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http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...ian-paper-2014Basically, like all the other papers on Italian uniparental markers, it suffers from having too few samples(although it gains credibility because of a sampling method based on regional surnames), and from the fact that they're still not using full genome sequences. I think part of the problem is that since they perhaps don't have the resources to do wide spread testing, they are trying to draw what conclusions they can from comparisons with prior data bases, which are usually at a much lower level of resolution.
Still, I think there's some interesting stuff here.
I was particularly interested in their TMRCA dates, which they define as not the population split time, but the amount of time needed to evolve the STR genetic variation.I should emphasize that they emphasize how cautious you have to be with TMRCA dates, given the uncertainties about the proper mutation rates and how dependent the results are on the number and type of STR's that are chosen, even though they were careful to use only the slowest moving markers.
That said, I think looking at the relative ages is informative, and there are a few "good fits". Here is the chart:
Attachment 6418
In terms of yDNA, you have G-P15 coming in at around 7,000 B.C., which seems a pretty good fit for the Neolithic to me, although they maintain that this indicates a possible pre-Neolithic appearance in Italy. (In their prior paper, there was indeed one cluster of G2a that was even older than this. Clumping all the subclusters of G2a into one group obscures that in this case)
P312 and R-M17 show up next, with an approximate age of 2300 B.C. which would correlate with the putative dates for the appearance of the Indo-Europeans. In the rest of Europe, we're talking about Bell Beaker and Corded Ware, which would certainly fit with these two haplogroups. In Italy, we have evidence for Bell Beaker in some areas of northern Italy, but as for the south, it only appears in western Sicily. The modern distribution shows a slight preponderance in Sicily versus southern Italy, but he samples are, of course, small. (5.09/3.64)
Then, the authors examined the five most common yDNA "J" haplogroups, which by their calculations have a TMRCA of between 1700 to 1250 B.C., and total about 24% of all the y haplogroups. In northern Italy, this is the time of the Terramare culture, which some observers have tied to the Indo-Europeans, but the dates for P312 and R-M17 are older according to their method.
These are the groups with dates around 1600-1700 B.C.:
J2a-410, which is highest in the Caucasus but present in Anatolia and Greece. It has the highest frequency in the area, at 9.51%, and is slightly more frequent in Sicily.
J2b-M12, which has a similar distribution to E-V13, and is therefore high in the Balkans. It comes in at 3.37 and appears more in S.Italy than in Sicily.
J2a-M92, with high frequencies in Anatolia and Tuscany (Nobody 1, are you reading this? ) It also comes in at 3.37% and is spread equally throughout SSI.
Then you have these slightly later haplogroups with a supposed age of 1250 B.C.
J2a-M67, with peaks in Crete, Greeks, Albanians, and the Caucasus. It represents 3.07% of the population and is a little heavier in southern Italy.
J1-M267, which is the type found in Eastern Anatolia, and the Caucasus, not Arabia. It is 4.91% of the total population, and heavier in Sicily.
The authors waffle about the source of these lineages, saying that they could have a Neolithic source, or perhaps a source in Phoenician colonies.
I have my doubts about a Neolithic origin, given that the "J" lineages haven't shown up in any Neolithic context, although one could show up tomorrow, of course. As for the Phoenicians, everything I know about them indicates they established emporia, not large scale settlements on the Greek model, although even they were male mediated. I also would think the Phoenician signature, coming, as some of it would have, from Carthage, would have carried a North African flavor, and we don't see very much of that at all.
I'm rather surprised that these geneticists don't know that southern Italy, at this period in history was very much under the influence of the Minoan civilization, and then Mycenean Greece, and that there was also, according to Pallottino, a movement across the Adriatic which gave rise to the Appennine Culture of central into southern Italy. I would think the latter might be a good fit for J2b.
See The Foundations of Latin, by Philip Baldi, an online book, p. 100,
and The Bronze Age, by V. Gordon Childe, also an online book, p.195,
and https://www.academia.edu/1300703/The...ate_Bronze_Age
This is then followed by E-v13, with a date of approximately 350 B.C. This seems to be a relatively good fit for the Greek colonization of SSI, which began around the 700's B.C.
The last group for which dates are given are the R1b U-152 groups, and R-U106, both of which date to around the beginning of the Common Era. I have personally been leaning toward a possible correlation with Terramare for U-152 but that has a date of 1700 B.C. Otherwise, are we looking at Urnfield or Hallstadt influenced cultures? For L2, would we then be looking at Alpine Celts and/or Gauls? I really don't know. A date like this also doesn't make any sense for U-106 in Sicily, which is where it is more predominant by far. I would think that would correlate more with the Normans one thousand years later in 1000 A.D.. If all of these dates were to be pushed forward 1,000 years, that would play havoc with everything we think we know about the movement of these haplogroups.
Originally Posted by Gilgamesh900
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