Recent content by WHGuy

This is almost certainly not what happened. I believe Marcus et. al. 2018 tracked the arrival of some African nested haplogroups into Sardinia, but all the data supports R-V88 being a European Mesolithic haplogroup. It also likely did not enter Africa from the Levant, it is more likely that it...

I am still surprised they have never run tests on the recovered Mesolithic Kiffians or Neolithic Tenerians. I have a feeling the latter would support European farmer introgression into the Green Sahara.

Mostly yes, though I would say that the 30,000 Jews in Italy today represent as close to a permanent presence as you can get for a non-native people when you consider that the Jewish community has been in Italy since the Republican era.

I am late to this one, but I think the R-V88 Jews are likely the result of a single founder/family converting in Roman North Africa after the establishment of permanent trading links with the Sahara. FGC20980 is a subclade of FGC21039 whose subclades show up in Sudan and Chad, notably amongst...

I meant insofar as Levantine populations, most notably Jews, moved into the Roman metropolitan, not that these Levantines were a massive part of the overall population in the heart of Rome.

You both are very fixated on Y-DNA, so let's put this one to rest. Whether R1a or R1b-M269, your ancestors came from the steppes north and east of the Black Sea, stretching past the Caspian. From there the Indo-European peoples spread, at the same time, into Europe, Central Asia, Anatolia...

This entire thread has gone off the rails.

I think it is pretty well-established that the introduction of PIE languages and cultures to Europe begins with the Yamnaya expansion about 5,500 years ago, and that the source population for this was the area north and east of the Black Sea. PIE groups expanded throughout the Middle East...

This obviously tells the reader that, during the Roman Empire, there was an influx of people from the eastern part of the empire to the area around Rome. This movement of people is fairly well known, perhaps most famously represented by the long term presence of a Jewish community Rome up until...

During the Roman period there were pretty significant Levantine, in general, and Jewish, in particular, communities throughout Roman North Africa and on the Italian peninsula itself.

Yes, but I don't think it showed massive turnover, basically the disappearance of Nuragic Y-DNA, prior to Roman rule. Maybe I am remembering that incorrectly.

Not entirely surprising as the Marcus study doesn't show significant population turnover in Sardinia before the Roman period.

I would think the Iranian Neolithic is probably partially contributed by Levantines, it is an integral component in Canaanite DNA.

But I believe we also see some Levantine haplogroups represented in the study. Obviously the Punic world was very cosmopolitan, by ancient standards, and certainly there is a long and persistent history of Greek merchant activity in the area. It is hard to believe that the Punic culture exists...

Undoubtedly the Iran N populations found amongst the Punic peoples are an echo of Levantine ancestry. It is really an odd conclusion, especially in light of other studies that have shown similar "echos" in other populations, see the survey of Philistine DNA.