The Near East Origins of Etruscans

[Menydh]

The Near East Origins of Etruscans

April 2007

The Etruscans, who built up a mysterious and brilliant civilization in Etruria (modern Tuscany and nearby areas, in Italy), were told to have migrated from Asia Minor by Herodotus. Their language is known too to be non Indo-European.

However, his claims have been rejected for years by archaeologists who believed them to be native to the region. The Etrurians dominated NW Italy until the rise of Rome, and it is also known that Romans, who were in the area of dominance of Etruria, borrowed heavily from the Etruscans to build up the pillars of their civilization.

According to Herodotus, following a famine the king of Lydia (Turkey) sent a part of the population to search for better lands where to settle. Being a seafaring people, these Lydians set sails under the leadership of Tyrrhenus, son of the king of Lydia, and they reached Umbria, in Italy.

What bothered to researchers of the Etrurians from this account is that the language of the Lydians is Indo-European, while the Etrurian language is not. Also, another ancient historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, made them native to the Italic Peninsula.

New genetic studies have now concluded that Etrurians might have migrated from the Near East, supporting the account of Herodotus.

One such study by Italian scientists Torroni and Achilli, based on the mtDNA of population samples from the small village of Murlo, in Tuscany, has shown the genetic affinity of this population to be closer to the Near East than to Europe.

A wider study of Tuscany also by Torroni has found 11 mtDNA lineages in the region which are unique in Europe and shared with Near Eastern populations.

Torroni has also added that another study which he performed, based on the Y-Chromosome this time and waiting for publication, shows similar results.

On another study by Marco Pellecchia and Paolo Ajmone-Marsan, the DNA of cattle breeds from Tuscany has found out that these are genetically similar to cattle from the Near East.

Previous genetic studies had failed to find a link between modern Tuscans and ancient Etrurians.


sources used for this article:
Origins of the Etruscans: Was Herodotus right? - International Herald Tribune
DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy - New York Times
Mitochondrial DNA Variation of Modern Tuscans Supports the Near Eastern Origin of Etruscans

previous publications on the Etrurians:
Ancient Etruscans are unlikely the ancestors of modern Tuscans, study finds (May 2006)
The Etruscans: A Population-Genetic Study (March 2004)

[Menydh]

Two maps of the kernel area of Etruria and its areas of influence and expansion.

[Breogan]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

...According to Herodotus, following a famine the king of Lydia (Turkey) sent a part of the population to search for better lands where to settle. Being a seafaring people, these Lydians set sails under the leadership of Tyrrhenus, son of the king of Lydia, and they reached Umbria, in Italy...

His work "The Nine Books of History" is highly recommendable.

What bothered to researchers of the Etrurians from this account is that the language of the Lydians is Indo-European, while the Etrurian language is not. Also, another ancient historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, made them native to the Italic Peninsula.

In his "Ancient History of Rome" he also defends a Greek origin for Roman people that came to the Italian peninsule already inhabited by the "aborigenes".

[Menydh]

Now guess who is the charlatan who wrote these pieces:

"The Etruscans became one of the original Mediterranean and Proto-Nordic peoples living in the Italian peninsula before the Indo-European invaders reached that part of the world. Originally called the Villanovans (after a place where they lived), the Etruscans appear to have penetrated Italy from somewhere north of the Alps ..."

"The Etruscans were a mixture of the original Old European White sub-groupings, but were culturally and militarily superior to the original inhabitants of Italy. As a result, they soon grew to dominate the major part of northern Italy."

[Kernunnos]

Murlo is just an isolated village where they have probably found a comunity from the Middle East.

This theory just doesn't take into account the villanovian civilization that rpedates the etruscan one and seems to be exploding suddendly into the most refied etruscan civilization.

Modern inhabitants of Tuscany are generally europid looking, some areas are clearly settled either by relevant numbers of ligurians or by lombards (blue eyes are present in a big chuk of the population).

I think there is a middle eastern strain that occasionally appears (armenoid features, grayish skin and curly black hair), as far as goes my experience (I have travelled to Tuscany pretty often).

But the typical etruscan smiling face and alpinid slanted eyes (as seen in the late Oriana Fallaci, that could be described as a living etruscan sculpture) are found in typically white people.

Look also at the late Indro Montanelli, famed reporter, another real tuscan.

They have the same faces as their ancestors.

[Kernunnos]

Tuscan and modern etruscans:

Indro Montanelli, reporter, light blue eyes.

Looks like one of my grandfathers, btw

[Kernunnos]

Oriana Fallaci (clear eyes too)

[Kernunnos]

Alessandro Benvenuti

(actor and commie)

[Menydh]

Breha, I don't think that this study puts into question the European genetic adscription of Tuscany.

If you read the summary linked here:
Mitochondrial DNA Variation of Modern Tuscans Supports the Near Eastern Origin of Etruscans

it says that the frequency of Near Eastern mtDNA in Murlo is of 17.5%.

Somewhere else I read that Murlo is chosen on purpose as it is a secluded village where the researchers suspected that they had more chances than anywhere else in Tuscany to find genetic traces from the Etruscans. That's like going to Las Alpujarras, in Andalusia, to find traces of Nothern African genetics.

The summary report continues saying that the overall frequency of Etruscan mtDNA in Tuscany is of just about 5%.

Whatever the reading that one wants to make of it, one can't overlook the fact that Etrurians were not some tree monkeys but a much refined civilization from which the bases for the Roman civilization were borrowed.

All things considered, I would take a fine Tuscan woman with her less than 5% of Etrurian admixture (i.e. from 5% to 0%), before some pure monkey island pretending to belong to civilization.

[Kernunnos]

Leonardo Pieraccioni (director) and Massimo Ceccherini (actor)

Ceccherini exhibits the typical bleary and bulging eyes most often associated with the stereotypical tuscan peasant.

[Kernunnos]

A nicer portrait of Pieraccioni

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Breha, I don't think that this study puts into question the European genetic adscription of Tuscany.

If you read the summary linked here:
Mitochondrial DNA Variation of Modern Tuscans Supports the Near Eastern Origin of Etruscans

it says that the frequency of Near Eastern mtDNA in Murlo is of 17.5%.

Somewhere else I read that Murlo is chosen on purpose as it is a secluded village where the researchers suspected that they had more chances than anywhere else in Tuscany to find genetic traces from the Etruscans. That's like going to Las Alpujarras, in Andalusia, to find traces of Nothern African genetics.

The summary report continues saying that the overall frequency of Etruscan mtDNA in Tuscany is of just about 5%.

Whatever the reading that one wants to make of it, one can't overlook the fact that Etrurians were not some tree monkeys but a much refined civilization from which the bases for the Roman civilization were borrowed.

All things considered, I would take a fine Tuscan woman with her less than 5% of Etrurian admixture (i.e. from 5% to 0%), before some pure monkey island pretending to belong to civilization.

The percentage of middle eastern admixture is too little to justify a middle eastern civilization coming out of the blue to civilize the primitive Villanoviani.

Etruscan civilization is indigenous.

[Breogan]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Now guess who is the charlatan who wrote these pieces:

"The Etruscans became one of the original Mediterranean and Proto-Nordic peoples living in the Italian peninsula before the Indo-European invaders reached that part of the world. Originally called the Villanovans (after a place where they lived), the Etruscans appear to have penetrated Italy from somewhere north of the Alps ..."

"The Etruscans were a mixture of the original Old European White sub-groupings, but were culturally and militarily superior to the original inhabitants of Italy. As a result, they soon grew to dominate the major part of northern Italy."

It seems to be some "nordicist" pseudo-history like white-history...
Anyway nothing reliable.