[extropy-chat] Romans (was Economic consensus on immigration)

[Amara Graps]

BillK:
>Amara:
>>  How can you be so sure that the Romans didn't commit racial suicide?
>>

>This might interest you.
><http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/may17/mountain-051706.html>

Then the origins of the Romans and the Etruscans are a mystery.

There's one far-reaching explanation, that maybe the genetic differences
between Tuscany people and ancient Etruscans are large because they are
large between all Italians today, including those from Rome and south.
Someone told me a long time ago that Cavalli-Sforza, in his population
genetics work, found a genetic difference between Italians that is much
larger than between wide swaths of Europeans between countries.
Unfortunately I can't verify this information.

It is perhaps in this book that I don't have:

Genes, Peoples, and Languages
By Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Translated by Mark Seielstad. Illustrated. 228 pp. North Point Press. $24.
Review
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE1D7133CF932A35757C0A9669C8B63&sec=&pagewanted=all

And I found these next articles, but they don't discuss Italy-wide
differences.

Amara

--------

(see the reference to Sardinians)
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v26/n3/full/ng1100_358.html

Nature Genetics  26, 358 - 361 (2000)
doi:10.1038/81685
Y chromosome sequence variation and the history of human populations
Peter A. Underhill1, Peidong Shen2, Alice A. Lin1, Li Jin3, Giuseppe
Passarino1, Wei H. Yang2, Erin Kauffman2, Batsheva Bonné-Tamir4, Jaume
Bertranpetit5, Paolo Francalacci6, Muntaser Ibrahim7, Trefor Jenkins8,
Judith R. Kidd9, S. Qasim Mehdi10, Mark T. Seielstad11, R. Spencer
Wells12, Alberto Piazza13, Ronald W. Davis2, Marcus W. Feldman14, L.
Luca Cavalli-Sforza1 & Peter. J. Oefner2

Abstract
Binary polymorphisms associated with the non-recombining region of the
human Y chromosome (NRY) preserve the paternal genetic legacy of our
species that has persisted to the present, permitting inference of human
evolution, population affinity and demographic history1. We used
denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC; ref. 2) to
identify 160 of the 166 bi-allelic and 1 tri-allelic site that formed a
parsimonious genealogy of 116 haplotypes, several of which display
distinct population affinities based on the analysis of 1062 globally
representative individuals. A minority of contemporary East Africans and
Khoisan represent the descendants of the most ancestral patrilineages of
anatomically modern humans that left Africa between 35,000 and 89,000
years ago.

--------

Gene Geography 11:15-35, 1997.

Seventy-five nuclear DNA polymorphisms in an Italian sample: A
comparative worldwide study

B. Matulloa, R. M. Griffoa, J. L. Mountainb, F. Calafellc, S. Guarreraa,
A. Piazzaa, L. L. Cavalli-Sforzab


SUMMARY

A well defined Italian sample from Trino Vercellese (Northern Italy) is
analyzed for 75 nuclear DNA RFLPs. It represents the only European
sample [Matullo et al 1994] which is unmixed in a comparative study of
eight populations from four continents [Bowcock et al 1991a; Lin et al
1994]. Genetic substructure of this sample has been investigated by
allele sharing distances and no bias or higher homogeneity is shown.
Genetic variability between populations was measured by the FST
statistics (average FST was 0.312 + 0.069). Average heterozygosity for
eight populations was 0.312 + 0.069. Genetic distances were evaluated
between pairs of populations. Phylogenetic trees were reconstructed and
principal component analysis performed. Particular attention has been
given to the genetic relationship between our sample and the
mixed-Caucasoid sample: 14 out of 75 markers show statistically
significant frequency differences (P<0.05), 5 of which are significant
at a probability level <1%: GH/Bg1II (Lower system), D7S1/HindIII,
D17S71/MspI, EPB3/PstI, HLA-DQA. Hypothesis on admixed origin of
Europeans has been discussed.