Pompeii Samples

[The alchemist]

A tragedy of Rome. Once merely a sub-regionally area of the southern Italian mainland enjoying local relevance, subsequently dominated, colonized, and Latinized by Romans upon its natural growth. Pompeii, the focus of this drawn-out introduction (lol), initially emerged from a distinct Oscan-sourced backwater farmer settlement cluster towards an ambitious, flourishing urban walled city. A city complex turned into the romantically embellished drama of the Western world, epitomizing the Mediterranean European grandiose cultural and hedonistic height.

Who were these people?

Now we have a few genome-wide data analyses extracted from a formal study granting us coordinates for easy-use modeling systems drawn from the dataset published by the scientific article. The outcomes of analyzing these individuals point to a highly cosmopolitan background:

Distances:

This one cluster with Levantine:

High distance is an artifact of low resolution and being at least three-way mixed.

This one is provincially closer to Jews (on the surface, not through substructure), only with extra MENA shift, as they too have an internal heterogeneous mixture that is not necessarily related to I3691, other than complex indirect alignment. Overall there is an affinity for Mediterranean and Anatolian shift, with some Iberian influence that could have come from some Punic-type introduction as we see the Iberomaurusian appear.

I3685 seems to have a significant Arab heritage. Probably Eastern Mediterranean mixed with southern Levant-Nabatean ancestry.

This was the first sample we received of that origin:

Their ancestry aligns with the Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolian confluence, as designated.

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Cords for the ones that need:

Roman:I3685,0.073985,0.141159,-0.053551,-0.092701,-0.010771,-0.036814,-0.008695,0.001615,0.027202,0.010752,0.007145,-0.018134,0.028097,0.004542,0.001629,0.019888,-0.000261,0.004561,0.006788,-0.003502,0.005366,0.005193,-0.004807,0.006868,-0.011616 Roman:I3690,0.104717,0.14319,-0.025267,-0.069122,0,-0.04016,0.006815,-0.007154,0.01268,-0.007654,-0.000487,-0.012889,0.016799,-0.014175,-0.004207,0.000133,0.000782,0.005448,0.003142,0.004252,0.004742,-0.010263,0.006286,0.019159,0.002634 Roman:I3691,0.091058,0.142174,-0.035072,-0.065569,0.00677,-0.034861,0,-0.005077,0.014317,0.022962,0.005684,0.008393,0.009217,0.000826,-0.0038,-0.008618,-0.002738,0.000127,0.015964,-0.004127,-0.000374,-0.006554,-0.00456,-0.00964,0.007903
Italy_Roman_Empire_Pompeii_(East_Med-Anatolian_Profile),0.097888,0.144205,-0.035449,-0.068476,0.003385,-0.018128,-0.00235,0.001385,0.00859,0.017859,0.016239,-0.000749,-0.000595,0.00523,0.003664,-0.016706,-0.00665,-0.000127,-0.006662,-0.009505,-0.007112,0.00371,0.001479,-0.006989,0.006466

 

[wonyluvr]

2.0 Somali WE ARE THE OG ROMANS

 

[The alchemist]

2.0 Somali WE ARE THE OG ROMANS

That only serves as a proxy. Not sure they have real Cushitic.

Somalis did trade with Romans around that period. We do have one sample with Cushiitc ancestry found in a Roman settlement, most likely related to the Arabian trade link beyond the Red Sea.

 

[wonyluvr]

That only serves as a proxy. Not sure they have real Cushitic.

Somalis did trade with Romans around that period.

Oh I know I’m just channeling my inner hotep

 

[The alchemist]

Oh I know I’m just channeling my inner hotep

Channel better signal yielding frequency. Hopefully one grounded on truth.

 

[The Oponian Guild]

A tragedy of Rome. Once merely a sub-regionally area of the southern Italian mainland enjoying local relevance, subsequently dominated, colonized, and Latinized by Romans upon its natural growth. Pompeii, the focus of this drawn-out introduction (lol), initially emerged from a distinct Oscan-sourced backwater farmer settlement cluster towards an ambitious, flourishing urban walled city. A city complex turned into the romantically embellished drama of the Western world, epitomizing the Mediterranean European grandiose cultural and hedonistic height.

View attachment 347448

Who were these people?

Now we have a few genome-wide data analyses extracted from a formal study granting us coordinates for easy-use modeling systems drawn from the dataset published by the scientific article. The outcomes of analyzing these individuals point to a highly cosmopolitan background:

View attachment 347438
View attachment 347439
View attachment 347440

Distances:

This one cluster with Levantine:
View attachment 347457

High distance is an artifact of low resolution and being at least three-way mixed.
View attachment 347458

This one is provincially closer to Jews (on the surface, not through substructure), only with extra MENA shift, as they too have an internal heterogeneous mixture that is not necessarily related to I3691, other than complex indirect alignment. Overall there is an affinity for Mediterranean and Anatolian shift, with some Iberian influence that could have come from some Punic-type introduction as we see the Iberomaurusian appear.
View attachment 347459


I3685 seems to have a significant Arab heritage. Probably Eastern Mediterranean mixed with southern Levant-Nabatean ancestry.

