Etruscan origins

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A map showing the extent of Etruria and the Etruscan civilization. The map includes the 12 cities of the Etruscan League and notable cities founded by the Etruscans.

In

Adriatic sea in Northern Italy.[3] The third hypothesis was reported by Livy and Pliny the Elder, and puts the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and other populations living in the Alps.[4]

The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins.[5] The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus[6] referred to them as pirates.[7] Unlike later Greek authors, such as Herodotus and Hellanicus, these earlier Greek authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from elsewhere.

According to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, etruscologists, geneticists, linguists, all the evidence gathered so far points to an autochthonous origin of the Etruscans.[8][9][10][11] Moreover, there is no archeological evidence for a migration of the Lydians or the Pelasgians into Etruria.[12][9][10][11] It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians" or the "Lydians". There is consensus among modern scholars that these Greek tales are not based on real events.[13] The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900 BC: this is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization,[14][15][16][17][18] which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region, part of the central European Urnfield culture system.[19]

Tyrsenian" Lemnos, or "Tyrsenian" expansion westward to Etruria.[20] After more than 90 years of archaeological excavations at Lemnos, nothing has been found that would support a migration from Lemnos to Etruria,[21] the indigenous inhabitants of Lemnos, also called in ancient times Sinteis, were the Sintians, a Thracian population.[21] Some scholars believe the Lemnian language might have arrived in the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age, when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries from Sicily, Sardinia and various parts of the Italian peninsula.[22] Other scholars have concluded that the Lemnian inscriptions might be due to an Etruscan commercial settlement on the island that took place before 700 BC, not related to the Sea Peoples.[23][24][25][26][27]

A

mtDNA study published in 2013 concluded that the Etruscans' mtDNA appears very similar to that of Neolithic population from Central Europe and to other Tuscan populations.[28][29] This coincides with the Rhaetic language, which was spoken south and north of the Alps in the area of the Urnfield culture of Central Europe. The Villanovan culture, the early period of the Etruscan civilization, derives from the Proto-Villanovan culture that branched from the Urnfield culture around 1200 BC. An autochthonous population that diverged genetically was previously suggested as a possibility by Cavalli-Sforza.[30]

A 2019 genetic study published in the journal

A 2021 genetic study published in the journal

Steppe in the same percentages as found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and that the Etruscans' DNA completely lacks a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.[32]

Historical claims of autochthonous (indigenous) origin

The Mars of Todi, a life-sized bronze sculpture of a soldier making a votive offering, late 5th to early 4th century BC

Dionysius of Halicarnassus asserted:[33]

Indeed, those probably come nearest to the truth who declare that the nation migrated from nowhere else, but was native to the country, since it is found to be a very ancient nation and to agree with no other either in its language or in its manner of living.

With this passage, Dionysius launched the

Villanovan culture.[34]

Picking up this theme, Bonfante (2002) states:[35]

...the history of the Etruscan people extends ... from c. 1200 to c. 100 BC. Many sites of the chief Etruscan cities of historical times were continuously occupied from the

Villanovan
period on. Much confusion would have been avoided if archaeologists had used the name 'Proto-Etruscan' .... For in fact the people ... did not appear suddenly. Nor did they suddenly start to speak Etruscan.

An additional elaboration conjectures that the Etruscans were[36]

...an ethnic island of very ancient peoples isolated by the flood of Indo-European speakers.

In 1942, the

archeological community. He said "no one would dream of asking where Italians or Frenchmen came from originally; it is the formation of the Italian and French nations that we study." He meant that the formation process for Etruscan civilization took place in Etruria or nearby.[37] Formulating a different point of view on the same evidence, Pallottino says:[38]

... we must consider the concept 'Etruscan' as ... attached to ... a nation that flourished in Etruria between the eighth and first centuries BC... We may discuss the provenance of each of these elements but a more appropriate concept ... would be that of formation... the formative process of the nation can only have taken place on the territories of the Etruscans proper; and we are able to witness the final stages of this process.

J. P. Mallory compares the Etruscans to other remnant non Indo-European central Mediterranean populations, such as the Basques of the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, who absorbed the art styles and alphabet of their Greek neighbors.[39]

The British archaeologists, Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen, were also fervent supporters of the "autochthonous theory". In their book, The Etruscans, they state, "There is no evidence for the kind of cultural break at the Villanovan/Etruscan transition envisaged by either of the ‘plantation’ models from the eastern Mediterranean, or for a folk movement of either kind from continental Europe in the Late Bronze Age,".[40] Thus, inferring that the Etruscans were indigenous to Italy and descended from the later communities of Etruria.

