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I was thinking about this today when discussing Armenians on Anthrogenica, and how genocides and natural disasters can change the genetic landscape of a population.
Enna, Ragusa, and Syracuse, the southern and central part of eastern Sicily, show significant genetic impact from Greece, and have a northward genetic shift compared to west-central Sicily overall. The exception is Messina and Catania.
Many towns in Messina have been destroyed by earthquakes, with many casualties in 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s. Similarly, Mt. Etna has destroyed several villages in Catania province. These towns were often repopulated by people from Calabria, and from western Palermo and Caltanissetta provinces, where Near Eastern genetic input is very high, much higher than in Syracuse, Ragusa or Enna.
When we see people's genetic results today from Messina especially, we notice that they are abnormally Middle Eastern for southern Italy, as is the case for people from eastern Palermo province and southern Calabria. My belief is that it is possible that before the natural disasters, the population in NE Sicily was more like modern Syracusans, and would not have been nearly as Near Eastern as they are today. Modern day Messinese and Catanese are close to Dodecanese Greeks, Sephardim, and well on their way to being like Cypriots.
Do others agree?
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