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Saturday 20 January 2024

What is the DNA of the Cypriots?

Blog moved here: https://genesoftheancients.wordpress.com/

 

Click here to read more about the DNA of Greeks and Italians-> Ancient Greek ancestry in Greeks and Italians through G25 and qpAdm Analysis

This will be expanded and updated in the future

We lack extensive ancient DNA samples from Cyprus, except for low-coverage Neolithic and Chalcolithic data, which may not be relevant for this. Cypriots share genetic similarities with Roman-era Southern Greeks and West Anatolians, with an additional 25% Levantine admixture. The Anatolian like component in Cypriots aligns more with the Roman-era Aegean population from Southern Greece and West Anatolia than native iron age Central Anatolians, while modern Greek Central Anatolians primarily exhibit the Iron Age Central Anatolian type ancestry.

Modern Cypriot Greeks exhibit a stronger genetic similarity to Roman-era Southern Greeks than to modern Southern Greeks, primarily due to the Slavic and West Balkan admixture in modern mainland Greek populations. Cypriots are more similar genetically to Roman-era Southern Greeks and Dodecanese than to any other population today. After Roman-era Greeks and modern Aegean Greek islanders, Cypriots are also similar genetically to the Lebanese and Calabrians. Cypriots fall in the middle of the genetic spectrum/cline between the Calabrians and Lebanese.

While Southern Greeks today have approximately 25% Slavic admixture, Cypriots possess around 25% Levantine admixture. It's worth noting that Roman-era Southern Greeks shared a more significant genetic similarity with Levantines than with Slavs which is why modern Cypriots are still so similar to Roman-era Southern Greeks. Additionally, the modern Southern Greeks have Illyrian and Thracian admixture, possibly resulting from Thraco-Roman migrations during the late medieval and Ottoman periods. Roman-era Northern Greeks probably already had some Illyrian and Thracian admixture but there aren't any public DNA samples from post Bronze age Northern Greece yet.

The overall Bronze age Mycenaean admixture in Cyprus approximates 25%, which aligns with the levels observed in Crete and the Dodecanese. In contrast, mainland Greek Mycenaean admixture may be slightly lower due to the Slavic and Thraco-Roman migrations diluting Mycenaean admixture. The total Roman era (1-200AD) Greek ancestry in Cypriots is around 65% to 90% depending on if Roman era Cypriots had the same amount of excess Levantine, we are assuming that Cyprus had excess Levantine since then due to geographic proximity.

Nevertheless, the remaining admixture in all modern Greeks continues to exhibit similarities to that of their ancient Greek counterparts, owing to historical mixing with genetically similar neighboring populations. While we lack confirmed Dorian samples, it's reasonable to assume their genetic similarity to Illyrians due to their geographical proximity. Additionally, Thracians and ancient Anatolian DNA samples exhibit significant genetic resemblance to Mycenaean DNA samples.

G25 admixture chart comparing them to Roman era Greeks and Levantines:

Model without Armenian proxy because it seems to overfit on Dodecanese.

 
 

Source populations:
 

Balkan Thraco-Roman (Early Vlach and Early Albanian) vs Eastern Roman Aegean model:

 


Closest modern populations genetically to Cypriots:


Including some ancient populations for more context:because medieval mainland Greeks mixed with Slavs, the West Anatolian Greeks received less Slavic admix
 

This is a G25 neolithic chart so keep in mind its not as accurate as qpAdm. I will remake this chart with qpAdm.




Cypriot Greek phenotypes + folk music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiu3i_Hln-I

Wednesday 17 January 2024

What is the Proto Greek and Proto Illyrian ancestry in Mycenaeans and possible Dorian samples?

I will add more to this post in the future... 

We can't be sure who the Proto Greeks were exactly but this seems possible.


The Cetina admix seems to correlate with the Cetina archeological infuences. Nestor's palace is outside of that border and has no Cetina admix, it only shows up at 2.8% later but it could be noise or obviously some mixing later.

Monday 1 January 2024

Phenotypes of Turkey according to Carleton S. Coon.

This post is less scientific than my genetic posts, it relies on very old studies.

I don't know what Turkish regions they tested exactly in this skull study. Post was written by Onur

Summary

Going by what Coon writes in his book and draws on his map: the most major phenotype of Turks is Dinarid-Mediterranid. Dinarid and Armenoid come after it. Then come Alpine, Gracile Mediterranid and Pontid (East Mediterranid).

Ancient Greek skulls from Attica compared to modern populations

Related posts to read (click to open): 

  1. Ancient Greek ancestry in Greeks and Italians through G25 and qpAdm Analysis
  2. Phenotypes of Turkey according to Carleton S. Coon.

I will keep updating this post based on new information i learn about. I will also add more context and details.

This post will be less scientific than the other ones because the skull studies are old and i didn't compare the actual measurements my self, i'm just basing this on their conclusions. In the future i will gather all the skull measurements and compare them with some algorithm.

