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The Greeks in the West: genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily.

ABSTRACT: Greek colonisation of South Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia) was a defining event in European cultural history, although the demographic processes and genetic impacts involved have not been systematically investigated. Here, we combine high-resolution surveys of the variability at the uni-parentally inherited Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA in selected samples of putative source and recipient populations with forward-in-time simulations of alternative demographic models to detect signatures of that impact. Using a subset of haplotypes chosen to represent historical sources, we recover a clear signature of Greek ancestry in East Sicily compatible with the settlement from Euboea during the Archaic Period (eighth to fifth century BCE). We inferred moderate sex-bias in the numbers of individuals involved in the colonisation: a few thousand breeding men and a few hundred breeding women were the estimated number of migrants. Last, we demonstrate that studies aimed at quantifying Hellenic genetic flow by the proportion of specific lineages surviving in present-day populations may be misleading.

SUBMITTER: Tofanelli S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4757772 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Greeks in the West: genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily.

Tofanelli Sergio S Brisighelli Francesca F Anagnostou Paolo P Busby George B J GB Ferri Gianmarco G Thomas Mark G MG Taglioli Luca L Rudan Igor I Zemunik Tatijana T Hayward Caroline C Bolnick Deborah D Romano Valentino V Cali Francesco F Luiselli Donata D Shepherd Gillian B GB Tusa Sebastiano S Facella Antonino A Capelli Cristian C

European journal of human genetics : EJHG 20150715 3

Greek colonisation of South Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia) was a defining event in European cultural history, although the demographic processes and genetic impacts involved have not been systematically investigated. Here, we combine high-resolution surveys of the variability at the uni-parentally inherited Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA in selected samples of putative source and recipient populations with forward-in-time simulations of alternative demographic models to detect signatures o ...[more]

PMID: 26173964

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Dataset Information

The Greeks in the West: genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily.

Publications

The Greeks in the West: genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily.

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