This was the first sample we received of that origin:
View attachment 347445
View attachment 347446

Their ancestry aligns with the Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolian confluence, as designated.

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Cords for the ones that need:

I mean…these weren’t Romans in the national or ethnic sense, there was a lot of migration from the levant and other places due to the growth of the empire, most of these people were slaves and common labourers, and their genetic signals disappear around the 3rd to 4th century due to larger Germanic movements into the Italian peninsula….

The “OG” romans were white Europeans in the most strictest sense.

 

[Juke]

Perhaps I3685 is Jewish. There's a large Jewish clade under T-Y4964, there's a chance he would've fallen under it if his coverage wasn't only 9% coverage.

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I3685: T-Y4964, U1a1

I3691: E-L19, H

I3690: J-L238, N1b1a1

I3686: J-F4326, H

I3682: E-Y10561, H2a

https://www.theytree.com/portal/index/ancientsamples

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[Abdirazaq]

That only serves as a proxy. Not sure they have real Cushitic.

Somalis did trade with Romans around that period. We do have one sample with Cushiitc ancestry found in a Roman settlement, most likely related to the Arabian trade link beyond the Red Sea.

If that small Cushitic signature is real wouldn’t that it be more indicative of potential Meroitic/Kushitic ancestry? Or ancestry from an Egyptian individual (potentially arrived in Pompeii and stayed there) who had some Cushitic substructure in their ancestral make up?

Somali/horn ancestry in Pompeii at the time isn’t out of this world but ancestry from the Nile and surrounding areas sounds much more plausible from my limited knowledge. Unless the Somali proxy is completely specific to Somalis.

 

[Abdirazaq]

I mean…these weren’t Romans in the national or ethnic sense, there was a lot of migration from the levant and other places due to the growth of the empire, most of these people were slaves and common labourers, and their genetic signals disappear around the 3rd to 4th century due to larger Germanic movements into the Italian peninsula….

The “OG” romans were white Europeans in the most strictest sense.

I’ve actually read quite the opposite, eastern Mediterranean and MENA peoples in the Italian peninsula were actually quite wealthy traders who made their homes in those lands and come from economically historically rich areas (of course a certain percentage of them would’ve been slaves)

As for Germanic/northern ancestry found in the Italian peninsula it’s much more likely that they came from slave backgrounds. All in all there wasn’t race based slavery in the same way that existed for the past half millennium or so in our modern times.

Also the “OG” romans couldn’t have been white Europeans in the most strictest sense when I believe I’ve seen studies actually putting them in between Western Europeans (typically considered the whitest) and levantines (not considered white) genetically. A lot of modern Italians (especially southern Italy and Sardinia) still hold such genetic similarities to the romans I believe.

 

[Step a side]

If that small Cushitic signature is real wouldn’t that it be more indicative of potential Meroitic/Kushitic ancestry? Or ancestry from an Egyptian individual (potentially arrived in Pompeii and stayed there) who had some Cushitic substructure in their ancestral make up?

Somali/horn ancestry in Pompeii at the time isn’t out of this world but ancestry from the Nile and surrounding areas sounds much more plausible from my limited knowledge. Unless the Somali proxy is completely specific to Somalis.

1-2% Somali seems too small for Egyptian let alone Merotic/Kushitic.

 

[Step a side]

Jewish and Levantine migrants have left considerable impact on Italy. Modern day Italians especially southerners from Calabria, Campania, Sicily etc have Natufuan related ancestry ranging from 1-15%. Only certain Greek islands that were not affected by the Slavic migration have that much ancestry. This also explains why Ashkenazi Jews have good anount of Italian DNA mainly through the mtdna.

 

[Abdirazaq]

1-2% Somali seems too small for Egyptian let alone Merotic/Kushitic.

I’m sorry, I don’t think I explained myself properly. Wouldn’t it be possible that some individual from the Nile arrived in Pompeii a couple of generations before the eruption, had mixed kids and their kids further diluted the Cushitic signature leading to someone with a small signature?

 

[The Oponian Guild]

I’ve actually read quite the opposite, eastern Mediterranean and MENA peoples in the Italian peninsula were actually quite wealthy traders who made their homes in those lands and come from economically historically rich areas (of course a certain percentage of them would’ve been slaves)

As for Germanic/northern ancestry found in the Italian peninsula it’s much more likely that they came from slave backgrounds. All in all there wasn’t race based slavery in the same way that existed for the past half millennium or so in our modern times.

Also the “OG” romans couldn’t have been white Europeans in the most strictest sense when I believe I’ve seen studies actually putting them in between Western Europeans (typically considered the whitest) and levantines (not considered white) genetically. A lot of modern Italians (especially southern Italy and Sardinia) still hold such genetic similarities to the romans I believe.

You can’t compare modern Italians with the ancient romans, obviously the Italians have a higher rate of eastern ancestry, I’m referring to the early populations of the Italian peninsula, the forebears of the romans, such as the Etruscans.

 

[CABDULWALI XASAN.]

How do you guys learn DNA?? Do you guys go to school for this

 

[The alchemist]

I mean…these weren’t Romans in the national or ethnic sense, there was a lot of migration from the levant and other places due to the growth of the empire, most of these people were slaves and common labourers, and their genetic signals disappear around the 3rd to 4th century due to larger Germanic movements into the Italian peninsula….

The “OG” romans were white Europeans in the most strictest sense.

Rome was a very heterogeneous place prior to and during its height. There was a very variational core East Mediterranean component that was more MENA-shifted than today which would eliminate them in being classified as "White" in the strictest sense. Etruscans were not even Italic in language, Pompeiians were Italics that experienced the same broad interactions with the MENA world the rest of Romans had, so they were not an exception at all. We have people deep in Serbia from the Danubian sample set that illustrated how every Roman region had considerable heterogeneity.

Secondly, the people of higher MENA origin were mixed and would usually be the wealthy ones and be Romans just as the ones with higher Italic ancestry. Remember, Rome expanded and absorbed and acculturated other peoples in the Italian mainland who were not even Roman themselves in the beginning, i.e., these Pompeii samples are as Roman as any East med profiled anywhere outside where Rome expanded which was basically the majority of Italy. The non-Latin Italic tribes were not more Romans than those Pompeiians who I must remind you are basically locals that mixed over time and had stronger cultural ties to Romans even before the domination. A crucial component is to recognize Pompeii at the time was Roman.

The notion that so-called core people were true Romans and brown people were low class is not correct. Roman identity did not follow the modern conception of ethnicity - that is why it was so diverse in the first place. Usually, those brown people were buried in wealthy places with strong Roman cultural traditions. What you see on TV where White people rule, where slaves, servants, and lower-class people are brown and black is nonsense. Every Roman elite burial we have gotten study from has shown them to be highly mixed and none of them were on average "White."

Lets for the sake of argument say the core was Italic (which it was not. It was a diversified East Med but in a sub-populational sense that was very much not White. The coherency of the demographic was too complex back then compared to Italy today which is very phased, stabilized, and gradient-based). Those people were of low Steppe ancestry and would probably look like people of Turkey today or Caucasus because they lacked the enriched ancestry that we associate with the beginning of White people. It would be like saying "Armenians fit the strictest sense of White" when we know they don't unless it is some loose category that encapsulates major parts of the Near East of people with distinct backgrounds removed from the Germano-Slavic sphere.

My statement still stands, a racist white today who identifies with Rome as a White European civilization would not even accept the average Roman as his kin. Racists apply the strictest sense of White, even when they don't fit into it themselves. Rome was indeed whiter (notice how I don't say they were White-proper) in its first establishment, but it became heterogeneous and then more and more relevant across the board. There is a reason why identity became loose and wealth distributed very diversified throughout and not specially preserved for people with less mixture. The irony is, that the initial non-Romans of the Italian outskirt regions would have a bigger East Mediterranean component but they were not even Roman, to begin with, similar to Pompeiians. Rome proper was highly mixed and they were the culture bearers and transformers. The definition of what was a Roman also changed several times and during the Pompeiian samples era, would have been Roman in every sense. Nationality and ethnicity as you frame them now were an obsolete concept at that time.

 

[The alchemist]

If that small Cushitic signature is real wouldn’t that it be more indicative of potential Meroitic/Kushitic ancestry? Or ancestry from an Egyptian individual (potentially arrived in Pompeii and stayed there) who had some Cushitic substructure in their ancestral make up?

Somali/horn ancestry in Pompeii at the time isn’t out of this world but ancestry from the Nile and surrounding areas sounds much more plausible from my limited knowledge. Unless the Somali proxy is completely specific to Somalis.

If it was Cushitic, then it could go all ways, in my opinion. Could be Eastern Cushitic, a proto-Nubian with mostly Cushitic ancestry, and anything in between. Could have been Somali-related. Either way, I did not even check if the ancestry is narrow-Cushitic. Somali roughly represents a broad northeast African with the rest being distinctly Nilotic and Yoruba, so we cannot even say that is comprehensive enough where we can narrow things down. Besides, it gets hard to say anything conclusive when we're dealing with such a minor %.

 

[The alchemist]

Jewish and Levantine migrants have left considerable impact on Italy. Modern day Italians especially southerners from Calabria, Campania, Sicily etc have Natufuan related ancestry ranging from 1-15%. Only certain Greek islands that were not affected by the Slavic migration have that much ancestry. This also explains why Ashkenazi Jews have good anount of Italian DNA mainly through the mtdna.

It's more likely that the second sub-structure of Jews sourced from those Greco-Roman Levantine mixed peoples than vice versa.

You are correct that a sizable Jewish population dissolved into the Roman world but I think the Levantine we see was mostly non-Jewish. Jews interacted with certain variations of these people.

This is actually much more complicated than one thinks because those people were so mixed, to the point where we cannot always distinguish what processes produced things that looked similar. That is why one needs time transects in sub-regions in studies to see the shifts over time.

 

[The alchemist]

I’m sorry, I don’t think I explained myself properly. Wouldn’t it be possible that some individual from the Nile arrived in Pompeii a couple of generations before the eruption, had mixed kids and their kids further diluted the Cushitic signature leading to someone with a small signature?

Either way, one needs to go back generations. It was possibly a Cushitic person mixing in their channel through the Southwest Asian or Egyptian pipeline 5-6 generations prior.

 

[Step a side]

It's more likely that the second sub-structure of Jews sourced from those Greco-Roman Levantine mixed peoples than vice versa.

You are correct that a sizable Jewish population dissolved into the Roman world but I think the Levantine we see was mostly non-Jewish. Jews interacted with certain variations of these people.

This is actually much more complicated than one thinks because those people were so mixed, to the point where we cannot always distinguish what processes produced things that looked similar. That is why one needs time transects in sub-regions in studies to see the shifts over time.

You are right that most Natufian & Zagrosian ancestry in modern Italians is not all Jewish. Most of it would have been brought by non Jewish migrants from Egypt, Levant, Arabia etc including Copper age migrants. I say this because neighbouring Mycenaean Greeks had considerable amount of Near Eastern ancestry.


Speaking of Jews and Italians, just saw this new Reddit post of this Ashkenazi.

https://www.reddit.com/r/JewishDNA/s/6deqcLda1A

 

[The alchemist]

You are right that most Natufian & Zagrosian ancestry in modern Italians is not all Jewish. Most of it would have been brought by non Jewish migrants from Egypt, Levant, Arabia etc including Copper age migrants. I say this because neighbouring Mycenaean Greeks had considerable amount of Near Eastern ancestry.


Speaking of Jews and Italians, just saw this new Reddit post of this Ashkenazi.

https://www.reddit.com/r/JewishDNA/s/6deqcLda1A

The populations of the geographic region of modern Greece had geneflow with the Near East since the Bronze Age (speaking of historical period). The Copper Age was mainly Anatolian Farmer with minor WHG.

Bronze Age for Italy was different. They received Yamnaya-type signatures at an appreciated level for the more central region, so they would not look far from modern central Italians on a cluster in terms of relevant position between Nordics and Levant.

Let's not get this mixed up further, the Italians during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic were descendants of the MENA group.

Neolithic:

In the south one sees the retention of the Neolithic profile, outliers that look like central Italy BA, and ones that seem Greek (one with minor Iberian) - it's mainly the Iron Age where one sees considerable Punic presence in the genetic architecture.

Don't get it confused. Sometimes people might pop up and look like this:

This was classified as Neolithic, but it is dated 2345-2146 BC, fitting right within the Bronze Age timeline. This result illustrates how interaction with the outside European continent (since Yamanya DNA was an incursion to the region in that period as well) started picking up during the Bronze Age. Maybe we'll see samples in the future of pockets carrying elevated values of NA and Levant, granted being more distinctly outlier-based.

The Jews are actually not like Italians in their genetics on a signature basis when one looks beyond the macro perspective. The differences are in the details of the complexity, obfuscated by broad, yet intricately related (on several levels) lineages that might indirectly give close distances and adjacent PCA plot clustering for parts of the Italian variation (southern) and European Jews.

General makeup of Ashkenazi Jews:

Higher Levantine. Germano-Slavic and Turkco-Scythian. Greco-Roman with strong Eastern Mediterranean/Levant.

Italians got a different admixture source, that converges on some level with the Jews, but overall historically distinct, formed from convulsion of separate population history process. So although parts of Jews are from the Eastern Mediterranean side, it is not an offshoot variation of it, entirely, where one could say it is an explanatory adequate. We can find samples within the Eastern Mediterranean (probably mainly from an East Mediterranean-shifted Anatolian) that look almost Jewish-like, but that would be either that they were archaic of European Jew or most likely coincidental.

To the point you linked, the Reddit poster is not a representation of the average Ashekanzi. She has about +50% European side. When you look at the distances between the average Ashkenazi and that sample, the gap is telling:

These are over 400 samples, so consider it very legit. I used that specific Tuscany sample too.