Summary:

According to many studies, the skulls of modern Southern Greeks, South Italians, and Greek islanders including Cypriot Greeks, show a striking resemblance to the ancient Southern Greeks. The ancient Greeks were characterized by a variety of phenotypes, which over time "homogenized", resulting in a spectrum of intermediate phenotypes observed in the modern Greek population. 

Ancient Ionians such as the Athenians (Attica) and Mycenaeans from Attica seem to look most similar to Cretans, Aegean islanders and Cypriots because Coon says that the Mediterranid types are most similar to Cretan types while the Dinarid/Dinaric-Mediterranean types which consist of 20% of the Mycenaean skulls from Attica are most similar to Cypriots. This makes sense DNA wise because Greek islanders received less Slavic admix than mainland Greeks.

Basic Whites (East-Mediterranean/Pontid) and Gracile Mediterraneans dominate the ancient Greek series as a whole. Dinaric-Mediterranean, Nordic-Iranian, and Basic White types are nearest to the average metrically, with the small-headed Mediterraneans (Gracile-Med) particularly close in proportions.

Ancient Ionian Greeks not only had phenotypes typical of modern Greeks and South Italians but also shared similarities with other Mediterranean populations, such as the Iberians and the Lebanese. This reflects a broader trend of shared physical characteristics among various groups along the Mediterranean basin.

Chart comparing ancient Greek vs modern population skull results:

Pay attention to the explanations on top to see how the phenotypes formed.

Thursday 14 December 2023

Testing the Roman era sample from Marathon, Greece with qpAdm, f4 statistics and G25

For people wondering why Marathon on G25 appears more Levantine on Neolithic models:

1) The G25 sample has high distances because something is wrong with the cords.
2) proximal G25 model shows it identical to Roman Mugla, G25 is better at proximal modelling.
3) F4 show that Levant Sidon does not have more affinities to Marathon than Mugla.
4) qpAdm shows that it cannot be modelled with Mugla + Levantine but it can only be modelled as 100% Roman Mugla.

Conclusion: The Roman Marathon sample is almost identical or even identical to Roman Mugla:

qpAdm and F4:

Wednesday 13 December 2023

Where did the Philistines come from? G25 model

Short anwer, the DNA samples we currently have are pretty much Aegeans, mix of Greeks and West Anatolians. While archeology also says about both Aegeans and Italians of the time but Italians of that time cremated.

Long answer, to be continued, i will expand this post in the future.


Sunday 10 December 2023

Did ancient Greeks leave a genetic impact on West Anatolia? qpAdm and G25 analysis




Answer: Yes, they did. The Roman era West Anatolians 2000 years ago had around 28-40% Mycenaean Greek ancestry.

1) On both tools the Roman era West Anatolians are a mix of 28-40% Mycenaean + South East Anatolian + North Levantine + West-Central Anatolian. The qpAdm rotation rejects any model without Mycenaean.

2) When running Fst/f2 the Roman era West Anatolians are closer genetically to Mycenaeans, South East Anatolians, North Levantines than Iron age West Anatolians because they were mainly a direct mix of those first 3. But this part could be faulty due to problematic samples, it still does not disprove 1) or 3).

3) When rotating we can rank P-values. The model with Mycenaean gets higher P-value than Thracian. Therefore Mycenaean/Greek is the most likely source.

I took the reference/right populations as this study but expanded upon them. 
DNA samples from the Version v54.1.p1 Harvard dataset: https://reichdata.hms.harvard.edu/pub/datasets/amh_repo/curated_releases/

For context:
Turkey_Archaic_SubGeometric = Iron age West Anatolian from Mugla
Turkey_EBA_Isparta = Bronze age West Anatolia
Turkey_Alalakh_MLBA = Bronze age North Levant/South East Anatolia
Turkey_IA_Batman = Iron age South East Turkey

If you have ideas of how to improve the models then post them in the comments. I will attempt to improve the models even more in the future.

qpAdm:

Only the model with Mycenaean + South East Anatolian/North Levantine is plausible.
This is a rotation:

Attempting to improve the qpAdm models from the new study: A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations

Related post: Modelling the Roman era sample from Marathon Greece on qpAdm and G25

Study: A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations

Post by Davidski about the study: https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2024/01/romans-and-slavs-in-balkans-olalde-et.html

I used the reference/right populations as in that study but expanded upon them to decrease standard errors. If you have any criticism then tell me in the comments so i can improve the models.

The Balkan study didn't use a Balkan proxy for mainland Greeks even though they have a lot of Balkan Y-DNA from both sides of the Balkans, Arvanites/Albanians, Thracian etc, obviously in my models i have to take into account the Balkan admix. The models with South Slavic fit the best when rotating because they take into account the Balkan admx. They could have used a Balkan or South Slavic proxy if they added more right/reference populations + a lot of good quality Rome Imperial samples that are identical to Mugla West Anatolian samples to decrease the Standard Errors.

