Genetic history of Calabrian Greeks reveals ancient events and long term isolation in the Aspromonte area of Southern Italy.

ABSTRACT: Calabrian Greeks are an enigmatic population that have preserved and evolved a unique variety of language, Greco, survived in the isolated Aspromonte mountain area of Southern Italy. To understand their genetic ancestry and explore possible effects of geographic and cultural isolation, we genome-wide genotyped a large set of South Italian samples including both communities that still speak Greco nowadays and those that lost the use of this language earlier in time. Comparisons with modern and ancient populations highlighted ancient, long-lasting genetic links with Eastern Mediterranean and Caucasian/Near-Eastern groups as ancestral sources of Southern Italians. Our results suggest that the Aspromonte communities might be interpreted as genetically drifted remnants that departed from such a

SUBMITTER: Sarno S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7862261 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature