Bronze Age Sicilians looked nothing like present-day Sicilians

[Leto]

24 samples of "Sardinian" can not conclude anything. I therefore strongly doubt that this myth falls against 24 small samples.

Well, that guy is a little obnoxious and likes to highlight mixity at every opportunity.

[Dorian]

We have Myceneaean samples from all over Greece and a Classical era sample from a Greek colony in Empuries. So far they are all most similar to South Italians and Aegean Greeks. What are the chances this is just a coincidence?

I'm not rejecting any of his theories but they remain just theories..yet he speaks with certainty ,we have one from Empuries/Phocaean , four from Argolis/NE-Peloponnese and two from Crete &Messinia/SW Peloponnese I think? how does that cover all Greece?and why should it be homogeneous?

[Grace O'Malley]

This is also very interesting:



The myth that Sardinians are living relics is starting to crumble.

This paper just came out on Sardinians.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14523-6

From the Middle Neolithic onward until the beginning of the first millennium BC, we do not find evidence for gene flow from distinct ancestries into Sardinia. That stability contrasts with many other parts of Europe which had experienced substantial gene flow from central Eurasian Steppe ancestry starting about 3000 BCE11,12 and also with many earlier Neolithic and Copper age populations across mainland Europe, where local admixture increased WHG ancestry substantially over time10. We observed remarkable constancy of WHG ancestry (close to 17%) from the Middle Neolithic to the Nuragic period. While we cannot exclude influx from genetically similar populations (e.g., early Iberian Bell Beakers), the absence of Steppe ancestry suggests genetic isolation from many Bronze Age mainland populations—including later Iberian Bell Beakers13. As further support, the Y haplogroup R1b-M269, the most frequent present-day western European haplogroup and associated with expansions that brought Steppe ancestry into Britain13 and Iberia14 about 2500–2000 BCE, remains absent in our Sardinian sample through the Nuragic period (1200–1000 BCE). Larger sample sizes from Sardinia and alternate source populations may discover more subtle forms of admixture, but the evidence appears strong that Sardinia was isolated from major mainland Bronze Age gene flow events through to the local Nuragic period. As the archeological record shows that Sardinia was part of a broad Mediterranean trade network during this period19, such trade was either not coupled with gene flow or was only among proximal populations of similar genetic ancestry. In particular, we find that the Nuragic period is not marked by shifts in ancestry, arguing against hypotheses that the design of the Nuragic stone towers was brought with an influx of people from eastern sources such as Mycenaeans.

[Grace O'Malley]

I don't know if there should be another thread on this but I found this interesting.

Our inference of gene flow after the second millennium BCE seems to contradict previous models emphasizing Sardinian isolation12. These models were supported by admixture tests that failed to detect substantial admixture32, likely because of substantial drift and a lack of a suitable proxy for the Nuragic Sardinian ancestry component. However, compared with other European populations50,56, we confirm Sardinia experienced relative genetic isolation through the Bronze Age/Nuragic period. In addition, we find that subsequent admixture appears to derive mainly from Mediterranean sources that have relatively little Steppe ancestry. Consequently, present-day Sardinian individuals have retained an exceptionally high degree of EEF ancestry and so they still cluster with several mainland European Copper Age individuals such as Ötzi2, even as they are shifted from ancient Sardinian individuals of a similar time period (Fig. 2).

The Basque people, another population high in EEF ancestry, were previously suggested to share a genetic connection with modern Sardinian individuals32,57. We observed a similar signal, with modern Basque having, of all modern samples, the largest pairwise outgroup-f3 with most ancient and modern Sardinian groups (Fig. 3). While both populations have received some immigration, seemingly from different sources (e.g., Fig. 4, ref. 14), our results support that the shared EEF ancestry component could explain their genetic affinity despite their geographic separation.

[SharpFork]

I'm not rejecting any of his theories but they remain just theories..yet he speaks with certainty ,we have one from Empuries/Phocaean , four from Argolis/NE-Peloponnese and two from Crete &Messinia/SW Peloponnese I think? how does that cover all Greece?and why should it be homogeneous?

Plus it's pre Doric invasion, maybe it didn't have any effect at all but then we'd arguing that somehow Slavic admixture spread throughout Aegean and Mainland Greeks while neatly preserving a stark difference in ENF:Iran Neo ratios.

Edit: Also while the Empuries samples should probably be Phocaean from Anatolia, they do look like Mycenean Greeks why would maybe support the idea that the Dorians didn't change genetics much(disregarding that Phocis is Ionian) but still it also shows that "Anatolian Greeks" weren't super different from Ancient Mainland Greeks, at least Mycenean ones.

Basing our analysis on just the current samples of Greeks isn't working, because various Southern Italians and Aegean modern Greeks have more Iran Neo than all the samples of ancient Greeks so far and if we start using modern Anatolian or Aegean Greek populations as proxies we would be able to argue anything considering how different they are, not only to one another but also to the actual ancient Greek samples we have. I'm not sure how we would be meaningfully able to falsify Punic/Levantine or non-Greek Anatolian ancestry.

[SharpFork]

I don't know if there should be another thread on this but I found this interesting.

Aren't modern Basques 20-30% Steppe?

[FinalFlash]

How close is Bronze Age Anatolian Karomhoyuk(or however its spelled) to modern-day Greeks?

[Token]

How close is Bronze Age Anatolian Karomhoyuk(or however its spelled) to modern-day Greeks?

Somewht close to islanders but it lack steppe.

[Dorian]

Plus it's pre Doric invasion, maybe it didn't have any effect at all but then we'd arguing that somehow Slavic admixture spread throughout Aegean and Mainland Greeks while neatly preserving a stark difference in ENF:Iran Neo ratios.

Edit: Also while the Empuries samples should probably be Phocaean from Anatolia, they do look like Mycenean Greeks why would maybe support the idea that the Dorians didn't change genetics much(disregarding that Phocis is Ionian) but still it also shows that "Anatolian Greeks" weren't super different from Ancient Mainland Greeks, at least Mycenean ones.

Basing our analysis on just the current samples of Greeks isn't working, because various Southern Italians and Aegean modern Greeks have more Iran Neo than all the samples of ancient Greeks so far and if we start using modern Anatolian or Aegean Greek populations as proxies we would be able to argue anything considering how different they are, not only to one another but also to the actual ancient Greek samples we have. I'm not sure how we would be meaningfully able to falsify Punic/Levantine or non-Greek Anatolian ancestry.

All true , I've read about all kinds of repopulations/internal migrations &assimilations through the ages and simply using modern examples to compare with ancient ones as if there's some uninterrupted continuity of a specific people/place doesn't cut it always.

Spoiler!

"The city Ἐμπόριον (Greek: Ἐμπόριον, Emporion, meaning "trading place", cf. emporion) was founded in 575 BC by Greek colonists from Phocaea(Asia Minor).
The Phocaeans(Central Greece) were mostly Dorian in their origin. A significant number of Phocic cities, however, had different origins. Nevertheless, all the cities of Phocis were gradually connected to the commonwealth because of common interests and common enemies.
Phocaea,Asia Minor was founded by Phocaeans under the leadership of the Athenians as Pausanias mentions. The land to which their colony was established was given by the Aeolians of nearby Kimi. The descendants of King Kodra, Kodrides then settled in the city. According to Pausanias again, after the establishment of Kodrides in the city, Phocaea was admitted to the Ionian public and became one of the cities of the Ionian Dodecapolis [2]. The findings of ceramics show Aeolian presence in the area in the beginning of the ninth century BC. and Ionian presence in the late 9th century BC"

Go figure now...
+ something to consider(as an example Herodotus was such a mix )

Spoiler!

As for dorians ,agreed..anything is possible although I don't believe in an "invasion" from a place any other than Greece , If you believe that there lies historical truth in mythology you can check the return of heraclids ,they'd be proto-"achaeans"(who themselves were an "aeolic" tribe basically).. ( these tribal names either describe geography or a clan's "patriarch" ..not something fundamentally different in the way some mean it today)

But what stops two people of the same ethnicity(forget "tribes")/different geography plotting different ?could be that one has preserved older strains and the other has assimilated others (or both having assimilated different ones)..and this can go in either direction meaning either those in north preserved such or they were the ones to have absorbed foreign elements at some point that those who splitted couldn't have shared..finally it could be that they were all "mycenaean" at any time/place indeed.. but in any case all we can do is theorize atm.

Something to add is that If any heterogeneity ever existed I wouldn't expect it to show up in "elites" either.
Check each line of Agamemnon's family tree (maybe you don't have to take it literally but symbolically again)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnon
But that's basically royal "inbreeding"..and it goes as far back

[SharpFork]

As for dorians ,agreed..anything is possible although I don't believe in an "invasion" from a place any other than Greece , If you believe that there lies historical truth in mythology you can check the return of heraclids ,they'd be proto-"achaeans"(who themselves were an "aeolic" tribe basically).. ( these tribal names either describe geography or a clan's "patriarch" ..not something fundamentally different in the way some mean it today)

I don't find Greek ethnography to be not too helpful, for me the Dorian invasion is rather more evident from a linguistic perspective and the only way to explain how weird Archaic and Classical Greek linguistic situation is. Also the Doric component is evident given how serious Greeks themselves considered it and how they could meaningfully distinguish between such groups centuries later.

Genetically I presume the original Dorians(Macedonians and neighbouring barbarians too) to be at most 20-30% Steppe vs the Mycenean 10-20%.