title: Genealogical discontinuities among Etruscan, Medieval, and contemporary Tuscans.
abstract: The available mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data do not point to clear genetic relationships between current Tuscans and the Bronze-Age inhabitants of Tuscany, the Etruscans. To understand how and when such a genetic discontinuity may have arisen, we extracted and typed the mtDNAs of 27 medieval Tuscans from an initial sample of 61, spanning a period between the 10th and 15th century AD. We then tested by serial coalescent simulation various models describing the genealogical relationships among past and current inhabitants of Tuscany, the latter including three samples (from Murlo, Volterra, and Casentino) that were recently claimed to be of Etruscan descent. Etruscans and medieval Tuscans share three mitochondrial haplotypes but fall in distinct branches of the mitochondrial genealogy in the only model that proved compatible with the data. Under that model, contemporary people of Tuscany show clear genetic relationships with Medieval people, but not with the Etruscans, along the female lines. No evidence of excess mutation was found in the Etruscan DNAs by a Bayesian test, and so there is no reason to suspect that these results are biased by systematic contamination of the ancient sequences or laboratory artefacts. Extensive demographic changes before AD 1000 are thus the simplest explanation for the differences between the contemporary and the Bronze-Age mtDNAs of Tuscany. Accordingly, genealogical continuity between ancient and modern populations of the same area does not seem a safe general assumption, but rather a hypothesis that, when possible, should be tested using ancient DNA analysis.
authors: Dipartimento di Biologia Evoluzionistica, Laboratorio di Antropologia, Università di Firenze, Firenze, Italy.
authors: Silvia
authors: S
authors: Guimaraes
authors: Silvia
authors: S
authors: Ghirotto
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: Benazzo
authors: Lucio
authors: L
authors: Milani
authors: Martina
authors: M
authors: Lari
authors: Elena
authors: E
authors: Pilli
authors: Elena
authors: E
authors: Pecchioli
authors: Francesco
authors: F
authors: Mallegni
authors: Barbara
authors: B
authors: Lippi
authors: Francesca
authors: F
authors: Bertoldi
authors: Sauro
authors: S
authors: Gelichi
authors: Antonella
authors: A
authors: Casoli
authors: Elise M S
authors: EM
authors: Belle
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Caramelli
authors: Guido
authors: G
authors: Barbujani
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D016384:Consensus Sequence; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D005789:Genealogy and Heraldry; D014644:Genetic Variation; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018401:Sample Size; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics* / Q000266:history*
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial