At the same time there are many many many Sicilian samples.

[Raizen]

Southern Italy is really understudied, but damn there are regions/provinces that are more than understudied.

Basilicata/Salento/Cosenza/Benevento

At the same time there are many many many Sicilian samples.
It would be interesting to see how Benevento looks like, lots of Longobards there.

[Samnium]

It would be interesting to see how Benevento looks like, lots of Longobards there.

Similar to Molise in my opinion. It would make sense.

[Raizen]

Similar to Molise in my opinion. It would make sense.

Cosenza would look like Basilicata imo.

[Pubiczar]

How can I get such maps as those in OP?

[Ethel]

How can I get such maps as those in OP?

Here (https://mapchart.net/)

[Samnium]

Cosenza would look like Basilicata imo.

I don't know for that, Cosenza could be anything. Only the Northern parts of Cosenza would be "close" to Basilicata, southern parts of Cosenza are very isolated (La Sila also), I believe there's provincial variation based also in inland vs mainland (like Ethel said for Campania).

There are also many isolates and also tiny groups that went to Cosenza : Provencal minority speaking in one/two village, Arbereshe in many others but also like in the village of my calabrian ancestors a group of the army of Charles V were left (possibly some hundreds, considering history, probably mainly Northern/Central Euros) and became farmers/craftsmens, so you know there are many intra-provincial variations possible based on local history.

There were also some Jewish people in Cosenza province though not as much as Southern Calabria, but still.

So you see, it's not that simple.

[Vid Flumina]

I suppose Verona follows a similar pattern to Brescia (East Lombardy), it's in Vicenza where things start to get weird.

I have G25 coordinates from Verona province, more or less confirming what I had previously observed on Gedmatch about this area: Verona, Lodi - and much of Lower Lombardy - are genetically speaking borderline Emilians, also close to Northern Tuscans.

To give you an idea:

Target: Verona
Distance: 2.7644% / 0.02764359
55.2 Italian_Marche
44.8 Italian_Northeast

Vicenza on the other hand, which lies only 50km from Verona, is firmly in North Italian cluster. This is #1 issue with large clinal regions like Veneto or Piedmont and one generic average..

[Raizen]

I don't know for that, Cosenza could be anything. Only the Northern parts of Cosenza would be "close" to Basilicata, southern parts of Cosenza are very isolated (La Sila also), I believe there's provincial variation based also in inland vs mainland (like Ethel said for Campania).

There are also many isolates and also tiny groups that went to Cosenza : Provencal minority speaking in one/two village, Arbereshe in many others but also like in the village of my calabrian ancestors a group of the army of Charles V were left (possibly some hundreds, considering history, probably mainly Northern/Central Euros) and became farmers/craftsmens, so you know there are many intra-provincial variations possible based on local history.

There were also some Jewish people in Cosenza province though not as much as Southern Calabria, but still.

So you see, it's not that simple.
Unless there was a lot of inbreeding, the genetic imprint of some hundreds of German soldiers would disappear very quickly. I, for instance, have Dutch ancestry from Dutch soldiers of the West India company (they settled in several villages of coastal Pernambuco) yet i don't show any sign of Dutch in autossomal tests because it is too diluted. However, of course i expect language isolates to show distinct genetic signatures, like the Griko and Arbereshe.

[Raizen]

I have G25 coordinates from Verona province, more or less confirming what I had previously observed on Gedmatch about this area: Verona, Lodi - and much of Lower Lombardy - are genetically speaking borderline Emilians, also close to Northern Tuscans.

To give you an idea:

Target: Verona
Distance: 2.7644% / 0.02764359
55.2 Italian_Marche
44.8 Italian_Northeast

Vicenza on the other hand, which lies only 50km from Verona, is firmly in North Italian cluster. This is #1 issue with large clinal regions like Veneto or Piedmont and one unspecified average..

What about Padua?

[Samnium]

Unless there was a lot of inbreeding, the genetic imprint of some hundreds of German soldiers would disappear very quickly. I, for instance, have Dutch ancestry from Dutch soldiers of the West India company (they settled in several villages of coastal Pernambuco) yet i don't show any sign of Dutch in autossomal tests because it is too diluted. However, of course i expect language isolates to show distinct genetic signatures, like the Griko and Arbereshe.

Overall it's an area with very high endogamy (this village), people of my family married only people from the same village or another nearby village for the last centuries. The surname of my grandpa is very common and has a very high incidence in that precise village, indicating that. I've also done a bit of genealogy that confirm atleast back from 1800's they married only people from that precise area. But I haven't said that but there were also some Jewish people that fled to "isolated" villages in la Sila (mountainous area) so it's even more complex.

Same from my maternal side though my grandma is half apulian so not all of the lineage is related to that area.

