Update: On my other blog I have a post up addressing skeptics in the archaeological community.
A few months ago I posted several times about the Etruscans, the ancient non-Indo-European people of north-central Italy whose provenance has always been a matter of debate. To make it short, genetic data suggests that the ancient Etruscans and some inhabitants of modern Tuscany share a relatively close ancestry with the peoples of the near east, in particular, Turkey. Additionally, an independent line of data from cattle suggests a congruent phylogenetic relationship between the herds of Tuscany and Turkey. The research has now been presented at a European genetics conference, and Science Daily and The Guardian have serviceable summaries up.
Now, here is an interesting point though: though bringing a "high culture" (relative to the local traditions) the Etruscan genetic impact seems to be relatively light. Rather, their influence is felt through the role that Etruscans played in the genesis of Republican Rome. Their activities as traders with links to the eastern Mediterranean served to facilitate the spread of cultural forms from the Greek world, both in the east and in Magna Graecia in southern Italy & Sicily, to their client peoples, such as the Latins. I've talked quite a bit about introgression on this weblog, the jumping of a favored allele from one population to another and possible replacement in the target group of the original ancestral variant without excessive average genomic transformation (that is, only at one locus was the evolutionary effect powerful). In the case of the Etruscans we see a similar dynamic in regards to culture, these people served as critical information vectors in particular specific cases without transforming the whole of Italian culture (e.g., the Indo-European languages of Italy were not replaced by the Etruscan tongue).
Related: John Wilkins has more.
- Log in to post comments
Do we actually know that the Italic cultures preceded the Etruscans in Italy (or vice versa)? What are the leqading lines of evidence one way or the other?
A few people can effect an enormous amount of cultural transmission. Nineteenth century Japan imported a rather small number of foreign experts, who were given very privileged positions in the Japanese hierarchal society. The number of Japanese who studied abroad was also rather small. But the transformation between 1850 and 1930 or so was steep. (It was also uneven, though it was less exclusively technical than people tend to assume.)
Another example where a few people made a cultural difference may be the walloons that helped establish the Swedish early industry.
The dutch businessman Louis De Geer, "the father of swedish industry", established french or walloon metallurgic methods by inducing a large group of walloon smiths to immigrate during the 17th century. ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_De_Geer_(1587-1652) , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_De_Geer_%281587-1652%29 ; sorry, no english reference found.)
Going back to a comment on one of your earlier posts on the subject, somebody asked your opinion as to the location of the IE Urheimat. Back in the 60's a well-read, polyglot friend of mine sent me a quote from some 19th century German scholar who argued for a specific day of the year that the IE guys started out on the migration (year not specified, just the day). My German was not too bad in the day, and it was an utter hoot to read. Have you any idea who might have written it, or where it might be found? I believe it to be a genuine treasure and worth the search.
T. Larson -- thanks so much for that comment. I had no idea.
I think the most interesting question is what are the common characteristics of societies which are most open to and able to profit from these sorts of available cultural transmissions. I tend to think they've been widely available for millenia, other than e.g. very often all the way across the world's two widest oceans.
It's hard to see why they weren't widely available for example in sub-Saharan Africa. Though Larry Diamond's argument about climate zones hindering agricultural diffusion across the north/south axis as opposed to the similar latitude east/west axis does make some sense.
The articles in the press keep mentioning the Etruscans coming from Lydia. Lydian was an indo-european language. So, although there may be a linguistic link to Lemnos and a genetic link to Western Asia, there is no obvious link to Lydia and the classical accounts of the origins of the Etruscans.
So, although there may be a linguistic link to Lemnos and a genetic link to Western Asia.
several of the genetic links are specific to turkey, not "western asia." the use of "lydia" is an anachronism. and of course, if you know anything about anatolian ethnography around 1000 BCE one nation = one people did not hold.
Have any linguists proposed any links between Etruscan and the Caucasian languages?