Opposition to Turkey entering the EU is building and the Turks themselves are apparently ambivalent, but they once were one of the most successful immigrant groups Europe had ever seen. At least that's the conclusion of Professor Alberto Piazza, from the University of Turin, Italy, who is set to announce that there is overwhelming evidence the Etruscans, whose origin has been subject of vigorous dispute, were from Anatolia (southern Turkey).
Etruscan culture was very advanced and quite different from other known Italian cultures that flourished at the same time, and highly influential in the development of Roman civilisation. Its origins have been debated by archaeologists, historians and linguists since time immemorial. Three main theories have emerged: that the Etruscans came from Anatolia, Southern Turkey, as propounded by the Greek historian Herotodus; that they were indigenous to the region and developed from the Iron Age Villanovan society, as suggested by another Greek historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus; or that they originated from Northern Europe.Now modern genetic techniques have given scientists the tools to answer this puzzle. Professor Piazza and his colleagues set out to study genetic samples from three present-day Italian populations living in Murlo, Volterra, and Casentino in Tuscany, central Italy. "We already knew that people living in this area were genetically different from those in the surrounding regions", he says. "Murlo and Volterra are among the most archaeologically important Etruscan sites in a region of Tuscany also known for having Etruscan-derived place names and local dialects. The Casentino valley sample was taken from an area bordering the area where Etruscan influence has been preserved."
The scientists compared DNA samples taken from healthy males living in Tuscany, Northern Italy, the Southern Balkans, the island of Lemnos in Greece, and the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia. The Tuscan samples were taken from individuals who had lived in the area for at least three generations, and were selected on the basis of their surnames, which were required to have a geographical distribution not extending beyond the linguistic area of sampling. The samples were compared with data from modern Turkish, South Italian, European and Middle-Eastern populations.(Eurekalert)
It turns out the DNA from Murlo and Volterra were more related to the eastern samples than other parts of Italy. A specific genetic variant in the Murlese was found only in people from Turkey and overall the Tuscan samples were most closely related to the Lemnos ones. This is consistent with a 19th century stele from Lemnos inscribed with a pre-Greek language thought related to ancient Etruscan. Now genetic links are being added to the linguistic and philological ones. Previous studies of mitochondrial DNA had established a linkage between female lineages in Tuscany and Lemnos and a similar study showed the cattle in the former Etruria were genetially related to cattle in the Near East. Herodotus's version was that famine in ancient Turkey sent, by royal decree, half the population northward, where they settled in Umbria, next to Tuscany. It appears Herodotus had it almost exactly right.
Now immigrants from Turkey are moving north again to seek a better life. The last time was around 1200 BC, during the Iron Age. You might say the new immigration, simultaneously resisted and exploited by many in Tuscany, is occurring during the Age of Irony.
You might say that. If you didn't know irony was already dead.
NB: Also see nice post from SciBling Evolving Thoughts, here.
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uh, this might seem a little pedantic, but large scale settlement of anatolia by turks did not occur until after 1100 CE. that's about 2,000 years after the progenitors of the etruscans emigrated. and, as it happens, the non-indo-european cousins of the etruscan in anatolia were absorbed and pushed aside, in turn, by phyrgians, greeks, galatians (celts), etc. though, to be sure, the genetic data does suggest long term continuity so that the new cultures were simply elites imposed upon the majority, which eventually switched to the language and identity of their rulers (explaining why modern turks look more like greeks or kurds than they do central asian turks).
Nope, not even slightly pedantic.
razib: I agree. Not pedantic. Clarifying. If I understand what you are saying, it is that the current Turkish refugess are likely the progeny of the peoples who became Etruscans but their leaders are not?
Also, the namings of people from Etruria/Tuscany were more Greek in nature from the records that were available at the time. There was a question raised about this and how Rome came to be and who actually founded it.
Blonde haired people in mosaics, replaced by darker haired ones post of the older mosaics. Some assert that the Turks you refer to are a huge resettlement of refugees or slaves. Lots of credible evidence.
Who's yo' Daddy?
Archeology's favorite saying, "Keep digging."
If I understand what you are saying, it is that the current Turkish refugess are likely the progeny of the peoples who became Etruscans but their leaders are not?
this is what i'm saying: the genetic data does suggest that there is continuity between the past and present in much of the world despite surface changes in culture and identity. e.g., the peoples of anatolia preserve the genetic information from 4-5 years ago in large part (you can infer this from the relative clinal variation of haplogroup J from anatolia across southeast europe, there isn't a discontinuity that correlates with culture & language). that is the reason that we can detect signatures of anatolian emigration to tuscany by comparing to modern anatolia, we assume from prior data that the genetic substratum hasn't been totally overturned. the turkic speaking 4-5 thousand years probably resided around what is today western mongolia. today, ethnic turks stretch from southeast europe to western china. they speak languages which are nearly intelligible, in part because the spread of turkish languages was relatively recent. most of the areas which became turkic speaking in the last 2,000 years did so in the period between 500 and 1500, 1,500 to 500 years ago. it seems likely that the turks of 1,500 were "mongolian" in appearance. one can even see this in the idealized depictions of some ottoman turkish sultans, who though genetically mostly "white" (their mothers were greek or russian or circassian for many generations) were depicted in a mongolian style. the best estimates i've seem to the mongolian genetic impact on the modern anatolian turkish population is on the order of 5-20% of the ancestry is attributable to the tribes who flooded into anatolia after the defeat of the byzantines at manzikert in 1071 CE (the studies i see suggest something closer to the lower amount than the higher). so where did the other 80-95% come from? the local population, an assortment of greeks, armenians, kurds, resettled slavs, etc. who were islamicized and turkicized (we have literary evidence for this in regards to elite families who entered ottoman service and left greek orthodox for islam and became turkified).
so, the first point is to establish that genetically the ancient etruscans did have something in common with modern turks. but the connection is genetic, not historical or cultural. the process i allude to happened multiple times. for example, during the period between 1600-1200 anatolia was dominated by the "hittites." they were an indo-european people who termed themselves in the nesi, and they ruled over various other populations, the hatti, the luwaians, the residents of the troad, and likely greek settlements on the fringe of western anatolia. the "hittite" nature of anatolia was determined by this elite, not the mass of the population. similarly, after the hittites left the scene after the collapse of their dynasty other groups took control. anatolia became "phrygia," or "lydia" or "pontus" or "greater armenia" in turn. this entailed some population movement, but by and large it was a transition of elites (if the large of genetic discontinuity between anatolia and the balkans is a clue). during the greek and roman periods of hegemony greek became the dominant language in western anatolia, and other tongues became extinct (including the relative of etruscan). in eastern anatolia other languages like armenian and kurdish dialects were dominant.
now, with the conquest of the turks the issue here is that the turks were (and are) in power in anatolia for a long time. they absorbed much of the local population in their ethnic identity. the armenians, greeks and kurds remained on the scene until the early 20th century when population exchanges with greece and the armenian genocide "simplified" the ethnic landscape (the turkish gov. has spend decades pretending that the kurds are actually turks, in a last effort to absorb the remaining non-turks of anatolia into their identity).
so anyway, this was all to suggest that the ethnic and linguistic history is complex. there's a lot of water across the 2,000 years between the departure of the etruscans and the arrival of the turks to anatolia.
Some assert that the Turks you refer to are a huge resettlement of refugees or slaves. Lots of credible evidence.
what are you citations? (e.g., name the evidence)