Many supporters of this theory also believed that the Etruscans had foreign influences on their culture. For instance, the historian, Mario Torelli agreed with Dionysius’s claims and believed that the Etruscans inherited elements of their culture from other Italic peoples.[41] Robert Leighton also agreed with the “autochthonous theory”, but he believed the Etruscan's culture was impacted by Greek and Phoenician merchants.[42]

Historical claims of allochthonous (outside) origin

Terracotta heads of Etruscan male youths, with one wearing a helmet and the other bare-headed, 3rd–2nd centuries BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías) was a Trojan hero, the son of prince Anchises and the goddess Venus. His father was also the second cousin of King Priam of Troy. The journey of Aeneas from Troy (led by Venus, his mother), which led to the founding of the city of Rome, is recounted in Virgil's Aeneid, where the historicity of the Aeneas legend is employed to flatter the Emperor Augustus. Romulus and Remus, appearing in Roman mythology as the traditional founders of Rome, were of Eastern origin: their grandfather Numitor and his brother Amulius were alleged to be descendants of fugitives from Troy.

Asia Minor (i.e. Anatolia):[43]

This is their story: [...] their king divided the people into two groups, and made them draw lots, so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus, of those who departed. [...] they came to the

Ombrici
, where they founded cities and have lived ever since. They no longer called themselves Lydians, but Tyrrhenians, after the name of the king's son who had led them there.

Since ancient times, doubts have been raised about the accuracy of Herodotus' claims.

Xanthus of Lydia, originally from Sardis and a great connoisseur of the history of the Lydians, wasn't aware of a Lydian origin of the Etruscans, as reported by Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus.[33]

Xanthus of Lydia, who was well acquainted with ancient history as any man and who may be regarded as an authority second to none on the history of his own country [and yet he] neither names Tyrrhenus in any part of his history as a ruler of the Lydians nor knows anything of the landing of a colony of Lydians in Italy

The classical scholar

Michael Grant commented on this story, writing that it "is based on erroneous etymologies, like many other traditions about the origins of 'fringe' peoples of the Greek world".[44] Grant writes there is evidence that the Etruscans themselves spread it to make their trading easier in Asia Minor when many cities in Asia Minor, and the Etruscans themselves, were at war with the Greeks.[45]

The French scholar Dominique Briquel also disputed the historical validity of Herodotus' account. Briquel demonstrated that "the story of an exodus from Lydia to Italy was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th century BC."[46][47] Briquel also commented that "the traditions handed down from the Greek authors on the origins of the Etruscan people are only the expression of the image that Etruscans' allies or adversaries wanted to divulge. For no reason, stories of this kind should be considered historical documents".[48]

However, the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus objected that the Tyrrhenian (Etruscan) culture and language shared nothing with the Lydian. He stated:[33]

For this reason, therefore, I am persuaded that the Pelasgians are a different people from the Tyrrhenians. And I do not believe, either, that the Tyrrhenians were a colony of the Lydians; for they do not use the same language as the latter, nor can it be alleged that, though they no longer speak a similar tongue, they still retain some other indications of their mother country. For they neither worship the same gods as the Lydians nor make use of similar laws or institutions, but in these very respects they differ more from the Lydians than from the Pelasgians.

"Sea peoples"

The Orator, c. 100 BC, an Etrusco-Roman bronze statue depicting Aule Metele (Latin: Aulus Metellus), an Etruscan man wearing a Roman toga while engaged in rhetoric; the statue features an inscription in the Etruscan alphabet

The Etruscans or Tyrrhenians may have been one of the

Etruscan
autonym Rasna, does not lend itself to the Tyrrhenian derivation.

Neither the

military power
.

During the 6th to 5th centuries BC, the word "

Carthaginians as a threat to Magna Graecia:[52]

I entreat you, son of Cronus, grant that the battle-shouts of the Carthaginians and Etruscans stay quietly at home, now that they have seen their arrogance bring lamentation to their ships off Cumae.

Raetic.[53] There is thus linguistic evidence of a relationship between the Lemnians and the Etruscans. Some scholars ascribe this link to Etruscan expansion between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, putting the homeland of the Etruscans in Italy and the Alps particularly because of their relation to the Alpine Raetic population.[54] Adherents of this latter school of thought point to the legend of Lydian origin of the Etruscans referred to by Herodotus, and the statement of Livy that the Raetians were Etruscans driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls. Critics of this theory point to the very scanty evidence of a linguistic relationship of Etruscan with Indo-European, let alone Anatolian in particular, and to Dionysius of Halicarnassus who decidedly argues against an Etruscan-Lydian relationship. The Indo-European Lydian language is first attested some time after the Tyrrhenian migrants are said to have left for Italy.[55]

Differentiating between cultural origin and cultural influence

The origin of the civilization of Etruria is an ancient debate, because the terms in which historians have opened and contested theories have relied on out-dated conceptions of origin and culture. The last two millennia of raising inconclusive theories towards a definitive location for the origins of Etruria has led modern scholarship to diverge from traditional approaches to national origins and instead focus on the development of concepts, such as national origin and cultural formation, differentiating between cultural influence and cultural origin.

