Southern Italy

Bettelli, Marco; Vagnetti, Lucía

doi:10.1002/9781118769966.ch52

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Later on, during the 2 nd 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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing temporal and geographic contacts across the Adriatic Sea through the analysis of genome-wide data from Southern Italy

Raveane

Molinaro

Aneli

et al. 2022

Preprint

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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.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%