DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy

NY Times ^ | April 3, 2007 | NICHOLAS WADE

[neverdem]

Geneticists have added an edge to a 2,500-year-old debate over the origin of the Etruscans, a people whose brilliant and mysterious civilization dominated northwestern Italy for centuries until the rise of the Roman republic in 510 B.C. Several new findings support a view held by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus — but unpopular among archaeologists — that the Etruscans originally migrated to Italy from the Near East.

Though Roman historians played down their debt to the Etruscans, Etruscan culture permeated Roman art, architecture and religion. The Etruscans were master metallurgists and skillful seafarers who for a time dominated much of the Mediterranean. They enjoyed unusually free social relations, much remarked on by ancient historians of other cultures.

“Sharing wives is an established Etruscan custom,” wrote the Greek historian Theopompos of Chios in the fourth century B.C. “Etruscan women take particular care of their bodies and exercise often. It is not a disgrace for them to be seen naked. Further, they dine not with their own husbands, but with any men who happen to be present.”

He added that Etruscan women “are also expert drinkers and are very good looking.”

Etruscan culture was very advanced and very different from other Italian cultures of the time. But most archaeologists have seen a thorough continuity between a local Italian culture known as the Villanovan that emerged around 900 B.C. and the Etruscan culture, which began in 800 B.C.

“The overwhelming proportion of archaeologists would regard the evidence for eastern origins of the Etruscans as negligible,” said Anthony Tuck, an archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts Center for Etruscan Studies.

Because Italians take pride in the Roman empire and the Etruscan state that preceded it, asserting a foreign origin for the Etruscans has long been politically controversial in Italy. Massimo Pallottino, the dean of...

[neverdem]

Etruscan Heritage(haplogroup map)

European Pressphoto Agency
The ancient Etruscans may have migrated to Italy from the Near East, bringing sophisticated art, like the terra cotta statue of Apollo of Velo.
There's another pic from Corbis(verboten) on the regular webpage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/science/03etruscan.html?ref=science

[sageb1]

ping!

[siunevada]

“Someone who had a different position didn’t get a job in archaeology,” said Antonio Torroni, a geneticist at the University of Pavia.

The world of academic freedom and science. So very pure and objective.

Interesting article

[neverdem]

New Crystalline Solids Can Reversibly Increase Their Volume More Than 3x;

Superbug Strain Claims First Life In Japan

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[SunkenCiv]

remarkable... the Lemnian Stele must be unheard of among these supposed scholars... the Ionian trade links and deity names... even the medusa head coins...

On The Origin Of The Etruscan Civilisation
New Scientist | 2-14-2007 | Michael Day
Posted on 02/14/2007 11:39:18 AM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1784716/posts

[kitchen]

Several new findings support a view held by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus — but unpopular among archaeologists — that the Etruscans originally migrated to Italy from the Near East.

I wish I had a dollar for every time current discoveries support Herodotus. Truly the father of history.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem. Herodotus wins again. :')

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[SunkenCiv]

I guess these archaeologists being discussed in the article have never heard of a people — say, hypothetically, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes of the 5th century AD — up and leaving their homeland by boat and settling in an entirely different land, and producing a significantly different hybrid culture. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

Unique book goes on display BBC Monday, 26 May, 2003 The world's oldest multiple-page book - in the lost Etruscan language - has gone on display in Bulgaria's National History Museum in Sofia. It contains six bound sheets of 24 carat gold, with illustrations of a horse-rider, a mermaid, a harp and soldiers. The small manuscript, which is more than two-and-a-half millennia old, was discovered 60 years ago in a tomb uncovered during digging for a canal along the Strouma river in south-western Bulgaria... There are around 30 similar pages known in the world, Ms Penkova said, "but they are not linked together in a book".

[AlmaKing]

Where does the article get 510 BC as the founding of the ‘Roman Republic’?

The founding of Rome has always been dated as 753 BC.

The society started off as a kingdom, then became a republic, then an empire.

[Eternal_Bear]

Yes, the last King was driven out of Rome around 510 BC. Athen also established the first democracy a few years later.

[Republican Party Reptile]

“Sharing wives is an established Etruscan custom,” wrote the Greek historian Theopompos of Chios in the fourth century B.C. “Etruscan women take particular care of their bodies and exercise often. It is not a disgrace for them to be seen naked. Further, they dine not with their own husbands, but with any men who happen to be present.”

He added that Etruscan women “are also expert drinkers and are very good looking.”

Etruscan Gone Wild ....

Now where did I park the time machine???

[marsh2]

I always thought Victir Mature looked like an Etruscan http://ia.ec.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/62/55/22m.jpg

[Bob J]

“Where does the article get 510 BC as the founding of the ‘Roman Republic’?”

Uhhh, because that’s when the republican period began?

[Bob J]

We love newbies, keep up the entertainment.

[ZULU]

I believe this study.

But travel by the Anglo-Saxons to England from Northern Germany is a much shorter route than the Etruscans would have to have taken. Also, the Anglo-Saxons themselves may have initially had some familiarity with the area by having been deliberately settled there as allied forces by the Romans.

I think perhaps the Etruscan ancestors were members of the Sea-Peoples who raided the Egyptian delta.

[ZULU]

He was Polish.

[rod1]

Sounds like they did not follow strict muslim requirements for burkhas and segregation by gender.

[ChicagoHebrew]

The Murlo residents’ lineages are quite different from those of people in other Italian towns. When placed on a chart of mitochondrial lineages from Europe and the Near East, the people of Murlo map closest to Palestinians and Syrians, a team led by Dr. Torroni and Alessandro Achilli reports in the April issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics.

There is a well-established Rabbinic tradition that Rome emerged partially from Edom, a sister nation to Israel that inhabited portions of present-day Israel and Jordan. I've always thought the tradition quite improbable, even fanciful, and probably deriving from Rome's decision to put an Edomite (Herod) on the throne of Judea. This study, I suppose, gives the Rabbis at least a drop of credibility -- although given that Etruscan isn't Semetic either, just a drop.

[blam]

"The new findings may prompt specialists to look for an arrival date compatible with the archaeological and linguistic data, which essentially means before the proto-Villanovan culture of 1100 to 900 B.C. "

There was a severe cooling event in 1159BC that was recorded in the tree-rings worldwide. Cooling events of this nature (volcano/asteroid impact) are usually associated with drought conditions in many areas.

Also, this was the period of the David plague, Troy collapsed and the Shang Dynasty in China collapsed. A lot was happening worldwide at this time. Conditions were so severe that it is recorded in Chinese writings that '250,000 took to the sea'.