No Etruscan Link to Modern Tuscans

An intriguing article, and what I appreciate is that the author noted the experts indicated that their findings in no way indicate that there is NO LINK between the ancient Etruscans and modern-day residents of the same area, but only perhaps the DNA evidence has been so diluted we can no longer trace it with our current technologies. Unfortunately, the title and sub-title to this article are VERY misleading! 2009-07-03 17:06 No Etruscan link to modern Tuscans Study shows genetic discontinuity with Bronze Age people (ANSA) - Florence, July 3 - The current population of Tuscany is not descended from the Etruscans, the people that lived in the region during the Bronze Age, a new Italian study has shown. [If you read on, you will see that this is actually a mis-statement of what is currently known.] Researchers at the universities of Florence, Ferrara, Pisa, Venice and Parma discovered the genealogical discontinuity by testing samples of mitochondrial DNA from remains of Etruscans and people who lived in the Middle Ages (between the 10th and 15th centuries) as well as from people living in the region today. While there was a clear genetic link between Medieval Tuscans and the current population, the relationship between modern Tuscans and their Bronze Age ancestors could not be proven, the study showed. [But what about a link between the Bronze Age Tuscans and the Medieval Tuscans? That was not addressed in this article.] ''Some people have hypothesised that the most ancient DNA sequences, those from the Etruscan era, could contain errors or have been contaminated but tests conducted with new methods exclude this,'' said David Caramelli of Florence University and Guido Barbujani of Ferrara University. ''The most simple explanation is that the structure of the Tuscan population underwent important demographic changes in the first millennium before Christ,'' they said. ''Immigration and forced migration have diluted the Etruscan genetic inheritance so much as to make it difficult to recognise''. The scientific data does not necessarily mean that the Etruscans died out, the researchers said. Teams from Florence and Ferrara universities are working to identify whether traces of the Etruscans' genetic inheritance may still exist in people living in isolated locations in the region. The new study is published online by the scientific journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. The Etruscans lived mainly between the rivers Tiber and Arno in modern-day Umbria, Lazio and Tuscany, in the first millennium BC. By the sixth century BC they had become the dominant force in central Italy, but repeated attacks from Gauls and Syracusans later forced them into an alliance with the embryonic Roman state, which gradually absorbed Etruscan civilization. Most of what is known about the Etruscans derives from archaeology as the few accounts passed down by Roman historians tend to be hostile, portraying them as gluttonous and lecherous. This problem is compounded by the fact that Etruscan cities were built almost entirely of wood and so vanished quickly, leaving little for archaeologists to investigate.

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As far as I know, we have not yet been able to decipher the Etruscan language, although we do understand some individual words. The problem, as I understand it, is that there is a lack of long enough texts to be able to apply modern-day algorithyms, etc., that are now used to decipher a language. Another issue seems to be whether Etruscan is related to the Indo-European family of languages, or not.

Genetic Link Between Etruscans and Anatolia?

The dating seems strange - can't make it out. As far as I can tell KYA means "thousand(s) years ago." If this is correct, then the article is saying the genetic linkage between Anatolia and the Etruscans was first made between 2,300 years ago (plus or minus 400 years?) and 1,100 years (plus or minus 100 years?) History tells us that the Etruscans first became an identifiable civilization in Italy about 900-800 BCE (2,900 to 2,800 years ago). That would put the oldest date from the article (2,300 plus 400 years, or 2,700 BCE) near this date range: Abstract from the European Journal of Human Genetics Short Report 3 December 2008; doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2008.224 The Etruscan timeline: a recent Anatolian connection Francesca Brisighelli1,2, Cristian Capelli3, Vanesa Álvarez-Iglesias1, Valerio Onofri4, Giorgio Paoli5, Sergio Tofanelli5, Ángel Carracedo1,6, Vincenzo L Pascali2 and Antonio Salas1 1Unidade de Xenética, Facultade de Medicina, Instituto de Medicina Legal, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain 2Forensic Genetics Laboratory, Institute of Legal Medicine, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy 3Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 4Institute of Legal Medicine, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Policlinico Torrette, Ancona, Italy 5Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy 6Fundación Pública Galega de Medicina Xenómica (FPGMX-SERGAS), CIBER enfermedades raras, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain Correspondence: Dr A Salas, Unidade de Xenética, Facultad de Medicina, Instituto de Medicina Legal, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 15782, Galicia, Spain. Tel.: +34 981 582 327; Fax: +34 981 580 336; E-mail: antonio.salas@usc.es Received 14 April 2008; Revised 14 October 2008; Accepted 15 October 2008; Published online 3 December 2008. The origin of the Etruscans (the present day Tuscany, Italy), one of the most enigmatic non-Indo-European civilizations, is under intense controversy. We found novel genetic evidences on the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) establishing a genetic link between Anatolia and the ancient Etruria. By way of complete mtDNA genome sequencing of a novel autochthonous Tuscan branch of haplogroup U7 (namely U7a2a), we have estimated an historical time frame for the arrival of Anatolian lineages to Tuscany ranging from 1.10.1 to 2.30.4 kya B.P. (emphasis added) Short of paying $32 to download the current issue online, I guess I'll remain in the dark as to whether the authors are suggesting that ALL Etruscans can be traced back to Anatolia through this mitochondrial DNA or whether only a certain portion of Etruscans can be traced back to Anatolia through this DNA tag inherited from one's mother!