Yeah, Italy too.
Which is strange, given that the Roman empire conquered the known world
from Gaul (France) to Philistina (Palestine) to North Africa (Libya).
The racial mix of the peoples across all those territories is very diverse - yet modern Italy appears to have it's own specific DNA makeup!
The Roman empire lasted for centuries - people from the captured regions did integrate with Romans - therefore you assume that modern Italy would have a composite DNA mix.
Apparently not!
That's one of the things that troubled me the most about the conclusions the geneticists are drawing here.
If you take a look at DE1, DE2, IT1 and IT2 for example.
In the ancient world, Germany has always been a problem for the Roman empire. Southwest Germany (or at least different parts of Germania inferior) for example was conquered by the Romans and then lost to German tribes of Germania libera (mostly Germania Superior) several times. That's why the famous fortified Roman border, the Limes, was running through southwest Germany. But at one point in time, Trier even was a "Kaiserstadt" (imperial city), which means that it was full of Romans for quite some time. Why is there no genetic overlap between Italy (IT1 and IT2) and southern Germany (D2)? I mean, of course, not all Roman soldiers stationed in Germany were Italians or even Romans, but no overlap at all?
And of course there would be a difference between DE1 and DE2. Take a look at where the samples were taken. DE1 is in an area, that through the whole course of German history had hardly anything to do with the area of D2. That's like going to the US and comparing samples from Boston with samples from San Diego. It's highly likely, that (depending on your sample) you could come to the conclusion, that Boston could as well be a town in Germany, whereas San Diego could be a mixture between Spain, Oceania and Mexico. D1 lies in an area that always had it's quarrels with the Vikings or with Denmark, that was protected or ruled by Prussia (Up ewig ungedeelt) and so forth, while D2 was more concerned with their role in European policy, had numerous battles with the French or the Russians through the course of history, mixed with Austrian and Czech royalty etc.
And why is there only one sample from France? The French are a prime example of genetic mixture in Europe. The Goths, the Arabs, the Turks, the Spanish, they all were in southwestern France, but never in the northeast for example were the Vikings, the English, the Germans have been on several occasion. I mean, it even shows in their language to this day.
I'd say
either the sample base they used was probably not very representative or accurate,
or the genetix mixtures created by the Roman Empire, the Migration period, the Kingdom of the Franks, the Holy German Empire, and so on were all wiped out since the beginning of the age of nation states with its new rules and laws on borders, citizenship, immigration, marriage etc.
But I'd go with the first one to 80% and the second one to 20%. Because that's what happens, when you let a bunch of natural scientists run wild on their own without any historians or political scientists giving them input.
'Oh my God! We went to America, took a sample and made a projection. And we found out, that more than half of the United States are either poor, impovered, poorly educated or even criminals. And about 70% are black or hispanic!' 'Well, where is you sample from?' 'We calculated a random place and it said, take your sample in the Bronx.' (I don't mean to be judgmental here. So please, nobody take the "overstated" Bronx example the wrong way.)
