In this video, I take a look at the genetic origins of Classical Greek soldiers from the site of the Battles of Himera between the Carthaginians and the Greeks of Sicily. These battles have left a great deal of archaeological material, and within this site, there were the skeletal remains of dead soldiers which were sequenced and analyzed in a recent study released on PNAS. Based on this study, the soldiers in the ancient army of the Sicilians were primarily of Mediterranean genetic descent, though, some were of Northern European, Central Asian, and Caucasian genetic origins. What this means is that the armies of Siciliy during the Classical era were deverse, with the soldiers having diverse backgrounds. Regarding the Northern European element present among these samples, it could either highlight a caste division within Classical Greece, or perhaps, it could be due to foreign merceneries of Northern European genetic origin. Whatever the case, what's clear from the data is that the majority of the ancient Greek samples had less Steppe ancestry than contemporary Greeks. What this means is that contemporary Greeks either have high Slavic genetic input, or perhaps they are descended from a society with a caste divide, which later coallesced during the Roman and subsequent periods. What is also interesting from this data is that some of the remains are of Central Asian and Caucasian genetic origins. Thus, there must have been an ancient Iranian and Caucasian element present among the armies of Classical Greece. Finally, a PCA from the supplementary information was analyzed, and this proved that there is as great of a distance between Iranians and Northern and Southern Europeans, than there is between Iranians and Semites from Saudi Arabia and Bedouin tribes from the Levant. Unfortunately, this analysis does not feature any Vahaduo or Genoplot component, since these samples have not yet been released on the Vahaduo database. The source is listed below, and additional sources or general inquiries can be made at irantalk95@gmail.com.
Source: [ Ссылка ].
