Der Movement wrong again. In all cases, emphasis added.
Gab correspondent Gaston alerts me to two new papers, which I will briefly comment on.
See this.
See this figure and note that these European groups essentially are derived from different proportions of the same basic ancestral components.
Abstract
Southern Italy was characterised by a complex prehistory that started with different Palaeolithic cultures, later followed by the Neolithic transition and the demic dispersal from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe during the Bronze Age. Archaeological and historical evidence points to demic and cultural influences between Southern Italians and the Balkans, starting with the initial Palaeolithic occupation until historical and modern times. To shed light on the dynamics of these contacts, we analysed a genome-wide SNP dataset of more than 700 individuals from the South Mediterranean area (102 from Southern Italy), combined with ancient DNA from neighbouring areas. Our findings revealed high affinities of South-Eastern Italians with modern Eastern Peloponnesians, and a closer affinity of ancient Greek genomes with those from specific regions of South Italy than modern Greek genomes. The higher similarity could be associated with the presence of a Bronze Age component ultimately originating from the Caucasus and characterised by high frequencies of Iranian and Anatolian Neolithic ancestries. Furthermore, to reveal possible signals of natural selection, we looked for extremely differentiated allele frequencies among Northern and Southern Italy, uncovering putatively adapted SNPs in genes involved in alcohol metabolism, nevi features and immunological traits, such as ALDH2, NID1 and CBLB.
OK, that is self-explanatory.
Southern Italy was one of the first European regions to be inhabited by our species.
Yes, Der Movement, Southern Italy is actually part of Europe.
Later on, during the 2nd millennium BCE a flourishing and continuous cultural relationship was established between Southern Italy and Aegean communities especially from the Recent Bronze Age (3.3 to 3.2 kya) onward (23,24). Although the demographic extent of these contacts is not clear, some valuable insights on mobility could be inferred from ceramic crafts. The most recent analytical evidence, relating to the Aegean-type pottery from the core sites of Punta di Zambrone (Tyrrhenian Calabria) and Roca Vecchia (Southern Adriatic Apulia), allow to highlight a strong connection with the Western Greek regions (Ionian Islands, Acarnania, Achaea and Elis) and, to a lesser extent, with Western Crete (25).
Precisely, following the Bronze Age, in a period between the so-called Greek “Dark Ages” (26) and the Archaic Greece (2.7 to 2.5 kya), Southern Italy became a hotspot for the foundation of Greek colonies. The first colonies were set in Campania and Sicily, possibly by settlers arriving from Eastern Greece (Euboea island) around 780 BCE, soon followed by colonies in Calabria, Basilicata and Apulia (27–30), encompassing an area later to be known as Magna Grecia. In the second half of the 7th century BCE, some of these settlements, specifically in South-Eastern Sicily (Siracusa and Megara Iblea) and Apulia (Taranto), were attributed to Eastern Peloponnesian founders (31,32).
As we shall see, actual genetic evidence, as opposed to Quentin Tarantino movies, demonstrates that Southern Italians, including Sicilians, are closest to modern Peloponnesians and, more importantly, to Ancient Greeks, not to Negroes or Arabs.
As a consequence of this complex demographic scenario, Italy harbours the largest degree of genetic population structure identified in Europe so far (19,36), making its population a valuable asset for adaptation studies (36–38).
The wops are a “valuable asset.”
f4 analysis showed a higher allele sharing of modern Caucasus individuals with present-day Central Europeans than with South-Eastern Europeans, possibly as the result of Bronze Age migrations (Table S2).
Der Movement is not going to like that at all. That noise you hear is fetishist weeping.
The first two PCs in the PCA highlight genetic similarities between Southern Italians and the majority of the analysed Greek populations, with the only exception of the Peloponnesian groups (for sample location see Fig. S2) previously identified as outliers (39), which form a tight cluster also when the third PC is evaluated (Fig. S3).
Genetic similarities between Southern Italians and Greeks, not between Southern Italians and Angolans.
In order to further dissect the degree of affinity between populations across the Adriatic Sea, we applied a clustering approach on the first ten PCs of a PCA performed on a subset composed by 682 individuals (Fig. 1B, Fig. S4). We detected 12 clusters summarising the genetic similarity among these populations (Fig. S4). Present-day Apulians and Calabrians are characterised by similar profiles, with three clusters (cl. 1, 4, 6) grouping most of their individuals. Western Sicilians mainly fall in cl. 4, which is virtually absent in Eastern Sicily, but it is modal in the Western Peloponnese. Cl. 6 is the second most represented cluster in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily and is found also in Western Peloponnese. Notably, cl. 1 is found at moderate frequencies (from ∼ 16% to ∼ 23%) in the whole Southern Italy, is rare in the Western part of Peloponnese (absent in all Western Peloponnese with the exception of Messenia), but it is present at high proportions on its Eastern part (i.e. Laconia ∼ 36%), Greece-Macedonia (∼ 33%) and Kosovo (∼ 42%).
More evidence of the Southern Italian-Greek connection. I suppose that “Tomato Joe” Tommasi and John Patler had more in common than we thought.
Interestingly, a substantial proportion of Sicilians (between ∼ 16 to ∼ 30%), are part of a cluster which includes Northern and Central Italian areas (cl. 9), and is absent in Greece and Peloponnese.
Clustering of “a substantial portion of Sicilians” with “Northern and Central Italian areas?” How is that possible, Der Movement? I thought “Northern and Central Italian areas” were Celto-Germanic Nordic and Sicilians were non-White African Moors? Is it possible that the historically documented (e.g., see this) partial repopulation of Sicily with continental Europeans, particularly Northern Italians, is more true than, say, the movie True Romance?
By the way, these data don’t in any way refute the Greek connection. Essentially, a majority of Sicilians are most akin to (Ancient) Greeks, while a significant minority are more akin to “Northern and Central Italian areas” – although no doubt most Sicilians in reality derive ancestry from both of those clusters, but are as individuals more similar to one or the other.
Modern Southern Italians are closer to Southern European Neolithic and Bronze Age samples (Neolithic Peloponnesians and Minoans) than most modern Peloponnesian groups, with the exception of the Deep Mani and Taygetos individuals (Fig. S5B).
That is consistent with a stable European population structure for thousands of years. Modern European populations to a large extent reflect their Neolithic and Bronze Age origins.
However, when the affinity of Italian groups with African and Middle Eastern populations was tested, Southern Italians resulted not significantly closer to any of the two (Table S4).
Der Movement, please note the word “not.”
In this study, we highlighted a high similarity between Southern Italy and the Peloponnese. In fact, our cluster analysis showed that present-day South-Eastern Peloponnesian populations have high genetic affinity with modern Apulians, Calabrians and South-Eastern Sicilians, all characterised by a cluster composition different from those displayed by other Greek groups (Fig. 1B, Fig. S3). Additionally, individuals from Western Sicily show similarities with populations inhabiting the Western part of Peloponnese (Fig. 1B, Fig. S4). Although establishing the chronological context for this affinity using present-day genomes might be challenging, our results are in accordance with archaeological and historical sources that attributed the origin of Greek colonies in South-Eastern Sicily and Apulia from populations inhabiting the southern and Eastern parts of the Peloponnese (31,32). Uniparental Y-chromosome findings are also in agreement with these observations revealing Eastern Peloponnesian ancestries in East Sicily (34) and shared haplogroups among modern-day Greeks and populations living in Southern Italian areas colonised by Greeks such as the Salento (Apulia) and the Ionian coast of Calabria (56). The lower affinity with other Balkan populations could be attributed to a lower influence by inland populations, such as Slavic-related people (57) and/or genetic drift in Tsakones and Maniots as suggested by historical sources (39). Therefore, our results imply a high affinity between Southern Italians and Peloponnesians possibly abrupted very recently by major events of migrations and/or admixture as the one recorded during the Middle Age period (58). However the observation that, in some analyses, Southern Italians and ancient Greeks share more alleles than modern and ancient Peloponnesians, may suggest a scenario including the preservation of an ancient population signal in the genome of Southern Italians that was likely diluted by inland migrations in Greece (Fig. 3).
In other words, Southern Italians are more similar to Ancient Greeks than are modern Greeks, who have been influenced to some degree by Slavic and other migrations (this Greek information does not invalidate the idea of stable European population structure over the last 3,000 years; some degree of movement and change within Europe is expected and is part of the overall stable structure, but there was no widespread and large scale permanent population replacement, particularly from outside Europe).
The differences identified in modern-day Southern and Northern Italians have significant phenotypic implications and call for more extensive investigations on a larger number of markers and individuals.
Northern and Southern Italians are not “different races” but can be reasonably seen as different ethnic groups, which are similar enough to form a national entity (the same as with North and South Germans). As has been shown previously, North and South Italian differences are of ancient origins, with the South being more akin to Ancient Greece; the differences are NOT due to the South being akin to MENA populations.
Once again, Der Movement’s fetishistic dogma is refuted.
Executive summary: Der Movement is always, ALWAYS wrong.
Or:
Der Movement weeps.
See this paper for more “genes mirror geography” in Europe data.
Abstract
Haplotype-based analyses have recently been leveraged to interrogate the fine-scale structure in specific geographic regions, notably in Europe, although an equivalent haplotype-based understanding across the whole of Europe with these tools is lacking. Furthermore, study of identity-by-descent (IBD) sharing in a large sample of haplotypes across Europe would allow a direct comparison between different demographic histories of different regions. The UK Biobank (UKBB) is a population-scale dataset of genotype and phenotype data collected from the United Kingdom, with established sampling of worldwide ancestries. The exact content of these non-UK ancestries is largely uncharacterized, where study could highlight valuable intracontinental ancestry references with deep phenotyping within the UKBB. In this context, we sought to investigate the sample of European ancestry captured in the UKBB. We studied the haplotypes of 5,500 UKBB individuals with a European birthplace; investigated the population structure and demographic history in Europe, showing in parallel the variety of footprints of demographic history in different genetic regions around Europe; and expand knowledge of the genetic landscape of the east and southeast of Europe. Providing an updated map of European genetics, we leverage IBD-segment sharing to explore the extent of population isolation and size across the continent. In addition to building and expanding upon previous knowledge in Europe, our results show the UKBB as a source of diverse ancestries beyond Britain. These worldwide ancestries sampled in the UKBB may complement and inform researchers interested in specific communities or regions not limited to Britain.
OK.
Some regions appear more heterogenous such as Germany or Malta (SI Appendix, Supplementary Data 2 and Figs. 2.3 and 2.5), suggestive that a substantial fraction of individuals in the dataset have a recent genetic ancestry that does not match most individuals with the same place of birth label, possibly due to modern economic or other recent migration within the continent.
Note: Germany. Der Movement weeps.
Interestingly, there appears to be a common cluster of individuals projected onto the same PC space who collectively do not match the ancestry of individuals with their reported place of birth. A substantial number of individuals of Hungarian, Czech, or Russian birthplaces appear to be members of this cluster. Indeed, these individuals separate together on PC six (SI Appendix, Fig. 2.9). This suggests a community of individuals with shared common ancestry that is not private to one European country but is more common in samples from Eastern Europe.
So, there may be a common “Eastern Europe genotype” that is found in certain Eastern European nations in addition to the more specific national genotypes. This level of kinship overlap emphasizes why intra-European conflict is maladaptive and why petty nationalism is stupid.
We observed a split in Britain and Ireland between the eastern populations of the British Isles (e.g., England and Wales) and the northwestern (e.g., Ireland and Scotland). We report genetic results from the Channel Islands, an archipelago off the northern French coast. Additionally, one cluster of predominant French membership (“France”) groups with English clusters, possibly reflecting gene flow across the channel or a signature of genetic affinity of northwestern France with neighboring Britain (23, 33).
Heterogeneity and kinship overlap exists in Northwest Europe as well.
Finland shows evidence of isolation from other European regions, projecting away in PC space and showing high differentiation in FST and total variance distance (TVD) values (Datasets S2 and S3).
That is not surprising based on previous studies.
We report to our knowledge the largest sample of dense genome-wide genotypes from the small Mediterranean archipelago of Malta (n = 200). In PCA, these are distributed along a gradient along PC seven, forming three clusters. The first contains Maltese individuals who projected separately from the rest with British samples. The other two project away from these Maltese samples, with one equidistant between the British–Maltese individuals and another of sole Maltese membership in PC space (SI Appendix, Supplementary Data 6). Our Leiden clustering groups these latter 2 groups of samples into 1 cluster of 79 individuals and the former into clusters of predominant British membership. These results suggest recent western European gene flow into Malta, with the intermediate PCA cluster of Maltese individuals consistent with first-generation offspring of ancestral Maltese and western European parents.
The British were in Malta. If I recall, Norman Lowell has some British ancestry; apparently, other Maltese do as well.
Elsewhere in S European genetics, we have studied a genetic community of individuals that we denote as Mixed European. Although we discuss in more detail in SI Appendix, Supplementary Data S7, to summarize, we show using f-statistics (37) that these individuals share ancestry with Ashkenazi Jewish references from the Human Origins dataset as well as projecting onto the same PC space (SI Appendix, Fig. 4.2). The demographic profile from haplotype sharing and estimated historical Ne of individuals within this cluster matches well with a proposed demographic model from a previous study of European Ashkenazi Jews (55) with a bottleneck 25 to 35 generations ago with a subsequent period of population expansion. This model included admixture between southern European and Middle Eastern sources and latter Eastern European sources (55), which match our nnls sharing patterns of IBD (SI Appendix, Fig. 4.3).
The Ashkenazim are a three-way mixture of Middle Eastern, Southern European, and Eastern European, and can be distinguished from European ethnies, as we know from previous studies (where the “proposed demographic model” originates).
eginotes 
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