What I've seen it's that Jewish influence is real in calabrian genetics. People that match first Jewish, they have almost always recent Jewish ancestry, almost.

So you know, I can't say anything unless we will see exhaustive studies with geographical "differentation" of the samples... And even.

Arbereshe are thought to have remained strongly isolated but I have evidence that show that's not entirely the case. Surnames of Arbereshe origin are found also outside of Arbereshe communities, also there were some communities that disappeared, that would mean that these people would have been "incorporated" in the "native" population.

So people outside of these communities can have some Arbereshe ancestry, and Arbereshe can have some "Italian" ancestry.

For the Griko, studies showed that they aren't distinct from the populations that live where they are.

[Vid Flumina]

What about Padua?

Similar to Como (ie. Bergamo-like), as per Sazzini et al.:

https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fsrep32513/MediaObjects/41598_2016_Article_BFsrep32513_Fig1_HTML.jpg

[Raizen]

Overall it's an area with very high endogamy (this village), people of my family married only people from the same village or another nearby village for the last centuries. The surname of my grandpa is very common and has a very high incidence in that precise village, indicating that. I've also done a bit of genealogy that confirm atleast back from 1800's they married only people from that precise area. But I haven't said that but there were also some Jewish people that fled to "isolated" villages in la Sila (mountainous area) so it's even more complex.

Same from my maternal side though my grandma is half apulian so not all of the lineage is related to that area.

What I've seen it's that Jewish influence is real in calabrian genetics. People that match first Jewish, they have almost always recent Jewish ancestry, almost.

So you know, I can't say anything unless we will see exhaustive studies with geographical "differentation" of the samples... And even.

Arbereshe are thought to have remained strongly isolated but I have evidence that show that's not entirely the case.

It would be interesting if we could prove generalized Jewish ancestry in Calabria. Can you show me the evidence about Arbereshe? By the way, since you seems knowledgeable about Italian genetics, i have one great-great-grandparent from Naples, how does this region looks like genetically?

[Ethel]

I have G25 coordinates from Verona province, more or less confirming what I had previously observed on Gedmatch about this area: Verona, Lodi - and much of Lower Lombardy - are genetically speaking borderline Emilians, also close to Northern Tuscans.

To give you an idea:

Target: Verona
Distance: 2.7644% / 0.02764359
55.2 Italian_Marche
44.8 Italian_Northeast

Vicenza on the other hand, which lies only 50km from Verona, is firmly in North Italian cluster. This is #1 issue with large clinal regions like Veneto or Piedmont and one unspecified average..

Yes, there's a very broad and neutral northern-central cluster which includes most of southern Lombardy, Emilia, Liguria and parts of Veneto, like Verona. I suppose something similar might be true for Rovigo as well.

Edit: what a fail, I've just seen your post about Padova so I deleted the Po Valley gradient map. Might do another one later.

[Samnium]

It would be interesting if we could prove generalized Jewish ancestry in Calabria. Can you show me the evidence about Arbereshe? By the way, since you seems knowledgeable about Italian genetics, i have one great-great-grandparent from Naples, how does this region looks like genetically?

It's definitely not generalized, it's very prevalent in Southern Calabria, in Cosenza, not really, atleast not in the same numbers.

I've edited my post my explanation for Arbereshe :

"Arbereshe are thought to have remained strongly isolated but I have evidence that show that's not entirely the case. Surnames of Arbereshe origin are found also outside of Arbereshe communities, also there were some communities that disappeared, that would mean that these people would have been "incorporated" in the "native" population.

So people outside of these communities can have some Arbereshe ancestry, and Arbereshe can have some "Italian" ancestry.

For the Griko, studies showed that they aren't distinct from the populations that live where they are."

Campania can be very diverse but usually is amongst the most "southern" shifted regions of Southern Italy on par with most of Sicily, most of Calabria.

The only regions where you do see some "north" shifting are the provinces north of Naples (Caserta) or inland (Benevento). Metropolitan City of Naples can have very diverse results but usually it's well in the "mainstream" campanian range.

The most "exotic" area is Southern Campania (Avellino, Salerno), definitely.

So you see it's complex, and I'm even makind bold hypothesis, but to me one of the most important things for understanding Southern Italian genetics it's simply geography/isolation. Geography gives lot of insights for that.

Gaps between Abruzzo and Lazio that are aside, between Cosenza and Catanzaro or Apulia and Lucania... All of that can be partially explained by geography/isolation factors.

[Desperado]

thanks for the plot but


• Swiss Italian (Ticino) was calculated as Lombardy, as they speak the same "dialect" (they're the same people);

https://media.giphy.com/media/d10dMmzqCYqQ0/giphy.gif

[andre]

Someone have Como samples?

