DNA of Southern Italy and Greece: What we can tell from Sarno et al admixture chart.

[Bobby Martnen]

But if you consider that north Italians and Levantines are today genetically equidistant from Sicily (you can model Sicilians as half of each), you'd have to then assume North Italians mixed substantially with Germanics and I doubt they did. They, if anything, are more Gallic/Celtic, hence their similarity to southern French.

I don't think NW Italians clustered near MODERN southern Italians. Maybe at one point all of Italy was more similar than today though. Though it will be more similar if so many southerners keep moving north

If I had to guess, I'd say that 1500 years ago, Southern Italians had less Germanic and less MENA, and they got equal amounts of both between 800-1300. But those components kind of cancel each other out on a PCA plot, so I think they always plotted where they do now.

North Italians got a lot of Germanic in the late Classical and early Medieval era.

[Scar]

But if you consider that north Italians and Levantines are today genetically equidistant from Sicily (you can model Sicilians as half of each), you'd have to then assume North Italians mixed substantially with Germanics and I doubt they did. They, if anything, are more Gallic/Celtic, hence their similarity to southern French.

Well, I think that's a possibilty. Specially if we consider the fact that according to the study the Germanic settlers in Italy weren't even Bavarian/Austrian-like, but more Scandinavian-like, more ''pure'' Germanic than what was imagined before. It makes perfect sense if we look both at the autosomal and Y-DNA from North Italian regions.

[Sikeliot]

If I had to guess, I'd say that 1500 years ago, Southern Italians had less Germanic and less MENA, and they got equal amounts of both between 800-1300. But those components kind of cancel each other out on a PCA plot, so I think they always plotted where they do now.

North Italians got a lot of Germanic in the late Classical and early Medieval era.

The Germanic input is lower than the MENA so it is likely that if you removed both, they would have been more similar to modern Dodecanese (who they are already close to but you know what I mean).

[AK-47]

What are you thoughts on George Stamatoyannopoulos, et al, and their findings published in European journal of Human Genetics?
Do you believe it's an accurate paper?

Genetic similarity of Peloponneseans, Sicilians and Italians. PCA analysis of several European populations. (a) Notice the north to south distribution of the populations and that the Peloponneseans are placed to the far right of the graph and overlap with the Sicilians. (b) PCA analysis of Southern European populations illustrating the close relationship between Peloponneseans Sicilians and Italians (TSI is an Italian population) (c) Network analysis illustrating the high connectivity between the Peloponnesean populations as well as between the Peloponneseans, the Sicilians and the Italians. Notice the distance between Peloponneseans and the Slavic, and Near Eastern populations. Peloponneseans are connected with the Near Eastern populations through Crete and Dodecanese.

Genetic similarity with Sicilians and Italians

As anticipated from the results of previous studies,18, 19, 20 the Peloponneseans are genetically placed very close to the Sicilians and Italians (Figures 2a and b) but they differ from several other populations we compared them (see Supplementary Figure 2). Network analysis (Figure 2c), highlighted the interconnections of Peloponnesean populations as well as the connections between Peloponneseans, Italians and Sicilians; in this network analysis, Sicilians and Italians serve as a bridge between Peloponneseans and other European populations (Basque, Andalusians and French). Slavic populations are placed far away from the Peloponneseans as are the Near Eastern populations. The latter are connected to the Peloponnesus via the islands of Crete and the Dodecanese.

Testing the theory of extinction of the medieval Peloponnesean Greeks

This theory allows a specific prediction about the genetic ancestry of the Peloponneseans: the great majority, if not all, of Peloponnesean ancestry should be Slavic. We compared, the Peloponneseans (except for Maniots and Tsakones) with populations of the Slavic homeland from which the sixth century Slavs should have originated. The exact location of the Slavic homeland is debated7, 8 but it is placed north of Danube,7 between the Oder and Dnieper rivers and includes areas inhabited by Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian populations. PCA analysis showed a clear separation of Peloponneseans from the Slavic populations (Figure 3a). By ADMIXTURE analysis (Figure 3c) the Peloponneseans and the Slavic populations form separate clusters with a small degree of gene flow from the Slavic to the Peloponnesean cluster.
[img]https://media.nature.com/lw926/nature-assets/ejhg/journal/v25/n5/images/ejhg201718f3.jpg

[Sikeliot]

What are you thoughts on George Stamatoyannopoulos, et al, and their findings published in European journal of Human Genetics?
Do you believe it's an accurate paper?

It implies that the Peloponnesians with the least Slavic input have a close relationship to Sicilians and I agree with this, but I also think that paper, by only using one Sicilian sample I think from Trapani, does not capture that much of the island has more Semitic mixture than that, and would therefore not plot with Peloponnesians.

[AK-47]

It implies that the Peloponnesians with the least Slavic input have a close relationship to Sicilians and I agree with this, but I also think that paper, by only using one Sicilian sample I think from Trapani, does not capture that much of the island has more Semitic mixture than that, and would therefore not plot with Peloponnesians.

Interesting.
In General, do you think the Peloponnese are closer to South Eastern Sicilians, than to Central or western Sicilians?
How does Syracuse compare to the general Peloponnese population?

[Sikeliot]

Interesting.
In General, do you think the Peloponnese are closer to South Eastern Sicilians, than to Central or western Sicilians?
How does Syracuse compare to the general Peloponnese population?

Syracusans are probably close to Maniots and Tsakonians, as well as to Cyclades islanders.

Messina/Catania/Enna/Palermo/Caltanissetta/Agrigento are clearly more Semitic influenced.

Trapani is an outlier due to higher WHG/Sardinian/Iberian type stuff but still plots with the rest of south Italy (maybe more like Apulia).

[AK-47]

It implies that the Peloponnesians with the least Slavic input have a close relationship to Sicilians and I agree with this, but I also think that paper, by only using one Sicilian sample I think from Trapani, does not capture that much of the island has more Semitic mixture than that, and would therefore not plot with Peloponnesians.

I downloaded the DOC. Supplementary Information from the paper, and can't find any evidence of Trapani specific samples.
I can email the author of the paper and ask him directly.
20 Sicilian samples and 12 reference.

[Sikeliot]

I downloaded the DOC. Supplementary Information from the paper, and can't find any evidence of Trapani specific samples.
I can email the author of the paper and ask him directly.

I forget if it was Syracuse or Trapani but I remember there is some reason I knew that it was definitely not Palermo, Messina, or Agrigento.

I do know, however, most studies with a Sicilian sample usually use one from the southeast or Trapani though. Lazaridis et al is an example.

And I know that because of this, it makes Sicily on PCA plots appear closer to the rest of Italy and Greece than it otherwise would be if different samples were used.

[kleenex]

Syracusans are probably close to Maniots and Tsakonians, as well as to Cyclades islanders.

Messina/Catania/Enna/Palermo/Caltanissetta/Agrigento are clearly more Semitic influenced.

Trapani is an outlier due to higher WHG/Sardinian/Iberian type stuff but still plots with the rest of south Italy (maybe more like Apulia).

So if you're saying that Syracusans plot near Maniots and Tsaknoians (who are the most Southern/Eastern shifted Peloponnesians) what Italian Group would you say plots closest to other Peloponnesians (Messinians, Elians, Arcadians, Laconians) of Southern Regioins. I'm thinking Abruzzo, Apulia. What's your opinion?