No Etruscan Link to Modern Tuscans

July 16, 2009

A few days ago I reported on the discovery in Tuscany of a lotion that is over 2000 years old, left almost intact in the cosmetic case of an aristocratic Etruscan woman (that's what I call an anti-ageing cream).

Her name was Thana Presnti Plecunia Umranalisa. But don't look for any of her descendants in Tuscany.

Researchers at the Universities of Florence, Ferrara, Pisa, Venice and Parma established that modern Tuscans show no genetic relationship to the Etruscans who occupied the area during the Bronze Age.

The research team compared DNA from the remains of Etruscans, Medieval Tuscans -- those who lived between the 10th and 15th centuries -- and people living in the region today.

While there was a clear genetic link between Medieval Tuscans and the current population, no link could be found between modern Tuscans and the Etruscans.

"Some people have hypothesized that the most ancient DNA sequences, those from the Etruscan era, could contain errors or have been contaminated, but tests conducted with new methods exclude this,'' said David Caramelli of Florence University and Guido Barbujani of Ferrara University.

The researchers believe that the structure of the Tuscan population underwent important demographic changes in the first millennium before Christ.

"Immigration and forced migration have diluted the Etruscan genetic inheritance so much as to make it difficult to recognise," they said.

The scientific data does not necessarily mean that the Etruscans died out.

Teams from Florence and Ferrara Universities are working to identify whether traces of the Etruscans' genetic inheritance may still exist in people living in isolated locations in the region.