Comentario por Alicia M. Canto el febrero 13, 2013 a las 10:19am

Jaja, esto está bien... Pues a ver ahora con quién nos quedamos, si con Heródoto, el Padre de la Historia, o con Dionisio de Halicarnaso, o con los defensores de la mixtura, que me parece lo más razonable...

Porque hace 6 años, basándose también en los ADN, y aunque advirtiendo que había que extender más la toma de muestras, un equipo distinto, también de expertos italianos, llegó a la conclusión exactamente contraria a ésta. Lo recuerdo para todos (siento no poder pararme a traducir, pero siempre tenemos en TA el recurso a San Google, en su advocación como Traductor):

ANCIENT ETRUSCANS WERE IMMIGRANTS FROM ANATOLIA, OR WHAT IS NOW TURKEY

(del Science Daily)

June 18, 2007 — 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 civilization 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 civilization. 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."

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Hay más información en Internet, y detalles científicos, sobre estas investigaciones anteriores. Pero, como siempre es conveniente, los defensores del autoctonismo tendrían que explicar de dónde, de qué cultura indígena en concreto (Vilanova, Golasecca....) pudieron crearse los brillantes colores, la estética, la arquitectura y la ingeniería hidráulica de los etruscos... etc. Esto es, atender a la consabida interdisciplinariedad o, como suelo decir: ni Humanidades sin Ciencias, ni Ciencias sin Humanidades.

Comentario por Daniel Martínez el noviembre 6, 2013 a las 9:18am

El caso es que Barbujani ya formó parte de otro equipo que publicó el siguiente estudio en 2004: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1181945/. En este trabajo se concluía que los antiguos etruscos mostraban mayores relaciones genéticas con la población del Mediterráneo oriental que los modernos italianos. Lo que parece decir ahora es que los inmigrantes orientales habrían llegado a Italia en una época mucho más antigua que la fecha de inicio de la civilización etrusca. Sin embargo, este nuevo estudio es el único que defiende tal cosa, hasta el momento, y por ello hay que tomarlo con cierto escepticismo.

Lo mismo ocurre con Dionisio de Halicarnaso, que prácticamente era el único autor clásico que creía en la autoctonía de los etruscos. La mayoría de los historiadores griegos (no sólo Herodoto) decían que los etruscos procedían de la zona de Anatolia occidental, y la cantidad de datos de todo tipo que apuntan a este origen oriental es abrumadora.

Copio a continuación el resumen de un reciente artículo sobre el origen étnico de los etruscos: 

El proceso histórico que dio origen a la civilización etrusca en Italia fue bastante complejo y se desarrolló durante un largo periodo de 400 años. En una primera fase, datada a finales de la Edad de Bronce, se establecieron en las islas de Sicilia, Cerdeña y Córcega algunos grupos de navegantes egeo-anatolios pertenecientes a los llamados Pueblos del Mar, quienes habían sido víctimas de las devastaciones producidas en el Mediterráneo oriental durante la gran crisis de 1200 a C. En una segunda fase que puede situarse en el siglo X a C, la tribu indoeuropea de los umbros desarrolló la cultura villanoviana en la región de Toscana, al mismo tiempo que un nuevo grupo de inmigrantes de origen egeo-anatolio introducía la metalurgia del hierro en las islas del mar Tirreno y establecía relaciones comerciales con los umbros. La tercera y más importante fase se inició a principios del siglo VIII a C y tuvo como consecuencia la ocupación de toda la Toscana, así como la zona de Capua en Campania, por los navegantes de origen egeo-anatolio, los cuales debieron de establecerse en estas regiones como una élite dominante e introdujeron así su avanzada cultura, que usualmente ha sido llamada “orientalizante”. Estos grupos que se trasladaron desde el Egeo hasta el Mediterráneo central en varias oleadas procedían de las regiones de Lidia, Misia y Tróade, así como de las islas de Lemnos y Lesbos, y la mayoría de ellos debían de ser pelasgos, pertenecientes por tanto a la más antigua población del mar Egeo. La lengua de los pelasgos, documentada en la isla de Lemnos, no era indoeuropea y fue la que originó la lengua etrusca. Otro grupo de pelasgos, procedentes del norte de Grecia, se había establecido en el noreste de Italia y debió de ser asimilado por los etruscos durante su gran expansión territorial.

El texto completo del artículo citado se puede encontrar en el enlace http://www.pueblos-del-mar.blogspot.com.es/2012/11/la-crisis-de-120...

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