Naslov
The Greeks in the West: genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily

Autori
Tofanelli, Sergio ; Brisighelli, Francesca ; Anagnostou, Paolo ; Busby, George B J ; Ferri, Gianmarco ; Thomas, Mark G ; Taglioli, Luca ; Rudan, Igor ; Zemunik, Tatijana ; Hayward, Caroline ; Bolnick, Deborah ; Romano, Valentino ; Cali, Francesco ; Luiselli, Donata ; Shepherd, Gillian B ; Tusa, Sebastiano ; Facella, Antonino ; Capelli, Cristian

Izvornik
European Journal of Human Genetics (1018-4813) 24 (2016), 3; 429-436

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
Y-CHROMOSOME ; POPULATION ; LINEAGES ; ADMIXTURE ; MUTATIONS ; DIVERSITY ; EXPANSION ; ANCESTOR ; HISTORY ; MODELS

Sažetak
Greek colonisation of South Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia) was a defining event in European cultural history, although the demographic processes and genetic impacts involved have not been systematically investigated. Here, we combine high-resolution surveys of the variability at the uni- parentally inherited Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA in selected samples of putative source and recipient populations with forward-in-time simulations of alternative demographic models to detect signatures of that impact. Using a subset of haplotypes chosen to represent historical sources, we recover a clear signature of Greek ancestry in East Sicily compatible with the settlement from Euboea during the Archaic Period (eighth to fifth century BCE). We inferred moderate sex- bias in the numbers of individuals involved in the colonisation: a few thousand breeding men and a few hundred breeding women were the estimated number of migrants. Last, we demonstrate that studies aimed at quantifying Hellenic genetic flow by the proportion of specific lineages surviving in present-day populations may be misleading.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

POVEZANOST RADA