Comments on: Ötzi the Iceman and the Sardinians

By: Bobby Boone

Bobby Boone — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:50:55 +0000

The picture at the bottom of the article is Elisabetta Canalis and she was born on September 12, 1978, in Sassari, Italy. Although Elizabett is quite pretty, a more appropriate picture of a Sardinian woman might be http://toporagno.deviantart.com/art/Sardinian-women-48485507.

By: dave chamberlin

dave chamberlin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:38:57 +0000

Before this thread slides into history I would like to make a few comments on Otzi that have nothing to do with genetics, yet. We have considerable evidence on Otzi the man that paints a picture of him as an incredibly competent human being. He approaches the competence of one of those rediculous Jean Auel characters whom are near perfect in every single way. He wasn’t just found with a copper axe one thousand years before the supposed beginning of the copper age, he was found with high levels of arsenic in his blood meaning he was in all likelyhood a coppersmith himself. I won’t go into the long list of items he had with him but it is a clear indication of his very high competence in a number of skills. This won’t mean much yet but it will down the road as genetics advances to identify incredibly complex genetic patterns that signify high intellegence. For here we have the complete genome not just of a 5300 year old human but a damned intelligent one as well. As they say in the news business this is a story with legs. Recently there has been found on Otzi the blood of two other individuals meaning he went down successfully fighting. That the arrow that killed him was removed but that his valuable copper axe was left is weird and has left some to speculate his murderer did not want to be discovered as Otzi still had powerful and dangerous friends.

By: ohwilleke

ohwilleke — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 01:08:20 +0000

“judging by g2a frequencies the ‘sardinian’ component is strongest in the mainland in alpine regions.”

Immediately pre-Italo-Celtic that would have been a Rhaetic-Etruscan linguistic area and Tuscany was Etruscan before it was Latin. There are disputed about where the Rhaetic-Etruscan people cam from among the classical authors, but at least view was that they were migrants/relic populations who arrived there from Southern France before they were displaced by the Celtic Gauls.

By: Roberto Congiu

Roberto Congiu — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:33:56 +0000

I think that it makes more sense to see this in the perspective of human migration.
Sardinia was inhabited during the ice age, when sea levels were lower, and you could probably walk to the island from the mainland through Corsica. The end of the last ice age left Sardinia actually isolated. It is believed that the people who lived in Europe in that period had a generic marker (Haplogroup I, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_I_(Y-DNA) ) but subsequent migration from the east relegated this group to some more remote places (the balkans, scandinavia, and Sardinia). Most people in Europe in fact belong to the Haplogroup R.
It is indeed conceivable that simply Otzi was from the same people who settled Sardinia and Corsica from central Itali, or shared an ancestor with them.

By: Onur

Onur — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:03:54 +0000

Well, when it comes to demographic movements, I try to use genetics and historical information concurrently whenever available, but my priority is, quite understandably, on genetics. As for the Strait of Messina, the Calabro-Sicilian language is spoken on both sides of the strait (not in itself a strong argument for a strong gene flow, but it complements the genetic evidence).

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:35:52 +0000

#19, be more precise in the future. i think you over-read the genetic argument, but it is defensible. in contrast, the straits of messina have not been trivial culturally.

By: Onur

Onur — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:08:33 +0000

Also, by “demographic movements” I was referring to the demographic movements as a whole, not just foreign invasions. Only genetics can inform us about the demographic movements as a whole (albeit in a crude manner).

By: Onur

Onur — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:41:00 +0000

this is false. don’t make stuff up on the fly. the distinction between sicily and southern italy is real, though the chasm is not analogous to the sardinian vs. mainland one. (you will not respond with a long comment explaining yourself at length, i know enough about sicily and its peculiar history to know you’re making assertions post hoc).

I am not talking about history but genetics. History tells us that South Italy and Sicily were many times invaded and ruled by different groups in the past, but genetics tells us that they have not differentiated the genetics of Sicily and South Italy in a significant way. Genetically South Italians and Sicilians are virtually identical. The sole difference between them is the presence of a bit more African admixture in Sicilians (that is probably recent and connected with the Muslim Arab/Berber invasions).

