Brève n° 54
Ancient Etruscans were
immigrants from Anatolia, or what is now Turkey
Geneticists find the final
piece in the puzzle
Article du 16-juin-2007 paru sur le site de l’European Society
of Human Genetics.
Nice, France: The long-running controversy
about the origins of the Etruscan people appears to be very close to being
settled once and for all, a geneticist will tell the annual conference of the
European Society of Human Genetics today. Professor Alberto Piazza, from the
University of Turin, Italy, will say that there is overwhelming evidence that
the Etruscans, whose brilliant civilisation flourished 3000 years ago in what
is now Tuscany, were settlers from old Anatolia (now in southern Turkey).
Etruscan culture was very advanced and quite
different from other known Italian cultures that flourished at the same time,
and highly influential in the development of Roman civilisation. Its origins
have been debated by archaeologists, historians and linguists since time
immemorial. Three main theories have emerged: that the Etruscans came from
Anatolia, Southern Turkey, as propounded by the Greek historian Herotodus; that
they were indigenous to the region and developed from the Iron Age Villanovan
society, as suggested by another Greek historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus;
or that they originated from Northern Europe.
Now modern genetic techniques have given
scientists the tools to answer this puzzle. Professor Piazza and his colleagues
set out to study genetic samples from three present-day Italian populations
living in Murlo, Volterra, and Casentino in Tuscany, central Italy. “We already
knew that people living in this area were genetically different from those in
the surrounding regions”, he says. “Murlo and Volterra are among the most
archaeologically important Etruscan sites in a region of Tuscany also known for
having Etruscan-derived place names and local dialects. The Casentino valley
sample was taken from an area bordering the area where Etruscan influence has
been preserved.”
The scientists compared DNA samples taken from
healthy males living in Tuscany, Northern Italy, the Southern Balkans, the
island of Lemnos in Greece, and the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia. The
Tuscan samples were taken from individuals who had lived in the area for at
least three generations, and were selected on the basis of their surnames,
which were required to have a geographical distribution not extending beyond
the linguistic area of sampling. The samples were compared with data from
modern Turkish, South Italian, European and Middle-Eastern populations.
“We found that the DNA samples from
individuals from Murlo and Volterra were more closely related those from near
Eastern people than those of the other Italian samples”, says Professor Piazza.
“In Murlo particularly, one genetic variant is shared only by people from
Turkey, and, of the samples we obtained, the Tuscan ones also show the closest
affinity with those from Lemnos.”
Scientists had previously shown this same
relationship for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in order to analyse female lineages.
And in a further study, analysis of mtDNA of ancient breeds of cattle still
living in the former Etruria found that they too were related to breeds
currently living in the near East.
The history of the Etruscans extends before
the Iron Age to the end of the Roman Republic or from c. 1200 BC to c. 100BC
Many archaeological sites of the major Etruscan cities were continuously
occupied since the Iron Age, and the people who lived in the Etruria region did
not appear suddenly, nor did they suddenly start to speak Etruscan. Rather they
learned to write from their Greek neighbours and thus revealed their language.
Archaeologists and linguists are in agreement that the Etruscans had been
developing their culture and language in situ before the first historical
record of their existence.
“But the question that remained to be answered
was – how long was this process between pre-history and history"” says
Professor Piazza. In 1885 a stele carrying an inscription in a pre-Greek
language was found on the island of Lemnos, and dated to about the 6th century
BC. Philologists agree that this has many similarities with the Etruscan
language both in its form and structure and its vocabulary. But genetic links
between the two regions have been difficult to find until now.
Herodotus’ theory, much criticised by
subsequent historians, states that the Etruscans emigrated from the ancient
region of Lydia, on what is now the southern coast of Turkey, because of a
long-running famine. Half the population was sent by the king to look for a
better life elsewhere, says his account, and sailed from Smyrna (now Izmir)
until they reached Umbria in Italy.
“We think that our research provides
convincing proof that Herodotus was right”, says Professor Piazza, “and that
the Etruscans did indeed arrive from ancient Lydia. However, to be 100% certain
we intend to sample other villages in Tuscany, and also to test whether there
is a genetic continuity between the ancient Etruscans and modern-day Tuscans.
This will have to be done by extracting DNA from fossils; this has been tried
before but the technique for doing so has proved to be very difficult.”
“Interestingly, this study of historical
origins will give us some pointers for carrying out case-control studies of
disease today,” says Professor Piazza. “In order to obtain a reliable result,
we had to select the control population much more carefully that would normally
be done, and we believe that this kind of careful selection would also help in
studies of complex genetic diseases.”
DATE DE PUBLICATION EN LIGNE : 16 JANVIER 2008