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June 18, 2007
Lydian Origins of the Etruscans?
Sometime around 430 BCE Herodotus wrote,
As far as we know, the Lydians were the first to introduce the use of gold and silver coin, and the first who sold retail. They also claim the invention of all the games that are common between them and the Hellenes. These they claim to have invented about the time they colonized Tyrrhenia. [Herodotus I:94]
Tyrrhenia is the usual Greek word for Etrutia, the home of the Etruscans in central Italy along the Tyrrhenian Sea. Lydia was on the southwest corner of Turkey. Scholars have often dismiss Herodotus' report of the Lydian claim about colonizing Tyrrhenia as mistaken legend or even worse.
Now a genetics study by Alberto Piazza of the University of Turin suggests that Anatolia may have been the home of the first Etruscans.
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 [EurekAlert].
EurekAlert has a popular report of Piazza's work and John Wilkins at Evolving Thoughts has an interesting discussion. Gene Expression also has a number of good comments. However, one comment on Gene Expression concerned me a little.
In the case of the Etruscans we see a similar dynamic in regards to culture, these people served as critical information vectors in particular specific cases without transforming the whole of Italian culture (e.g., the Indo-European languages of Italy were not replaced by the Etruscan tongue) [emphasis in original] .
What concerns me is the parenthetical comment not the main point. The implication that the "the Etruscan tongue" was other than Indo-European cannot be correct if the Etruscans did indeed come from Lydia. The Lydian language was an Indo-European language from the Anatolian group. I agree that it did not replace or even much affect the known languages of Italy but it was an Indo-European language. Notice that Gene Expression also refers to the Etruscans as "non indo-European people" in has opening sentence. Until this genetics study that was certainly the prevailing opinion. I also worry a little about Wilkins' association of the suggested Etruscan/Lydian colonization of western central Italy with the massive displacements and migrations of various peoples at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron. Some of these people we know as the Sea People. Wilkins does not claim that they were the same people, only that they were part of the same phenomenon. And while I worry about this idea, it is intriguing and has merit.
Update:
See Razib's comment below. He is correct about the non-indo-European substratum that existed at the time in question and the Lydians and the "Kingdom of Asuwa. I don't think it impossible that these people spoke an Indo-European language but it certainly is not a requirement.
Posted by Duane Smith at June 18, 2007 10:16 AM | Read more on Archaeology |
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Comments
1) you misread:
A few months ago I posted several times about the Etruscans, the ancient non-Indo-European people of north-central Italy
2) "lydia" is short hand. anatolia during the period from 1200-800 (the likely "etruscan" window) was multi-ethnic and multi-lingual. e.g., the hittite empire was dominated by a military aristocracy who termed themselves the "nesi" and spoke an indo-european language, but the hinterlands around their heartland at hattusa were dominated by the speakers of "hatti tongue," which seems an non-indo-european substratum. on the western fringes it seems likely that forms of greek were normative, while tongues like luawain and what not were also spoken. the term "lydia" is somewhat anachronistic, by herodotus and the popular press today. but it sounds better than saying that the "etruscans issued from the region of the southwest anatolian kingdom of asuwa."
Posted by: razib at June 18, 2007 11:12 AM
With regard to 2) see my comments in the above update to this post. With regards to 1) I didn't misread, I mistyped or perhaps mis-cut-and-paste. In any case, the result was the same and I have fixed it.
Posted by: Duane at June 18, 2007 2:37 PM
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