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:47:08 +0000

Sicily is adjacent to the Italian mainland, that is why it does not show island behavior in terms of demographic movements, so Sicilians are practically not islanders but Italian mainlanders.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:45:15 +0000

They just lack the Northern component that has diffused into southern Europe from IE to historic times, and appear to lack as much West Asian as Italy and Greece and a portion of the Balkans have today.

that is atypical.

By: Eurologist

Eurologist — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:55:13 +0000

I can’t take this talk of “relics” and “replacement” seriously. Both Ötzi and Corsicans/ Sardinians are mainly typical Europeans, autosomally. They just lack the Northern component that has diffused into southern Europe from IE to historic times, and appear to lack as much West Asian as Italy and Greece and a portion of the Balkans have today. I believe there was a pretty steep East-West gradient of West Asian just after the beginning of the neolithic, and that has diffused a bit more, since then, as would be expected.

By: Onur

Onur — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:08:14 +0000

Simplicio, Sicily is adjacent to the Italian mainland, that is why it does not show island behavior in terms of demographic movements, so Sicilians are practically not islanders but Italian mainlanders. Also, Sardinia does not neighbor Sicily, the only neighbor of Sardinia is Corsica. Unfortunately, there is currently no detailed research on Corsican autosomal genetics, but the most detailed extant autosomal study on Corsicans (Vona et al.) shows Corsicans to be genetically closest to Sardinians and, like Sardinians, pretty far from Italian mainlanders (including Sicilians) and French mainlanders.

By: Simplicio

Simplicio — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:25:10 +0000

@12 I’m not surprised that its an island so much as this particular island. I don’t know much about Sardinia, but neighboring Sicily has been a cross-roads for 3,000 years, with the Greeks, then Carthaginians then Romans, then Arabs then Normans then Italians ruling. I think there were some Vandals in there somewhere to. And during the Roman Republic period the population was supposedly mainly agricultural slaves brought in from abroad, so at least in some cases it wasn’t just a small overclass moving in and interbreeding with a stable native population.

I would’ve thought Sardinia and other islands in the central Mediterranean would have similar histories and thus be “mutts” of other Mediterranean cultures.

By: Palisto

Palisto — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:59:37 +0000

“It shouldn’t strike anyone as strange that a relic population should be found on an island. It has happened repeatedly in human history as well as animal history. New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania, and the Andaman Islands all have populations that show distinctive roots to early human migrations that have been wiped out or minimized on the nearby mainlands.”

Yes, but it is interesting that apparently it happened in last 5300 years.

By: dave chamberlin

dave chamberlin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:29:39 +0000

It shouldn’t strike anyone as strange that a relic population should be found on an island. It has happened repeatedly in human history as well as animal history. New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania, and the Andaman Islands all have populations that show distinctive roots to early human migrations that have been wiped out or minimized on the nearby mainlands.

By: Brian Lovett

Brian Lovett — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:46:15 +0000

I am interested by the mention of a possible Basque connection because latest information suggests that the Basques are mainly R1b (Western Atlantic Modal) relatively modern.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:53:03 +0000

This makes it sound like it’s not *only* Sardinians, but is not particularly clear.

popres has random people from cities, right? i assume some sardinians and highland sicilians are in the mix. judging by g2a frequencies the ‘sardinian’ component is strongest in the mainland in alpine regions.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:51:57 +0000

#7, no, neanderthals are older. and yes, it can be done on other bodies.

By: Simplicio

Simplicio — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:29:01 +0000

Out of curiosity, is this the oldest human body we have this level of genetic data from? Can the same be done to bog bodies or Egyptian mummies or the like?

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:11:54 +0000

I’m wondering what social and cultural factors have helped preserve that genetic distinctiveness.

perhaps malaria killed all the lowlanders who were cosmopolitan. modern sardinians may actually be descended from highlanders.