[Ethel]

thanks for the plot but



https://media.giphy.com/media/d10dMmzqCYqQ0/giphy.gif

I've grouped them together because I thought they were extremely close or genetically similar based on their language and other results:

https://www.barbadillo.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/123_Lombardidialetti_1.jpg

Lombardy:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/692810832001761323/692815077018959923/Lombardy3.jpg

Ticino:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/692810832001761323/692815079212843028/Ticino_Swiss-Italian.jpg

I realise saying they're "the same people" was rude. Sorry if I offended you, it wasn't my intention :(
I guess that's what happens when you let new worlders make assumptions as if we had any authoritativeness about our root lands :p

[Desperado]

no offense bro it's just an inside joke, of course we are pretty much the same :p
but they want to distance themselves so much they made up an entire language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Italian

[Ethel]

no offense bro it's just an inside joke, of course we are pretty much the same :p
but they want to distance themselves so much they made up an entire language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Italian

Which region are you from?

[Desperado]

Which region are you from?

Lombardy from Milan province and relatives in Como and Novara provinces (also distant relatives from Mantua prov.)

[Ethel]

Lombardy from Milan province and relatives in Como and Novara provinces (also distant relatives from Mantua prov.)

Cool. Brazil received a lot of Lombardians too (100k+), most of them from Bergamo, Brescia, Mantova, etc. I happen to have no ancestors from lombardy (as far as I know) :lol:

[Desperado]

Cool. Brazil received a lot of Lombardians too (100k+), most of them from Bergamo, Brescia, Mantova, etc. I happen to have no ancestors from lombardy (as far as I know) :lol:

and Lombardy received some 14k Brazilians but I have no idea from where in Brazil they come

[Ethel]

and Lombardy received some 14k Brazilians but I have no idea from where in Brazil they come

Probably Italian-Brazilians from the South or Southeast regions (esp. São Paulo and Espírito Santo). But I'm not sure since Italian-Brazilians who enter the process of recognition of Italian citizenship aren't considered as immigrants by the Italian government, but as Italian residents abroad, and therefore they're not (well) counted. :icon_ask: So maybe they could be real Brazilian immigrants in the pure sense of the word, idk. There are certainly more than 14k Italian-Brazilians in Lombardy.

[Desperado]

Probably Italian-Brazilians from the South or Southeast regions (esp. São Paulo and Espírito Santo). But I'm not sure since Italian-Brazilians who enter the process of recognition of Italian citizenship aren't considered as immigrants by the Italian government, but as Italian residents abroad, and therefore they're not (well) counted. :icon_ask: So maybe they could be real Brazilian immigrants in the pure sense of the word, idk. There are certainly more than 14k Italian-Brazilians in Lombardy.

Many also stay in Italy long enough to get citizenship and then they move to Spain or Portugal for linguistic/cultural reasons. But yeah Italian statistics do not make a distinction between Italian-Brazilians and "regular" migrants. There are also twice as many women as there are men, which means many of the citizenships are obtained through marriage rather than bloodline. We shall never know how many there actually are and also sorry for Bolsonaro

[Ethel]

Many also stay in Italy long enough to get citizenship and then they move to Spain or Portugal for linguistic/cultural reasons. But yeah Italian statistics do not make a distinction between Italian-Brazilians and "regular" migrants. There are also twice as many women as there are men, which means many of the citizenships are obtained through marriage rather than bloodline. We shall never know how many there actually are

Some of them were using the citizenship recognition to go to England, when it was still possible. There were also several scandals of residence fraud and forgery of documents, the Italian citizenship recognition has become a business and mafia.
As if this wasn't enough, there are also some who buy their citizenship entirely through recognition assistance and do not even bother to learn the Italian language or at least a little of Italy's history and cultural aspects, which is very disrespectful. I think that if a proficiency exam in the Italian language was required, it would filter out a lot of these individuals.


also sorry for Bolsonaro

:lol: It happens, must be a punishment for putting brigadeiro on Pizza

[Ethel]

bump

[Cernunnos]

We are closer to Northern Italy than other italian regions, but otherwise we might be closer to Sardinia and Central-South Italy in terms of skin tone, facial features (which are subjective anyway).

It shows that we might have a few specific genomes that activates our facial features.

[Ethel]

We are closer to Northern Italy than other italian regions, but otherwise we might be closer to Sardinia and Central-South Italy in terms of skin tone, facial features (which are subjective anyway).

It shows that we might have a few specific genomes that activates our facial features.

Closer to Liguria, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna in genetics (Po Valley lowlands)
Similar to central-southerners in pigmentation (Molise, Campania, etc.)
Close to none in facial features, there might be a slight overlap with Sardinia but that's just it, Iberians are their very own thing regarding looks.