Para-"Ligurian" Phenomenon

[Manofthehour]

A continuation of this thread from the forum 

Screenshots from the first post.
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In Roman historical accounts, these people (in this case of the Siculi tribe) appear to have been a significant component in the ethno-genesis of the Old Latins, combined with the so-called "Aborigines" of the inland mountainous regions of Central Italy. 

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Brief shorthand summary:

Ligure-Siculi-Latin connection.
Proposed "Luguro-Latin" "West Italic" category by Tibor Feher.  https://www.academia.edu/79023003/Celtic...c_Evidence

To revise my opinion in the old thread, Imo "Ligurian" peoples originating with Rhone and Alpine Beakers, Polada Culture. 
"West Italic" (Ligure, Latin, Faliscan, *Venetic?) category seems plausible, contrast with Osco-Umbrian (East Italic) from the LBA Middle Danube. 

Spread of Z56/Z43 subclades (among other U152 and L2 branches) from the Upper Rhine to North Italy, SE France, Tuscan/Latium coasts, and  other Mediterranean coastal areas across SW Europe (Incl Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily etc...), and especially the Riviera 

Implications/connections with Golasecca, Terramare, and Proto-Villanovan Cultures.   

etc...

[Strabo]

Interesting map shared by @corrigendum

Why does Slovenia IA overlap with (north?) italy AND east France IA? 

Thats a nice "split" for South France IA between iberian and E France/Slovenia. Mirrors the west Languedoc (iberian influcences) vs east Languedoc/Provence (celtic influences?) 

Slovenia IA is what? East Tumulus descendants and possible proto italics? or LIA La Tene eastern expansions overlapping with LIA Gaulish mirgants into italy? Or an older "celtic" layer related to MBA movements (so not proto italic)?

 I dont know if Italy Roman Republic represents the central Italic cluster, but if it does, and the central italic cluster predates Urnfield, then I'd like to propose a new term: "Celto-Italic" (not to be confused with proto Celto-Italic) instead of "Celto-Ligure" for north italy. Perhaps northern celts mixing with Polada derived proto italics in MBA or later.

[Strabo]

If Tumulus was speaking Sabellic, then would not French Tumulus also be speaking Sabellic? The Tumulus culture in upper Danube speaking Sabellic is kind of problematic for those that wish to geographically separate Celtic and Italic, if Celtic is supposed to originate in middle Rhine.

Anoyjther issue with Polada is the dating around 2200 to 1700 BC IIRC. You want this for (proto) West Italic. Then what date for Proto Italic itself? It would have to be pushed back to beaker/epi beaker time. I suppose late Polada = proto west italic, then in MBA Grotta Nuova = (proto) Latin, Viverone = (proto) Ligurian could fit for models that exclude an early Sabellic entry into italy.

But if both MBA Grotta Nuova and Appenninico derive from or have a common origin with Polada, then we could say Grotta Nuova = Latins, Appenninico = Sabellics, Viverone = Ligurians. 

However we still cant discard a celtic linguistic origin for Ligurian, even if the genetic profile of NW Italy (and surrounding areas) may have been formed in EBA or before and stayed largely intact. Then we'd be basically looking at later U152 migrants mixing with earlier U152 settlers.

Givern whats known about central italic cluster in IA, it might be plausible to consider MBA Grotta Nuova as housing all confirmed Italic languages (Latin, Sabellic, Venetic?).

I dont know how to reconcile an EBA Polada and Proto Appenninico either. Honestly its just tempting (easy way out) to associate proto Italics with  Proto Appenninico and forget about it. Suppose Polada could be (pre) proto Ligurians or Veneti then.

[Manofthehour]

I added red arrows to this showing plausible routes from the West via river systems and the sea. I don't mean to be too much of an ***** drawing on this map. 