Fresco in the François Tomb (4th century BC)
Etruscan helmet (9th century BC)
Etruscan terracotta figure of a young woman, late 4th–early 3rd century BC

The initial sources of inquiry for historians studying Etruscan origins are the classical sources provided by ancient scholars such as Herodotus and Dionysius. These writers were naturally interested in where such an advanced civilization originated. Herodotus initiated the Lydian theory which told the story of Etruscan origins as a mass migration from Lydia, led by King Tyrsenos, a migration due to the famine experienced shortly after the Trojan War. Larissa Bonfante argues that the traditional concept of origin that classical Greek writers subscribed to "had to be explained as the result of a migration, under the leadership of a mythical founding hero".[56]

The second key hypothesis was launched by the Augustan historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Being aware that his predecessors were "unanimous in stating that the Etruscans came from the East"

R.S.P. Beekes
argues that these ancient writers, especially Herodotus, found the famine in Lydia an obvious connection to the migration to Etruria, rather than a debatable area of discussion. The autochthonous theory that Dionysius instigated was a view held by Etruscans themselves, whom he consulted, though how much these Etruscans knew about their own origins is questionable.

The reason modern scholarship, such as John Bryan Perkins, sceptically uses ancient sources as evidence to support an argument, is because these sources generally promote a national image and harbour political prejudices. He argues that the ancient interpretation of Etruscan origins has derived from a "hostile tradition, of rivals and enemies; the Greeks and Romans". The extent of "classical prejudice" is exemplified in early records of the Etruscans. Classical literature typically portrayed Etruscans as 'pirates' and 'freebooters'. Massimo Pallottino points out that their reputation for piracy took shape between the time of Homer and the image shown in the Homeric Hymns, and was clearly a product of the intense commercial and territorial rivalry between the Etruscans and Greek traders. Consequentially Perkins concludes that ancient "standards of historical criticism were not ours" in which "a great deal of it is seen through a veil of interpretation, misunderstanding, and at times, plain invention".[59] The ancient tendency to invent or apply a fabricated account within their historical record is evident in Herodotus' Histories. His use of fanciful story telling contributes to the overarching glorified narrative of Greece in the Persian wars and exemplifies the greatness of Greek conquest. This agenda is problematic when viewing his 'heroic' understanding of Etruscan origins, because Herodotus' stories tend to contribute to the national narrative rather than an intended historical record. His account is seen through, what Perkins refers to as, antiquity's "distorting mirror".[59]

In the 1950s, Professor Pallottino resurrected the initial autochthonous theory and by doing so contended with traditional scholarship that has "remained fixated on the idea that the origins of the Italic people were to be found in the effects of immigration from outside". The argument has been developed on the basis that the Etruscan culture appears unique to any other known prehistoric culture, therefore must have developed nowhere else but within Italy".[60] He admits to foreign contributions to the cultural development of the Etruscans, however, he maintains that the mixture of culture took place on Italian soil; the "parent stock" was sufficiently homogeneous and therefore of Italian origin. Indigenous arguments are based on the unique attributes of Etruscan culture, believing that it is an "evolutionary sequence" in which Etruria developed its independent culture, a "formative process of the Etruscan which can only take place on the territory of Etruria itself".[60] Nevertheless, to subscribe to this thesis a problem arises; Etruscan culture was "no doubt in itself a unique and developing phenomenon", however, this culture has been compounded of and developed from other earlier cultural strains.[60] The question remains whether these strains were dominant in the finished product; it is difficult to differentiate between a product of a foreign culture and an independent culture with foreign influences. Other historical methodologies, such as linguistics, archaeology and DNA research, have attempted to clarify this distinction and highlight the extent of foreign influence in Etruscan culture.

Linguists have attempted to shed light on the degree of foreign influence on the Etruscan civilization. R.S.P. Beekes places reliance on his linguistic analysis of the Lemnian inscriptions, which he believes "provided the answer to the problem of the origins of the Etruscans".[61] The Lemnos stele is a sixth-century stele in a pre-Hellenic tongue found in Lemnos, a Northern Greek island. The inscription shows distinct similarities to the Etruscan language; both languages apply a similar four vowel system, grammar and vocabulary. Beekes argues that autochthonous theories are merely "a desperate attempt to avoid the evident conclusion from the Lemnian inscription".[61] He does not suggest that the language shaped the Etruscan culture, but rather that the similarities in the two languages proves that the Etruscans migrated from Asia Minor, as Herodotus suggested.

