Genetic study Bronze Age community from Southern Italy

[Anfänger]

Archaeogenetics reconstructs demography and extreme parental consanguinity in a Bronze Age community from Southern Italy​

Abstract​

Given its geographic location and unique history of contacts and migrations, Calabria is a core region to investigate the genetic traces of some of the numerous prehistoric demographic events in the Central Mediterranean. However, little is known regarding the ancient populations of the region before Greek colonization, reflecting gaps in the archaeological knowledge of the territory and scarcity of genetic data. Here, we analysed genome-wide data from the Middle Bronze Age site of Grotta della Monaca (1780-1380 ca. BCE) to fill these gaps and decipher funerary practices, social organization, biological kinship ties, and demographic shifts in Southern Italy during the Bronze Age. The community shows closer genetic affinity to Early Bronze Age Sicilians than to contemporaneous populations from the Italian peninsula. However, unlike contemporary Sicilian individuals, they lack eastern genetic influences, suggesting distinct ancestral trajectories and interaction networks among Bronze Age populations. Further, we suggest that burial practices were structured according to the sex and kinship relationships of the deceased. To the best of our knowledge, our data showcase the first case reported in archaeological literature of a parent-offspring incestuous union, an extreme case that we attempt to frame into the demographic landscape of prehistoric communities of Bronze Age Southern Italy.

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-09194-2

 

[Anfänger]

 

[Vitruvius]

Quite a lot on the S. Italian MBA lately. These samples are less B.A. Aegean/modern like drifted than many of the more eastern Pugliese Coppa Nevigata ones, but still show a lot of commonality. They are also closer to the Tyrrhenian sea rather than Adriatic or Ionian, so it's reasonable to assume they were less exposed to the Greek world. We are perhaps beginning to see an east/west cline of ancestry in southern Italy during the middle bronze age. As the article mentioned they do also show less eastern pull than MBA Sicilians as well, although I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Sicilian bronze age samples originate from the western extremity of the island.

 

[Anfänger]

Quite a lot on the S. Italian MBA lately. These samples are less B.A. Aegean/modern like drifted than many of the more eastern Pugliese Coppa Nevigata ones, but still show a lot of commonality. They are also closer to the Tyrrhenian sea rather than Adriatic or Ionian, so it's reasonable to assume they were less exposed to the Greek world. We are perhaps beginning to see an east/west cline of ancestry in southern Italy during the middle bronze age. As the article mentioned they do also show less eastern pull than MBA Sicilians as well, although I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Sicilian bronze age samples originate from the western extremity of the island.

View attachment 18982

What I find surprising is that these samples from Calabria don’t seem to have any CHG/Iran_N-related ancestry, but a bit further East in Roca_Vecchia_MBA it seems to be like ~ 20% and in Sicily_MBA it goes back up. I think we’re dealing here with sea peoples that settled in specific sites of the Mediterranean while some parts like Calabria were left out. However, they even reached places like El Argar in Spain which makes this site from Calabria even more surprising.

 

[Vitruvius]

What I find surprising is that these samples from Calabria don’t seem to have any CHG/Iran_N-related ancestry, but a bit further East in Roca_Vecchia_MBA it seems to be like ~ 20% and in Sicily_MBA it goes back up. I think we’re dealing here with sea peoples that settled in specific sites of the Mediterranean while some parts like Calabria were left out. However, they even reached places like El Argar in Spain which makes this site from Calabria even more surprising.

The Sea peoples were a final bronze age phenomenon that would only come ~400 years after these samples and those of Roca Vecchia so I don't think the chronology allows for that, however we know the sea peoples were also northerly tribes, relative to the Egyptians, so in all likelihood it is reasonable to say the forerunners of many of the sea peoples could be encompased by many of the same Greeks, Anatolians and Italics that went on to form populations such as Roca Vecchia.

Also, they do actually have Caucasian related ancestry but only mediated through their steppe ancestry. They just lack the excess caucasian ancestry that was mediated later through the anatolian bronze and iron age.

 

[Moja]

It clearly shows the arrival of IE people to the south of Italy in the Middle Bronze Age.

Redefining Pre-Indo-European Language Families of Bronze Age Western Europe: A Study Based on the Synthesis of Scientific Evidence From Archaeology, Historical Linguistics and Genetics: https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/12398

 

[Anfänger]

The Sea peoples were a final bronze age phenomenon that would only come ~400 years after these samples and those of Roca Vecchia so I don't think the chronology allows for that, however we know the sea peoples were also northerly tribes, relative to the Egyptians, so in all likelihood it is reasonable to say the forerunners of many of the sea peoples could be encompased by many of the same Greeks, Anatolians and Italics that went on to form populations such as Roca Vecchia.

Also, they do actually have Caucasian related ancestry but only mediated through their steppe ancestry. They just lack the excess caucasian ancestry that was mediated later through the anatolian bronze and iron age.

I meant sea peoples in general not those that let to the Bronze Age collapse in the eastern Mediterranean. Also, these peoples had to come from the Aegean/Anatolian coast and traveled west, instead of east like the historical sea peoples.

Another topic, now that we have a handful of BA samples from Southern Italy. I think it is reasonable to assume that modern Southern Italians had most of their non-steppe CHG/Iran_N-related ancestry mediated via Iron Age Greeks or the Roman Imperial period.

 

[Vitruvius]

I meant sea peoples in general not those that let to the Bronze Age collapse in the eastern Mediterranean. Also, these peoples had to come from the Aegean/Anatolian coast and traveled west, instead of east like the historical sea peoples.

Another topic, now that we have a handful of BA samples from Southern Italy. I think it is reasonable to assume that modern Southern Italians had most of their non-steppe CHG/Iran_N-related ancestry mediated via Iron Age Greeks or the Roman Imperial period.

In that case I agree with you on both points.

 

[MOESAN]

Just a question. Should have these people's culture some ties with some kind of post-BB ???

 

[—BoNe—]

I usually only look at the raw data and draw conclusions before reading the article, and I always end up with a completely different picture from the speculations discussed in the paper.

My conclusions:

All the males belong to haplogroups of direct Neolithic ancestry and appear to be the last community of the Cardial culture.

There is an I2 with a SNP from 10,000 BC, a G2 typical of the region with ~5% in Switzerland, a typical extinct H2, and a V88.

They have an atypical position in the PCA, between Atlantic-Mediterranean and ancient Neolithic populations, and some overlap with each other, indicating a generally high degree of endogamy. This is confirmed by the H2 individual, who was the son of his grandmother; I need to check the details, but it seems there is more than 50% consanguinity.

Of all these lines, the ones that probably survived the most are G2 and I2, as indicated by current frequencies, and to a lesser extent V88, which are still present in Sardinia.

The females belong to haplogroups typical of the Cardial culture.

In the component percentage graph, Anatolian ancestry has been modeled as “Balkan,” but it is the same as what we have always seen as Anatolian.

Seeing “Balkan,” I expected clades E-V13, J2B, and R-PF7562, but none of these had arrived yet.

I don’t understand how it is possible that an autosomal mixture that has remained the same for 200 articles now gets renamed for reasons that are unclear.

The percentages of “steppe” are between 10–20%; Neolithic individuals usually have 10–15%, not 0% as modeled in many studies. V88 already added “steppe” in the past; having 20% when there is no trace of R1a or “steppe” R1b could indicate that they survived by taking females from the Beakers and then practicing extreme endogamy with them, or simply that the H2 case represents priestly-oriented endogamy.

Regarding the “Iran Neolithic” percentage you mentioned, individuals who usually have 15–20% Iran Neolithic are J2-L26>, T>, and L>. Everything points to their origin in Kura-Araxes.

J2 does not represent any conquest or mass migration. Rather, Mesopotamian empires collapsed every few years, forcing them to seek their livelihood in the West in a civilization comparable to Mesopotamia, since moving east or south in that context would mean “regressing” in quality of life. This is why they show bottlenecks around 10,000 BC and no distinctive clades.

They began entering the Mediterranean from 2000 BC, but they do not seem to have become notable until after 1500 BC.

From 1600 to 700 BC, the region may have been sparsely populated or subject to multiple changes, being a strategic point exposed to constant battles, until around 700 BC when stability begins with the Greek poleis, which then received U152> in various later waves.

Haplogroups arriving in southern Italy after the dates of this study include R1b-U152 from the north, and from the east R1b-P310, PF7589, PF7562, Z2106, J2, J2B, E-V13, and E-V22 from the Balkans*.

Only the minority haplogroups I2, G2, and V88 had interrupted continuity.


The ethnogenesis of southern Italy points to:

• 10–20% Neolithic originating 6000–1500 BC.

• 30–40% Northern Italic originating from 2500 BC onwards.

• 50–60% Aegean, Balkan, Mycenaean, and Greek arriving between 1600–300 BC.

Which currently translates to southern Italians being modeled as 50–60% Italic and 40–50% Aegean-Balkan.

 

[Palermo Trapani]

I2 man here! So glad all those R1b, J2 and E-V13 and E-V22 didn't interrupt me.