I suppose I could be overly fixated on Tibor Feher's paper. The Proto-Ligure/Siculi in Latium may be a valid connection but it seems more difficult to connect them to Latino-Faliscan languages as original speakers. 
Polada extends southward to the upper Tiber River which was likely a conduit to the spread of multiple Italic peoples, perhaps mainly of the Sabellic branch but perhaps in general. 
The Upper Tiber may be the diverging point leading to the later Apennine Culture to the South, with the Terramare remaining up North. Sabellics travelling furthest down the Tiber become the Hernici, Volsci and other tribes dwelling adjacent to the Latins and Faliscans just West. 
Many scholars seem insistent on a later arrival of Sabellic, how much time later is another question. I'm unsure how isolated they could have been from each other if they both existed contemporaneously within the Polada. 

I also wonder (as an aside) if the Rhone-Maritime were less Unetice-influenced than the other transalpine/Alpine zones roughly around this time.

[Manofthehour]

IA East French and Slovenian genetic similarity may be from shared Bell Beaker underneath some La Tene admixture?

Not only La Tene, but Celto-Ligure in this specific case, granted this is dated to the LIA.

[alanarchae]

so was greatly enjoying this linguistics paper until he started talking about Scythians in Italy and sounded quite mad. https://www.researchgate.net/publication...and_Latins

[Manofthehour]

so was greatly enjoying this linguistics paper until he started talking about Scythians in Italy and sounded quite mad. https://www.researchgate.net/publication...and_Latins

That was a trip to read, but nonetheless entertaining. 

I suppose by "Scythians" he's referring to some residual element of Corded Ware pastoralists making an excursion into Italy? 

Just to humor that idea we have the example of R1b-CTS6889, which finds itself in ancient samples from the Tollense Valley battle to the Middle Danube to Bronze Age and later ancient Italy, including among the Etruscans and Romans. 
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna...89/ancient

It's another offshoot of R1b-L51 by way of PF7589 which finds itself in a Cetina Culture sample and one from Bronze Age Holland. Oh wow also in an Iron Age Latini sample, an Iron Age Sardinia, plus a few other ancient samples.
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna...89/ancient

[Strabo]

I suppose I could be overly fixated on Tibor Feher's paper. The Proto-Ligure/Siculi in Latium may be a valid connection but it seems more difficult to connect them to Latino-Faliscan languages as original speakers. 
Polada extends southward to the upper Tiber River which was likely a conduit to the spread of multiple Italic peoples, perhaps mainly of the Sabellic branch but perhaps in general. 
The Upper Tiber may be the diverging point leading to the later Apennine Culture to the South, with the Terramare remaining up North. Sabellics travelling furthest down the Tiber become the Hernici, Volsci and other tribes dwelling adjacent to the Latins and Faliscans just West. 

I also wonder (as an aside) if the Rhone-Maritime were less Unetice-influenced than the other transalpine/Alpine zones roughly around this time.

So to be clear your saying that you think proto italics, or part of them, arrived in italy from the west, over the western alpine passes and/or along the ligurian coast and/or by sea also? and are related to maritime beakers. Pre proto Sabellics lingered in the Danube for nearly 1000 years and were driving force behind Tumulus? They later settled in north central italy contributing to, or blending into the IA central italy cluster. If proto latin is speculatively dated to around 1200-900 BC, then the migration of proto Sabellics must be a bit later, like after Fratesina? Im thinking proto italic duration is very short, say 2400-2200 or it lasted about 2200-1200 in 1 place gradually disintegrating

[Manofthehour]

So to be clear your saying that you think proto italics, or part of them, arrived in italy from the west, over the western alpine passes and/or along the ligurian coast and/or by sea also? and are related to maritime beakers. Pre proto Sabellics lingered in the Danube for nearly 1000 years and were driving force behind Tumulus? They later settled in north central italy contributing to, or blending into the IA central italy cluster. If proto latin is speculatively dated to around 1200-900 BC, then the migration of proto Sabellics must be a bit later, like after Fratesina? Im thinking proto italic duration is very short, say 2400-2200 or it lasted about 2200-1200 in 1 place gradually disintegrating

That's about right, for the most part. 

