Minor sub-Saharan and substantial Levantine admixture in Southern Europe

According to "The Role of Recent Admixture in Forming the Contemporary West Eurasian Genomic Landscape", something like a third of Southern Italian and Tuscan genetic ancestry appears to derive from the Levant in Roman times:

Moorjani et al [S?], who use a method based on allele frequency comparisons, and not haplotypes (ROLLOFF), found evidence for sub-Saharan African admixture in Sardinia 71±28 generations ago, at a proportion of 3%. These are the same Sardinians included in our analysis. In the largest Sardinian (sardi13) cluster in our analysis we infer West African admixture 66 (53-82) generations ago at a proportion of 2%.

S5.2 Continuous low level African admixture in the Mediterranean and Anatolia

We infer West African admixture across broad date ranges, but at low admixture proportions (admixture α < 0.07; Figs. 2 and S3) in several Mediterranean groups, consistent with a long term movement be- tween sub-Saharan Africa and southern Europe [S?,S?]. Specific West African admixture dating to the Arabic conquest of the Mediterranean [S?] is seen in Spanish (spani27: 1042 (740-1201CE)), Southern Italian and Sicilian (sicil30: 1105 (882-1250CE)), and Basque (basqu24: 886 (283-1162CE)) clusters. Earlier African admixture at low admixture proportion is inferred in the Cypriots (cypri12: 427(107- 734CE)), and a Sardinian cluster (sardi13: 36 (458BCE-430CE); α = 0.02). This latter event is con- sistent with the occurrence of A3b2-M13 (0.6%) and E1a-M44 (0.4%) African Y chromosome lineages in Sardinia [S?]. and the dating is more compatible with documented exchanges between the island and Mauretania Cesariensis in Roman times (2 nd century BCE to 2 nd century CE) than later displacements of northern-African males to Sardinia at the time of the Vandals rule (5 th century CE) [S?]. [. . .]

S5.3 A key role for the Levant in the genetic history of the Mediterranean

Early admixture involving source groups most similar to contemporary populations from in and around the Levant (which we define as the World Region containing individuals from Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi, Yemen and Egypt) is seen at high proportions in several clusters from Italy dating to the first half of the first millennium CE, from Southern Italy (itali8: 295CE (72BCE-604CE); α = 0.34), Tuscany (tsi23: 400CE(30BCE-686); α = 0.29), and Sardinia, as well as in a large cluster from Armenia at an early date (armen27: 363BCE(1085BCE-383CE)). [. . .] these events loosely coincide with the formation of the pan-Mediterranean Roman Empire [S?], which may also have allowed increased gene flow from east to west Mediterranean. [. . .] We infer more recent Levant admixture in the French (frenc24: 728(424-1011CE)) and in a complex multiway event in a Spanish cluster (spani9: 668 (286-876CE)). The dates and sources of admixture in these cases are consistent with movements of Middle Eastern and North African individuals during the Islamic Conquest of Spain [S?], and suggest a legacy of this key moment in southern European history in the genomes of French as well as Spanish populations.

7 comments:

  1. Unless I'm reading wrong, it seems south eastern europe does not have any african or levantine admixture but has an admixture event with the north-eastern cluster during the Migration Period. There also doesn't seem to be a signal of the iran + armenian component then after the iron age.

    So roman population movements affected only Italy?

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  2. Anonymous,

    Table S4 shows Greeks as cypri12 + 35% lithu11. cypri12, in turn, is shown as armen27 + 3% West African and 23% hunga23, with this admixture estimated to date to 427 AD (107-734). And armen27 is shown as a multi-way admixture involving Levant, kumyk9, georg20, and turki7, dating to 363 BC (1085BC-382AD).

    So it appears these results are consistent with admixture in both Roman and Classical times (though I would not take the dates or sources too literally without ancient DNA evidence).

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  3. Yes, but in the single pop analysis neither bulgarians, romanians nor greeks show any levantine or african aDNA, whereas the italians and cypriots do. I remembered some results that showed SEE populations without SSA ancestry (Moorjani and the eurogenes chart) but had the western med with some small traces of it. (cyprus included) There doesn't seem to be a direct link between the MENA and south east europe in the admixture events shown.

    To be honest, this seems more of an arab deal than a roman one as I doubt SSA existed so broadly in the MENA region before arab expansion. The lack of it in the east but it's presence in sicily and spain seem to suggest that even more so.

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  4. Why don't you talk about the mongol admixture in N/NE Europe, or the 37% "Armenian" admixture in Scotland from 708 AD?

    This paper is just as ridiculous as their previous one: http://dienekes.blogspot.it/2014/02/human-admixture-common-in-human-history.html

    Fucking troll

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  5. Sardinians and Tuscans don't have any West African admixture, and Spanish and south Italians have only very little: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7IP49RXbPKI/VAlvRPVa3tI/AAAAAAAAA18/-BavO9q1o9U/s1600/Admixture_291,184_SNPs.png

    There hasn't been any recent Levant ancestry in southern Europe: http://italianthro.blogspot.it/2014/06/mediterranean-sea-as-genetic-barrier.html

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  6. typical.

    n/a is a NW Euro supremacist who hates jews.

    YET he's yet to make the final leap even though it's more of standing long jump.

    BECAUSE like all Anglophiles he's in thrall to jewish cock.

    history after WW II shows that:

    1. wherever the jews weren't exterminated they RULE.
    2. wherever they were exterminated made more progress in living standards than where they weren't, but no more than where they'd never been, like Scandinavia, Japan, and the PRC.
    3. jews are a parasitic race that eventually kills its host.

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  7. Northern Italy has 19% MENA admixture, South Italy has 35% MENA admixture, Andalusia in Spain has 14% MENA admixture(that doesn't include the SSA of course. Ethnicities like Basques or Swedes have 1-2% according to K15 on GEDMatch.

    Yes, neolithic farmers themselves had MENA admixture, but it was only in the 10-20% range, the rest were the specific components of neolithic farmers completely uncommon in the Middle-East currently. Given neolithic farmer numbers were 10-20%(El Trocs pure neolithic farmer without extra WHG, 5000 BC in the Pyrenees had 9%), after delution, mixing with the people who brought the modern Spaniard's other genes(namely their northern/WHG components) in, that number should be around 2% as well like the Basques if there was no admixture.

    Overtly defensive southern Europeans aside, it's now pretty much undeniable that there was significant Roman Empire era migration from the Middle-East to southern Europe.

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