Alison E. Cooley criticises Beekes' assumption that the Eastern features found in the etymological research of the Lemnian inscription "simply settles the question", yet she imposes that the "later Eastern attributes of the Etruscan is often a product of acculturation".[62] Cooley in contrary to Beekes argues that the similarities in the languages are a result of contact with Greek and Lydian civilization due to commercial trade.

Linguists, such as Beekes, are commonly criticised for the assumption that "because they speak a common language, they must belong to the same race".[59] However, recently linguists such as Kari Gibson have argued that language is the predominant factor in the cultural formation of a national identity and therefore cannot be discarded as an independent attribute of a cultural identity, but rather the framework through which such a civilization functions. Gibson suggests that language is inextricably linked to national and cultural identity of the speaker, and as a "powerful symbol of national and ethnic identity" determines an individual's perception of their environment.[63] To place this argument in the linguistic debate of Etruscan origins, modern scholars such as Cooley are perhaps being overly dismissive of the impact of language on the development of the Etruscan identity; "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity".[64] It is difficult for scholarship to evaluate the degree of influence the Lydian language would have had on the cultural development of Etruria, though language is undeniably a key ingredient in the development of Etruscan culture.

Archaeology has a prominent role in revealing aspects of Etruscan daily life and the social structure of such a sophisticated civilization, thus exposing foreign influences. The most significant archaeological discoveries of Etruscan civilization are found in the excavation of gravesites. Bonfante emphasises the unique cultural elements the funerary frescoes in these gravesites illustrate. The well preserved frescoes of the funerary chambers found in the necropolis of

Monterozzi, situated on a ridge southeast of the ancient city of Tarquinia, are vital to the reconstruction of Etruscan culture. Scholars of the autochthonous theory tend to draw attention to the frescoes' depiction of women. Material evidence for the high social status of Etruscan women can be found on the frescoes in the Tomb of the Leopards, dating to the 5th century BC.[65]
The fresco illustrates women and men conversing together and wearing the same crowns of laurel, which implies that symbols of status in Etruscan society were similar for men and women. This advanced status for women is a unique Etruscan element that is not known from any other culture of its time.

Frescoes found in the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing mark the earliest time where men are not depicted dominating their environment.[citation needed] In the fresco of birds flying over a boat of men, the men are shown to be proportionally smaller than the birds. Pallottino points out that this is a unique attribute from Etruscan artworks, because it provides an insight into how the Etruscans viewed themselves in comparison to their environment. Ancient works dated prior to this fresco tended to view men dominating their environment. However, the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing illustrates men in the background of the work, rather than typically the foreground, suggesting to scholars such as Pallottino that Etruria had developed a culture and social understanding unlike any other prehistoric civilization and therefore cannot be a product of any prior culture.

Archeological evidence and modern etruscology

The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans.[10][9][11] Archaeologically there is no evidence for a migration of the Lydians or the Pelasgians into Etruria.[10][9] Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless.[66] The French etruscologist Dominique Briquel, whose numerous writings were devoted to this subject, explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents.[67] He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks.[13][47] He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.[68]

Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to

Asia Minor or the Near East.[69] One of the most common mistakes for a long time, even among some scholars of the past, has been to associate the later Orientalizing period of Etruscan civilization, due, as has been amply demonstrated by archeologists, to contacts with the Greeks and the Eastern Mediterranean and not mass migrations, with the question of their origins.[70] The facial features (the profile, almond-shaped eyes, large nose) in the frescoes and sculptures, and the depiction of reddish-brown men and light-skinned women, influenced by archaic Greek art, followed the artistic traditions from the Eastern Mediterranean, that had spread even among the Greeks themselves, and to a lesser extent also to other several civilizations in the central and western Mediterranean up to the Iberian Peninsula. Actually, many of the tombs of the Late Orientalizing and Archaic periods, such as the Tomb of the Augurs, the Tomb of the Triclinium or the Tomb of the Leopards, as well as other tombs from the archaic period in the Monterozzi necropolis in Tarquinia, were painted by Greek painters or, in any case, foreigner artists. These images have, therefore, a very limited value for a realistic representation of the Etruscan population.[71] It was only from the end of the 4th century B.C. that evidence of physiognomic portraits began to be found in Etruscan art and Etruscan portraiture became more realistic.[72]

Painted terracotta Sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa, about 150–130 BC.

A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (12th–10th century BC) to the Iron Age (9th–8th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years,

Sardo-Punics in Sardinia, and the consequent orientalizing period.[75]

Genetic evidence

Etruscan votive heads, IV-II century BC

There have been a number of genetic studies of Etruscans and modern Tuscans compared with other populations, some of which indicate the local, European origin of Etruscans and others supportive of an origin from elsewhere. In general, the direct testing of ancient Etruscan DNA has supported a deep, local origin, while the testing of modern samples as a proxy for Etruscans is rather inconclusive and inconsistent.[76][77]

The very large

Mediterranean basin. The ancient (30 Etruscans, 27 Medieval Tuscans) and modern DNA sequences (370 Tuscans) were subjected to several million computer simulation runs, showing that the Etruscans can be considered ancestral to Medieval and, especially in the subpopulations from Casentino and Volterra, of modern Tuscans; modern populations from Murlo and Florence, by contrast, were shown not to continue the Medieval population. By further considering two Anatolian samples (35 and 123 individuals), it was estimated that the genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago, and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", strongly suggesting that the Etruscan culture developed locally, and not as an immediate consequence of immigration from the Eastern Mediterranean shores. According to the study, ancient Etruscan mtDNA is closest among modern European populations and is not particularly close to Anatolian or other Eastern Mediterranean populations. Among ancient populations based on mtDNA, ancient Etruscans were found to be closest to LBK Neolithic farmers from Central Europe.[28][29]

This result is largely in line with previous mtDNA results from 2004 (in a smaller study also based on ancient DNA), and contradictory to results from 2007 (based on modern DNA). The 2004 study was based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 80 bone samples, reduced to 28 bone samples in the analysis phase, taken from tombs dating from the seventh century to the third century BC from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania.[78] This study found that the ancient DNA extracted from the Etruscan remains had some affinities with modern European populations including Germans, English people from Cornwall, and Tuscans in Italy. In addition the Etruscan samples possibly revealed more genetic inheritance from the eastern and southern Mediterranean than modern Italian samples contain. The study was marred by concerns that mtDNA sequences from the archeological samples represented severely damaged or contaminated DNA;[79] however, subsequent investigation showed that the samples passed the most stringent tests of DNA degradation available.[80]

A mtDNA study, published in 2018 in the journal

Eneolithic Age and the Roman Age.[81]

A 2019 genetic study published in the journal

Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a pre-Indo-European language.

A 2021 study by the

Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed samples of Iron Age Latins, and added that in the DNA of the Etruscans was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to that of their early Iron Age Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins belonged firmly to the European cluster, 75% of the samples of Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152. While regarding mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, the most prevalent was largely H, followed by J and T. Uniparental marker data and autosomal DNA data from samples of Iron Age Etruscan individuals suggest that Etruria received migrations rich of the ancestral Steppe component during the 2nd millennium BC, related to the spread of Indo-European languages, starting with the Bell Beaker culture, and that these migrations merged with populations of the oldest pre-Indo-European layer present since at least the Neolithic period, but it was the latter's language that survived, a situation similar to what happened in the Basque region of northern Spain. The study has also concluded that the samples analyzed show that the Etruscans kept their genetic profile unchanged for almost 1000 years, despite the sparse presence in Etruria of foreigners, and that a demographic change in Etruria occurred only from the Roman imperial period, in which there is the arrival in and intermixture into the local population of ancestral components from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Analysis of samples of individuals who lived in the Roman imperial period and those of the Medieval Age also suggest that the genetic landscape of present-day central Italy was formed largely around 1000 years ago after the Barbarian invasions, and that the arrival of the Germanic Lombards in Italy contributed to the formation of the gene pool of the modern population of Tuscany and northern Latium.[32]

An mtDNA study from 2007, by contrast, earlier suggested a

Aeneolithic in Italy and Germany.[81] All the mtDNA haplogroups found in the modern sample from Murlo and classified by Achilli et al. as of Near Eastern origin are actually widespread in modern samples from other areas of Italy and Europe with no link with the Etruscans.[87]

A recent Y-DNA study from 2018 on a modern sample of 113 individuals from

LBK culture in Austria,[92] a J2a1a was found in a Middle Neolithic Sopot culture sample from Croatia,[92] a J2a was found in a Late Neolithic Lengyel Culture sample from Hungary.[93] In 2019, in a Stanford study published in Science, two ancient samples from the Neolithic settlement of Ripabianca di Monterado in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region of Italy, were found to be Y-DNA J-L26 and J-M304.[31] In 2021, two more ancient samples from the Chalcolitich settlement of Grotta La Sassa, in the province of Latina in southern Lazio, were found to be Y-DNA J2a7-Z2397.[94]
Therefore, Y-DNA J2a-M67 is likely in Italy since the Neolithic and can't be the proof of recent contacts with Anatolia.