Granted that it looks like Tumulus Culture expanded out of Southern Germany I think this may be right. Though much of this expansion may have been through trading networks and not just conquest or migration.  If I had to guess, the Proto-Sabellics had contacts with Pre-Proto-Germanics and Proto-Celtics and received some influence, perhaps moreso from the former. They also probably received some Illyrian and Daco-Thracian influences, and for all I know the Sabellics could have been the original bringers of the Proto-Villanova Culture into Italy, in which case they must have dropped the practice of cremation by the mid to late Iron Age.  But anyway, if so, they would have picked up the practice of cremation from Daco-Thracian peoples of the Carpathian basin. 

This is a rather wide area we're talking. Some Celtic speaking peoples could have easily been within this sphere of influence, and you can see it extends to the Early Nordic Bronze Age. I'm inclined to think the arrows pointing Eastward towards Pannonia mark the main movement of Sabellic peoples prior to migrating to Italy.

It seems unlikely that everyone within this area was Sabellic-Speaking, discounting the obvious Pre-Proto-Germanics. L2 is a big subclade and it's better to examine its own subclades. Nevertheless I think Sabellics carried multiple L2 subclades and also maybe some Z36. That's not to say these subclades were exclusively Sabellic, but generally Italic or Italo-Celtic. If it's too late for any of them to be phylogenetically Italo-Celtic then they still could have been Celticized fairly early on by remaining in the Rhine regions, drifting towards Alsace, etc... I don't think all L2 carriers necessarily went East, at least at first.

[alanarchae]

The last linguistic paper/chapter I read concluded that the italo-Celtic node is real but
1. It was very brief
2. It was very early -just after late/NW IE.
3. Celtic not not Italic then had a very early era of contact seen in isoglosses - showing pre proto Italic and pre proto Celtic had strongly seperated. I think it’s pretty certain that that separation involved pre proto Italic branch moving south with Celtic remaining in the north close to pre proto Germanic
4. The simplest way of fitting this all together is that the pre proto Italic line was no further north than the north Alps (and likely already party in Italy) by the late bell beaker era/im medusa post beaker early bronze age.
5. I think the correct way of thinking about it is that by about 2200BC para Italic:pre proto Italic dialects were already on the northern borders of Italy and probably partly in Italy too. I think Italic dialects likely came into italy in multiple waves from late beaker to 1200BC.

As for the Ligurians, lack of linguistic data or ancient DNA makes things a bit hopeless at present. However, the classical sources seem consistant that they were not Celtic (were even physically different from them) but were undergoing heavy Celticisation. A parallel to this situation is what the classical sources said about the Raetians (particularly their north-westerly tribes), stating they were also undergoing loss of identity by Celticisation. So I have little doubt that the Ligures were a different people but were in process of losing/blurring their identity by time of the better classical accounts.

The description of them as physically different from the Celts likely suggests to me they were from a lower steppe kind of background, not a more northerly beaker high steppe descent like many of the Gauls. The other thing of interest is the unusual situation so of them simultaneously being kind of described as being a hard pressed people but yet having a coastal position. I do understand of course that ancient Liguria was a place where the mountains approached the shore and I understand that natural harbours for bigger boats are rare in the area. Some also suggest that their few iron age oppida were pretty well trading focussed and that the trade was mostly with Iberian, Etruscans and Greek colonies. So they by the iron age were very much a west Med. Sea networking group that the Celts intruded into from the north in France. I think prior to the Celtic mixing they were very much a west/central Med people and that would also fit the inference from them physically not been like the Celts (who the Romans also described as being physically different from themselves). For what little it’s worth, the one description of them being small with chestnut hair does kind of sound like descriptions of Alpine people in old physical anthropology stuff my the likes of Coon. If I had to guess then i’d say Ligurians kind of sound like their genetic base was lower steppe Alpine beaker and post-beaker early bronze age. I’ve read thst the Italian Liguria area also reviewed influences from the Golaseca culture though likely just influences though it might demonstrate a communication route that might have been used much earlier too.

[Manofthehour]

This page containing the text of one of the works of Dionysus of Halicarnussus is quite an interesting read and goes into the ethnic weaving and interspersals going on in Western-Central Italy and elsewhere around the Late Bronze to Early Iron Ages. 
The "Aborigines" are interesting to highlight here, they being the population said to have become the Old Latins, and he goes into different speculations as to their origins. Ligurians, Umbrians, and Pelasgians are mentioned in such speculations. 
He later goes on to talk about the Etruscans. 

 https://topostext.org/work/139#1.10.3

It gives an interesting and rather mixed tapestry of Central Italy around this time. I'm rather ignorant of any supposed Mycenaean presence in the area but it wouldn't surprise me.

[alanarchae]

How did the French and Italian Ligures bury their dead in the iron age prior to Roman colonisation? Inhumation or cremation? Have they found cemeteries of that era? The ideal period would be pre Celticisation in France and pre Roman colonisation in Italy just to make it more likely they actually are Ligures. It’s extremely hard to get information in English on them

[alexfritz]

judging by the pics in this paper the Ligurians had a burial ritual similar to the Villanovans and offshoots like Golasecca (Lepontic speakers) ie the typical EIA culture in Italy and this paper certifies mobility in spreading said culture; the inscriptions that were found within the frm Ligurian territory are said to be very akin to Lepontic (cf Stifter) and a known Ligurian hydronym (bodincus) does derive from PIE; in this regard it will be interesting to see how the Lepontic samples from the upcoming Celtudalps project compare with late-antiquity Bardonecchia (frm Ligurian territory) and/or the Italics/Etruscans

[alanarchae]

judging by the pics in this paper the Ligurians had a burial ritual similar to the Villanovans and offshoots like Golasecca (Lepontic speakers) ie the typical EIA culture in Italy and this paper certifies mobility in spreading said culture; the inscriptions that were found within the frm Ligurian territory are said to be very akin to Lepontic (cf Stifter) and a known Ligurian hydronym (bodincus) does derive from PIE; in this regard it will be interesting to see how the Lepontic samples from the upcoming Celtudalps project compare with late-antiquity Bardonecchia (frm Ligurian territory) and/or the Italics/Etruscans

yeah i’ve read that there are a number of archaeological influences from Golasecca seen in Italian Liguria, different from the Gaulish influence seen in iron age French Liguria.  So Celtic influence could have been teaching the Ligures from 2 directions during the iron age. I’m still unsure what they spoke prior to that influence. They were neighbours by both IEs and non- IEs (etruscans, Iberians, rhaetic). The Etruscans, Iberians and Basques/Aquitani are a warning that occasionally significant steppe autosomal and dominance of steppe beaker yDNA didn’t lead to the IE language ‘winning’ and non IEs can be genetically v similar to neighbouring IEs. Nevertheless it is essential to get a good big sample from Iron age Ligures in Italy and France if there is to be any hope of inferring anything new about them.

[Strabo]

judging by the pics in this paper the Ligurians had a burial ritual similar to the Villanovans and offshoots like Golasecca (Lepontic speakers) ie the typical EIA culture in Italy and this paper certifies mobility in spreading said culture; the inscriptions that were found within the frm Ligurian territory are said to be very akin to Lepontic (cf Stifter) and a known Ligurian hydronym (bodincus) does derive from PIE; in this regard it will be interesting to see how the Lepontic samples from the upcoming Celtudalps project compare with late-antiquity Bardonecchia (frm Ligurian territory) and/or the Italics/Etruscans

Why do you consider Bardonecchia to be Ligurian? Its in the Taurino-Salassi space, which in the IA is provisionally supposed to belong to  the Pont Valperga facies, iirc a mix of western Golasecca spread and RSFO influences from the west.

From what I read the Val Susa is never considered Ligurian from an archaeological point of view, regardless of what classical sources say. It does not mean that Bardonecchia people were not part of the general NW italy genetic stock, but calling them "Ligurian" is a bit of stretch, unless you use the label Ligurian to define the NW Italy "profile" laid down in the Beaker times, but I think it is wrong to do so. We dont know what they (beakers) spoke  so I would rather reserve the term Ligurian for Liguria/south Piemonte/west Emilia in the IA to be safe until we get more samples