I see no reason why they should show any large differences to that of the Transalpine Gauls if they are in fact Celtic. The position you're referring to is one in which the genetic structure and origin of Lepontic speakers necessarily comes from migrations that occurred through Transalpine Gaul or other IA Celtic regions such as Germany, Switzerland or Austria. If one wishes to hold this position then one has to assume significant overlap or at least majority influence from said Transalpine populations. Even combining IA Celtic populations with further Northern Italian Neolithic input would not yield a modern Northern italian/IA Picene/EMA bardonecchia like result, but instead push you towards the modern Spaniard region of the west eurasian PCA. Ironically the populations that occupy this genetic structure in Italy were Etruscans and Latins, who we all know were not Celts, despite bearing what is looking to be a bell beaker origin.
I'm referring to ancient Northern Italians. Keeping Bardonecchia/Torino EMA in mind, any such genetic contributions within your scenario would've specifically had to have occurred in the Roman era which is not necessarily impossible but something I find doubtful - similar to the idea that Northern Italy was mass replaced by Roman era Balkan migrants. These ideas are basically historically undocumented speculation with little to support them right now.
Lets not conflate ideas such as "genetic Celts", "archaeological Celts", "linguistic Celts" etc. To most of the leading linguists and experts in Celtic studies it is not a question of if Leptonic/Cisalpine Celtic is Celtic, but rather if it is a separate Celtic language or part of a continental Celtic dialect continuum. And this in reference to pre 4th century BC "Galllic invasions", so essentially in a Golasecha culture setting. That the local population did not have a majorly CE genetic profile, similar like in Celtiberia, would be a sign of Celticisation of the indigenous peoples. I like the terms 'Hispano-Celts' or 'Celt-Iberians' to denote the mixed ancestry of these peoples and I think it would avoid a lot of confusion if we adapted similar naming conventions like 'Italic-Celts' or 'Celt-Italics' that designate the majority role of the indigenous component.
So nobody should expect to see, barring outliers, central European 'pure Celts' in N Italy or Iberia like one would find in eastern Gaul/SW Germany, where I consider all 3 foundations of IA Celtic-ness to be present, the aforementioned triad of genetics, archaeology and linguistic Celtic-ness. However it must be pointed out that such an IA Celtic profile is not necessarily what a
Proto-Celtic profile would look like, but that's a topic for another thread.
Since when has it ever been necessary for Celtic speaking populations, or any other, to have the same or fairly similar genetic profile as "the linguistic donor" population? A small LBA contribution of 10-50% CE ancestry in a small portion of NW Italy which subsequently gets diluted over time to minimal levels could be more than enough to result in a linguistic shift. A similar model could be (has to be) plausible for the Iberian peninsula too with regards to Hispano-Celtic. Genetic continuity does not always equal linguistic continuity. In fact genetic continuity can often be accompanied by a lack of linguistic continuity.
It would help when referring to North Italians more specifically as eastern, central or western northern Italians as before the Roman period we talking about many different cultural and linguistic areas (NW Italy, eastern Alpine, central-east Po plain) that have roots going back to the BA, and IA northern Italy was a not monolithic ethnocultural place.
I accept your view that there was Balkan shift that resulted in todays northern Italian profile from Bardonecchia to Tyrol and beyond, but we cant yet necessarily date this to LBA-IA based of the Picene samples + post Roman samples alone and then come to conclusions. What is the pre-Balkan like N Italy profile that they are supposed to be shifted from? The Veneto Brion samples? The Polada samples? Olmo di Nogara samples? Verona samples?
Correct me if I am wrong but between the LBA and post Roman period afaik all we have are the Verona samples and 2 Olmo di Nogara samples. The majority of these do not seem LBA-IA Slovenia/Croatia like
The paper that this thread is dedicated to also has tonnes of Olmo di Nogara/NE Italy samples and my novice understanding is that a lot of them also seem very EEF similar to the existing Olmo di Nogara samples we have AND the East Alps EBA-MBA samples. So are we talking about 3 types of profiles in N Italy? 1) the heavy EEF Alpine profile, 2) the Etruscan-Latin (Tyrrhenian) profile, 3) Slovenia-Croatia LBA/IA profile or a mix of all 3 by the MIA? IIRC the Felsina paper said most of the samples from that paper also overlap with IA central Italy Etruscans/Latins etc.
I don't know if the Verona samples represent just a temporary transient CE shifted north italian population with ancestry components from multiple areas, but this paper and Cavazutti's papers always emphasise the possible co-role of
indigenous local people contributing to the peopling/rise of Terramare alongside possible migrants from Pannonia. If such an indigenous contribution took place wouldn't it likely produce genetic profiles similar to Olmo di Nogara and the BA eastern Alps that we have already?
I could be wrong, but doesn't this paper model IA west Italian ancestry based on LBA source samples from the extreme NE of Italy (Veneto+Friulia), the samples of which have the highest amount of Balkan ancestry and are the ones shifted towards the Balkan cline on their PCA. They then use these 'source' samples' to convincingly model all IA Italians. If they can convincingly model IA Etruscans/Latins (who do not plot with Picenes) with these LBA Balkan enriched samples, then how can these LBA samples possibly be the source of the post Roman n Italian profile? wouldn't the post Roman n Italian profile come from a source(s) that can't be used to model IA Etruscans as well? Therefore, while a BA/LBA input or 'wave' from the Balkans might be good enough to explain in general the multiple disproportionate IA Italy profile(s), maybe an
additional wave(s) might be needed to get to the post Roman n Italy profile in order to 'finish off' both the Alps BA-IA and Tyrrhenian BA-IA profiles
possible ideas, alone or in combination
1) Roman colonisation (genocide?) of western Cisalpine Gaul and the Alps. IIRC North east Italy (Cenomani, Veneti) were Roman allies and spared the violence that NW italy and the Alps experienced (Insubri, Apuani etc). An east to west colonisation by migrants from Emilia-Romagna/Veneto etc. In this scenario I consider that the Veneti, Romagna, eastern Lombardy will be genetically similar to the Picenes (Italo-Illyrian). Post conquest movements were probably peaceful and followed the road networks east-west.north-south
2) Eastern Celtic movements into Italy from the E Alps, SE Alps, Bohemia etc (some Boii, Taurisci, Carni) who may themselves have been Celticized descendants of Middle Danube Urnfield types, similar to Slovenia IA, Bezdanjača Cave LBA etc
3) Migrants and refugees from the Eastern Alps, Pannonia, Slovenia etc in the late Roman period fleeing (or being relocated) to northern Italy from the northern provinces that were being overrun by Germanic/Hun warlords and where the Roman civil, administrative and military system collapsed or was transferred to foederati, along with reduced or depopulation and de-urbanisation
4) moving the capitol to Mediolanum/Ravenna and undetected migration from the NW Balkans during the Empire?
5) limited impact of the Urnfield movements with a Slovenia/N Croatia LBA profile mainly affecting central and eastern N Italy, then later spreading west/north and/or additional population movements from Illyria and SE Italy (Iapygians etc) into N Italy
Based on the data so far for the eastern Alps, it seems to my novice mind that the heavy EEF Alpine profile was competing with the Tyrrhenian profile before the Balkan profile came as a 3rd party into the picture, and it would make more sense to me at least that Piemonte, Aosta, western Lombardy and Liguria were still in that conflict, with the Balkan profile initially confined more central and eastern N Italy as well as the Adriatic. My novice understanding of this paper is that it does seem to indicate that the Balkan ancestry appears in quite a few of the Olmo di Nogara/Friuli samples. Correct me if I am wrong however, but it does not seem to be the majority ancestry in a majority of the new samples.
We must also look at the ancestry profiles of those samples from Lano, Corsica and Migennes, France to compare
Its a shame that they did not create charts with clusters beyond sets 3 or 4. IIRC, in McColl's Celtic and Germanic papers they went as far as modelling samples up to Sets 6 or 7 for a much more detailed ancestry breakdown. Which is surprising, given that Hugh McColl's name is attached to this paper.
