Sardinians found to be Paleolithic, like Basques

[Racial Reality]

The following passage is from that Chikhi et al. 2002 study which postulated a larger Neolithic influence in Europe than previously estimated. The authors also discovered something new about Sardinians...

One of the most striking results was obtained for the Sardinian sample (Fig. 1). Semino et al.'s ordination of the haplotype frequencies showed the Sardinian sample clustering with Greek and Albanian samples, far removed from the Basque samples. That result appeared at odds with archaeological data that suggest a limited Neolithic immigration in Sardinia (e.g., ref. 32). Conversely, in Fig. 1a, Sardinia appears as an outlier with a significantly high proportion of Palaeolithic genes. This result suggests that the Y-chromosome differentiation observed between Basques and Sardinians today is due to drift from common Palaeolithic ancestors, with little input of genes from the Near East, rather than to a greater Neolithic immigration in Sardinia. This result shows the importance in separating drift from admixture in the analysis of ancient demographic events.

[Melnorme]

Excellent find. I've noticed that you need to be careful when dealing with small, isolated populations, such as those found on islands.

[AWAR]

Hehe.... I wonder how Montenegrins will fare in such tests.

[Graeme]

Sardinia is not a small island, in fact it is large but mountainous. Sardinians are ethnically mixed are they not? There was an Iberian presence there and Spanish languages spoken there. The results for Sardinia have to be taken with a large dose of salt. It is an island and leaves it open to founder effect, genetic drift, immigration effects and local extinction events. As Cavalli-Sforza said it indeed is an outlier genetically.

[eufrenio]

Would Malta show similar results?

[Agrippa]

Dont think so, Malta is more mixed.

[Graeme]

There is a Maltese type, it is not common, but it is there. The average Maltese is very mixed, not because of the megalith builders or the Phoenicians or the Romans and so on, but because of the deportation of the inhabitants of Celano to Malta and the not so chaste actions of some Knights of Malta who came from various parts of Catholic Europe as their langues (national headquarters) attest. So what I am saying is that the Y chromosomes of Maltese men would produce a rather confusing array of results. mtDNA would probably be less varied. But I have to agree with Agrippa, the Maltese are too mixed and would give bizarre results of no real use to studying the genetic history of Europe.