The "Ottoman Turkish" proxy of the study is also sus, the paper claims that it is central Asian mixed but i can't find any models showcasing how much Central Asian admix it has. My qpAdm models don't fail without Central Asian/East Asian despite using Mongolia_North_N in the reference/right pops. It seems that they might have used some very low Turkic mixed sample that is mostly Byzantine Greek and just tagged it as Ottoman Turkish. If i somehow missed their models about the Turkic admix of the "Ottoman Turkish" samples then tell me in the comments.

If you are curious about the absence of Mycenaean as a source in the qpAdm chart, please scroll down to the qpAdm reference section below for a detailed overview of the models utilized. The selection criteria prioritized models based on their P-values, with preference given to those demonstrating the highest statistical significance. Furthermore, modern Greeks scored less than 5% excess Mycenaean when using the Roman era Aegean proxy.

The Aegean proxy in my analysis consist of samples from the Roman-era Mugla in West Anatolia, along with Imperial Rome samples that are identical to those from Mugla. Furthermore, the Marathon sample from 300 AD southern Greece is identical to those samples. It scores a total of 30-50% Mycenaean admix depending on the proxies used so Mugla samples might be an actual good representative of Roman era Southern Greeks until we get more samples.

Explaining more about the Roman era Aegean proxy here:

More work will be be done on these models, i will update them in the future.

qpAdm models:

Scroll down to see all the models i ran.

Low P values (<0.01 / lower than 0.01) indicate poor fit of the tested model

Thursday 7 December 2023

How much ancient Levantine ancestry do the Lebanese and Palestinians have? Do they have Arab ancestry? G25 analysis

If you think G25 is bad then see this: qpAdm vs G25 results

These Admixture models do not imply direct ancestry but they only show the genetic shifts towards these ancient DNA samples. Sometimes they can happen coincidentally through re-mixing with similar populations. 

The Global25 admixture charts you see below illustrate the percentage mixtures needed to get the closest match to a modern target when comparing their DNA to ancient DNA samples. In simpler terms, they show how much mixing of different ancient DNA samples is required to match the genetic profile of present-day populations. This doesn't necessarily imply a direct descent from the exact population depicted; it could instead be from a population closely related or similar to the one shown.

Thursday 27 April 2023

The Ancestral Roots of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews with G25 DNA models

Not finished, will update.

They received the Greek ancestry indirectly from Italians in the Imperial Roman era. There was a significant Greek migration from the Aegean islands and West Anatolia into Italy during the Early Roman Imperial period. 

The G25 admixture models below do not imply direct ancestry but they show at which ancient people modern Jews are genetically shifted to. Most of the mixing seems to have happened when Jews lived in Italy.

Turkic and Greek ancestry in modern Turks

Wednesday 26 April 2023

Ancient Greek ancestry in Greeks and Italians through G25 and qpAdm Analysis

Blog moved here: https://genesoftheancients.wordpress.com/

Related posts to read (click to open):

  1. Attempting to improve the qpAdm models from the new study: A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations
  2. Did ancient Greeks leave a genetic impact on West Anatolia? qpAdm and G25 analysis
  3. Modeling the Neolithic ancestry of Modern and Ancient Europeans/West Asians using qpAdm, including ancient Greeks/Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Phoenicians, Yamnaya
  4. Modelling the Roman era sample from Marathon Greece on qpAdm and G25
  5. What is the DNA of the Cypriots?
  6. Ancient Greek skulls from Athens compared to modern populations

Updated 7/12/2023

Ancient Greek ancestry in Greeks and Italians through G25 and qpAdm Analysis

In this post, I will examine the genetic makeup of modern populations in comparison to the ancient Greeks, analyzing how their DNA differs and identifying any similarities that may exist.

Who is most similar genetically today to the ancient Greeks and Minoans? According to the study:
We estimated FST of Bronze Age populations with present-day West Eurasians, finding that Mycenaeans are least differentiated from populations from Greece, Cyprus, Albania, and Italy (Fig. 2), part of a general pattern in which Bronze Age populations broadly resemble present-day inhabitants from the same region (Extended Data Fig. 7).

Roman era Greek admixture of modern Greeks and Italians (updated 7/12/2023)

The Global25 admixture charts you see below illustrate the percentage mixtures needed to get the closest match to a modern target when comparing their DNA to ancient DNA samples. In simpler terms, they show how much mixing of different ancient DNA samples is required to match the genetic profile of present-day populations. This doesn't necessarily imply a direct descent from the exact population depicted; it could instead be from a population closely related or similar to the one shown.


Thursday 26 January 2023

Modeling the Neolithic ancestry of Modern and Ancient Europeans/West Asians using qpAdm, including ancient Greeks/Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Phoenicians, Yamnaya

Recent studies by Harvard utilized Autosomal DNA modeling techniques to analyze the genetic makeup of ancient populations, including the Cypriots, Mycenaeans, Minoans, and Levantines. However, the study did not include a analysis of modern populations. In order to make comparisons between ancient and modern populations, I personally used the same DNA modeling program to model modern populations with the DNA samples provided by Harvard.

Studies:
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/8_25_2022_Manuscript1_ChalcolithicBronzeAge.pdf
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/8_25_2022_Manuscript2_Neolithic.pdf

My models:

Neolithic Era ancestry