Recent studies on the population structure of modern-day Italians have shown that in Italy there is a north–south cline for Y-chromosome lineages and autosomal loci, with a clear differentiation of peninsular Italians from Sardinians, and that modern Tuscans are the population of central Italy closest genetically to the inhabitants of northern Italy.[95] A 2019 study, based on autosomal DNA of 1616 individuals from all 20 Italian administrative regions, concludes that Tuscans join the northern Italian cluster, close to the inhabitants of Liguria and Emilia-Romagna.[96] A 2013 study, based on uniparental markers of 884 unrelated individuals from 23 Italian locations, had shown that the structure observed for the paternal lineages in continental Italy and Sicily suggests a shared genetic background between people from Tuscany and Northern Italy from one side, and people from Southern Italy and the Adriatic coast from the other side. The most frequent Y-DNA haplogroups in the group represented by populations from North-Western Italy, including Tuscany and most of the Padana plain, are four R1b-lineages (R-U152*, R-M269*, R-P312* and R-L2*).[90]

In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".[77]

In his book A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist

Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".[97]

References

  1. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book I Chapter 30 1.
  2. .
  3. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 1.17–19
  4. ^ Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita), Book 5
  5. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 1015.
  6. ^ Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, 7.7–8
  7. ^ John Pairman Brown, Israel and Hellas, Vol. 2 (2000) p. 211
  8. .
  9. ^ .
  10. ^ .
  11. ^ .
  12. . Etruscan origins lie in the distant past. Despite the claim by Herodotus, who wrote that Etruscans migrated to Italy from Lydia in the eastern Mediterranean, there is no material or linguistic evidence to support this. Etruscan material culture developed in an unbroken chain from Bronze Age antecedents. As for linguistic relationships, Lydian is an Indo-European language. Lemnian, which is attested by a few inscriptions discovered near Kamania on the island of Lemnos, was a dialect of Etruscan introduced to the island by commercial adventurers. Linguistic similarities connecting Etruscan with Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of northeastern Italy, further militate against the idea of eastern origins.
  13. ^ . Briquel's convincing demonstration that the famous story of an exodus, led by Tyrrhenus from Lydia to Italy, was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th cent. BCE.
  14. . Il termine "Villanoviano" è entrato nella letteratura archeologica quando, a metà dell '800, il conte Gozzadini mise in luce le prime tombe ad incinerazione nella sua proprietà di Villanova di Castenaso, in località Caselle (BO). La cultura villanoviana coincide con il periodo più antico della civiltà etrusca, in particolare durante i secoli IX e VIII a.C. e i termini di Villanoviano I, II e III, utilizzati dagli archeologi per scandire le fasi evolutive, costituiscono partizioni convenzionali della prima età del Ferro
  15. .
  16. ^ Giovanni Colonna (2000). "I caratteri originali della civiltà Etrusca". In Mario Torelli (ed.). Gi Etruschi (in Italian). Milano: Bompiani. pp. 25–41.
  17. ^ Dominique Briquel (2000). "Le origini degli Etruschi: una questione dibattuta fin dall'antichità". In Mario Torelli (ed.). Gi Etruschi (in Italian). Milano: Bompiani. pp. 43–51.
  18. ^ Gilda Bartoloni (2000). "Le origini e la diffusione della cultura villanoviana". In Mario Torelli (ed.). Gi Etruschi (in Italian). Milano: Bompiani. pp. 53–71.
  19. ^ .
  20. ^ Rix 1998. Rätisch und Etruskisch (Innsbruck).
  21. ^ .
  22. ^ De Ligt, Luuk. "An Eteocretan Inscription from Praisos and the Homeland of the Sea peoples" (PDF). talanta.nl. ALANTA XL-XLI (2008–2009), 151–172.
  23. .
  24. ^ De Simone, Carlo (2011). "La nuova Iscrizione 'Tirsenica' di Lemnos (Efestia, teatro): considerazioni generali". Rasenna: Journal of the Center for Etruscan Studies (in Italian). Vol. 3. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Amherst. pp. 1–34.
  25. .
  26. ^ Gras, Michel (2003). "Autour de Lemnos". In Marchesini, Simona; Poccetti, Paolo (eds.). Linguistica è storia: studi in onore di Carlo De Simone (in French). Pisa-Rome: Fabrizio Serra editore. pp. 135–144.
  27. ^ Drews, Robert (1992). "Herodotus 1.94, the Drought Ca. 1200 B.C., and the Origin of the Etruscans". Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte. Vol. 41. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. pp. 14–39.
  28. ^
    PMID 23405165
    .
  29. ^ .
  30. ^ . Interestingly, although Iron Age individuals were sampled from both Etruscan (n=3) and Latin (n=6) contexts, we did not detect any significant differences between the two groups with f4 statistics in the form of f4(RMPR_Etruscan, RMPR_Latin; test population, Onge), suggesting shared origins or extensive genetic exchange between them.
  31. ^ .
  32. ^ a b c Book I, Section 30.
  33. ^ Page 52. Pallottino attributes this theory in modern times to the historian, Eduard Meyer, with Ugo Antonielli later associating the Villanovan and the natives. But Mayer soon adopted the oriental theory and Antonielli the northern. Drews in The End of the Bronze Age, p. 59, available as a preview on Google Books at [1], reports on Meyer and the views of Antonielli are stated in a review by R. A. L. Fell of Studi Etruschi. Vol. I. Rassegna di Etruscologia by A. Neppi Modona, the first page of which is found at [2].
  34. ^ Page 3.
  35. ^ Pallottino, page 52, who says that he relies on Alfredo Trombetti and Giacomo Devoto.
  36. ^ Eric Pace (1995-02-20). "Massimo Pallottino, 85, Expert On Ancient Etruscans, Is Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  37. ^ Massimo Pallottino (1942). The Etruscans. pp. 68–69.
  38. ^ Mallory (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson.
  39. ^ Barker, Graeme, and Tom Rasmussen. The Etruscans. Blackwell Publishers, 1998, pp. 44.
  40. ^ Torelli, Mario. “The Etruscan City-State.” A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures: An Investigation, 2000, pp. 192.
  41. ^ Leighton, Robert. Tarquinia: An Etruscan City. Duckworth, 2004, pp. 44.
  42. ^ Histories 1.94
  43. .
  44. .
  45. . Briquel's convincing demonstration that the famous story of an exodus, led by Tyrrhenus from Lydia to Italy, was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th cent. bce..
  46. ^ .
  47. ^ Dominique Briquel, Le origini degli Etruschi: una questione dibattuta sin dall’antichità, in M. Torelli (ed.), Gli Etruschi [Catalogo della mostra, Venezia, 2000], Bompiani, Milano, 2000, p. 43–51 (Italian).
