Tofanelli, S; Brisighelli, F; Anagnostou, P; Busby, GBJ; Ferri, G; Thomas, MG; Taglioli, L; ... Capelli, C; + view all Tofanelli, S; Brisighelli, F; Anagnostou, P; Busby, GBJ; Ferri, G; Thomas, MG; Taglioli, L; Rudan, I; Zemunik, T; Hayward, C; Bolnick, D; Romano, V; Cali, F; Luiselli, D; Shepherd, GB; Tusa, S; Facella, A; Capelli, C; - view fewer (2016) The Greeks in the West: genetic signatures of the Hellenic colonisation in southern Italy and Sicily. European Journal of Human Genetics , 24 (3) pp. 429-436. 10.1038/ejhg.2015.124.

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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.

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