  48. S2CID 163690662
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  49. ^ Pallottino, The Etruscans 1978:49ff.
  50. ^ Strabo. Strabo. p. 5.2.2.
  51. ^ Pindar. Pythuan Odes. p. 1.72.
  52. ^ Thucydides. Thucydides. p. 4.106.
  53. ^ The Etruscan Language. Linguist List.org. Retrieved 2009-04-26.[dead link]
  54. ^ Herodotus. Herodotus. p. 1.96.
  55. ^ Larissa Bonfante, Etruscans Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies, Wayne State University Press, 1986
  56. ^ Larissa Bonfante, Etruscans Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies, Wayne State University
  57. ^ Dionysius, The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Book 1 Section 30, Translated by Earnest Cary, Harvard University Press, 1950
  58. ^ a b c John Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Problem of Etruscan Origins, Harvard University, 1959
  59. ^ a b c Massimo Pallottino, The Etruscans', Indiana University Press, 1955
  60. ^ a b R.S.P. Beekes, The Origin of the Etruscans, Royal Dutch Academy, 2003
  61. ^ Alison. E Cooley, Critical Review of R.S.P Beekes, The Classical Associations, 2005
  62. ^ Kari Gibson, The Myths of Language use and the Homogenization of Bilingual Workers' Identities, University of Hawaii, 2004
  63. ^ Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands, (p. 59), Aunt Lute Books, 1987
  64. ^ Luisa Banti, Etruscan Cities and their Culture, University of California Press, 1973
  65. ^ Pallottino, Massimo (1947). L'origine degli Etruschi (in Italian). Rome: Tumminelli.
  66. ^ Briquel, Dominique (2000). "Le origini degli Etruschi: una questione dibattuta sin dall'antichità". In Torelli, Mario (ed.). Gli Etruschi (in Italian). Milan: Bompiani. pp. 43–51.
  67. ^ Briquel, Dominique (1990). "Le problème des origines étrusques". Lalies. Sessions de linguistique et de littérature (in French). Paris: Presses de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure (published 1992): 7–35.
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  69. ^ d'Agostino, Bruno (2003). "Teorie sull'origine degli Etruschi". Gli Etruschi. Enciclopedia del Mediterraneo (in Italian). Vol. 26. Milan: Jaca Book. pp. 10–19.
  70. ^ de Grummond, Nancy Thomson (2014). "Ethnicity and the Etruscans". Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, Uk: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 413–414. The facial features, however, are not likely to constitute a true portrait, but rather partake of a formula for representing the male in Etruria in Archaic art. It has been observed that the formula used—with the face in profile, showing almond-shaped eyes, a large nose, and a domed up profile of the top of the head—has its parallels in images from the eastern Mediterranean. But these features may show only artistic conventions and are therefore of limited value for determining ethnicity.
  71. ^ Bianchi Bandinelli, Ranuccio (1984). "Il problema del ritratto". L'arte classica (in Italian). Roma: Editori Riuniti.
  72. ^ Bagnasco Gianni, Giovanna. "Origine degli Etruschi". In Bartoloni, Gilda (ed.). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Ulrico Hoepli Editore. pp. 47–81.
  73. PMID 15125046
    . Seven Etruscan skulls were found in Corneto Tarquinia in the years 1881 and 1882 and were given as present to Rostock's anatomical collection in 1882. The origin of the Etruscans who were contemporary with the Celts is not yet clear; according to Herodotus they had emigrated from Lydia in Asia Minor to Italy. To fit the Etruscan skulls into an ethnological grid they were compared with skeletal remains of the first thousand years B.C.E. All skulls were found to be male; their age ranged from 20 to 60 years, with an average age of about thirty. A comparison of the median sagittal outlines of the Etruscan skulls and the contemporary Hallstatt-Celtic skulls from North Bavaria showed that the former were shorter and lower. Maximum skull length, minimum frontal breadth, ear bregma height, bizygomatical breadth and orbital breadth of the Etruscan skulls were statistically significantly less developed compared to Hallstatt-Celtics from North Bavaria. In comparison to other contemporary skeletal remains the Etruscan skulls had no similarities in common with Hallstatt-Celtic skulls from North Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg but rather with Hallstatt-Celtic skulls from Hallstatt in Austria. Compared to chronologically adjacent skeletal remains the Etruscan skulls did not show similarities with Early Bronze Age skulls from Moravia but with Latène-Celtic skulls from Manching in South Bavaria. Due to the similarities of the Etruscan skulls with some Celtic skulls from South Bavaria and Austria, it seems more likely that the Etruscans were original inhabitants of Etruria than immigrants
  74. ^ Stoddart, Simon (1989). "Divergent trajectories in central Italy 1200–500 BC". In Champion, Timothy C. (ed.). Centre and Periphery – Comparative Studies in Archaeology. London and New York: Taylor & Francis (published 2005). pp. 89–102.
  75. .
  76. ^ .
  77. .
  78. .
  79. .
  80. ^ .
  81. ^ Antonio et al. 2019, p. 3.
  82. ^ Antonio et al. 2019, p. 2.
  83. ^ Antonio et al. 2019, Table 2 Sample Information, Rows 33-35.
  84. PMID 17357081
    .
  85. ^ Whitehead, Jane K. (2007). "DNA and Ethnic Origins: The Possible and the Improbable". Etruscan News (8). New York City: American section of the Institute for Etruscan and Italic Studies.
  86. PMID 27146119
    .
  87. . As a matter of fact, while the presence of J2a-M67* suggests contacts by sea with Anatolian people, in agreement with the Herodotus hypothesis of an external Anatolian source of Etruscans, the finding of the Central European lineage G2a-L497 at considerable frequency would rather support a Northern European origin of Etruscans. On the other hand, the high incidence of European R1b lineages cannot rule out the scenario of an autochthonous process of formation of the Etruscan civilization from the preceding Villanovan society, as first suggested by Dionysius of Halicarnassus; a detailed analysis of haplogroup R1b-U152 could prove very informative in this regard.
  88. .
  89. ^ .
  90. .
  91. ^ .
  92. .
  93. . The Grotta La Sassa (National Cave Cadastre id: LA 2001) was discovered in 2015 during a survey of the Ausoni Mountains natural caves carried out by two speleological groups: Gruppo Grotte Castelli Romani and Speleo Club Roma. (...) At La Sassa, the two males LSC002/004 and LSC011 have an identical Ychr haplotype (J2a-M410/J2a7-Z2397; Table 1; Data S1B and S1F)
  94. .
  95. .
  96. . It's likely that Basque, Paleo-Sardinian, Minoan, and Etruscan developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution. Sadly, the true diversity of the languages that once existed in Europe will never be known.

Further reading

  • Bartoloni, Gilda. The Villanovan culture: at the beginning of Etruscan history. In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 79–98. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • Becker, Marshall J., Etruscan Skeletal Biology and Etruscan Origins in A Companion to the Etruscans (ed. S. Bell e A. A. Carpino), 2015, pp. 181–202.
  • Briquel, Dominique. Etruscan origins and the ancient authors. In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 36–55. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • De Grummond, Nancy T. Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422, 2014.
  • Drews, Robert, Herodotus 1.94, the Drought Ca. 1200 B.C., and the Origin of the Etruscans, in Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, vol. 41 no. 1, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992, pp. 14–39;
  • Gianni, Giovanna Bagnasco. Massimo Pallottino's 'Origins' in perspective. In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 29–35. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • Kron, Geof. Fleshing out the demography of Etruria. In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, pp. 56–78. London-New York: Routledge, 2013.
  • Moser, Mary E., The origins of the Etruscans: new evidence for an old question, in John Franklin Hall (a cura di), Etruscan Italy: Etruscan Influences on the Civilizations of Italy from Antiquity to the Modern Era, Provo, Utah: Museum of Art, Brigham Young University, 1996, pp. 29–43
  • Perkins, Phil. DNA and Etruscan identity. In Naso, Alessandro (ed.) Etruscology, pp. 109–118. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.
  • Schiavo, Fulvia Lo. The western Mediterranean before the Etruscans. In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 197–215. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • .