Hm, while it's possible that that "Italian" look is due to Roman conquest, I would expect it to be more likely due to later Normand conquest, which also came from a former Roman teritory...
Anyway, I don't find that map even remotely accurate or representative for "nation mapping", since it takes way too few samples and even the choice of sampling points across Europe is poor. Germany has 2 X 500 samples taken, which might be OK-ish, but all the rest of Europe only has about 1000 samples together. For instance, Italy has much less and Portugal has only 16.
I think this is more of a "proof of concept" paper than a serious "mapping of Europe's genepool" as it claims. It actually is very far from that IMO.
Yeah, and for instance "French" means "Lyon" for them, according to their data. Lyon is just 1 southern city, where the population is likely to be more similar to Spanish or Italian (Lyon used to be the capital of the Roman rule of the region in ancient times).
I would expect that if the sample was taken more north, e.g. Paris or Normandy, the similarity would have drawn much stronger towards Germany for instance.
If you check the article, Romania had only 12 samples taken, I don't think the map says anything about Romania under these conditions.
Besides the Roman base, in Romania there are also Turkish (later conquests), Arab (one of the Roman legions stationed there was Syriana, an arab legion), Indian (very large gipsy population) influences, among others...
I think the map is quite statistically irrelevant for some countries, such as Romania. Here is the table with the number of samples taken from each country:
http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/table?uid=PIIS0960982208009561&tableid=tbl1&popup=y
Romania (population 23 milion) had only 12 samples taken! In comparison, Netherlands (population 16 milion) had 500 samples taken. Other genetically diverse countries with small (or too localized) samples include France, Italy or Portugal.
Of course, as others pointed out, add to this the fact that not all populations were studied, among which populations which had huge genetical influence, especially in South-Eastern Europe (Turkish, northern Slavic, Arab, Maurish, North African, Indian-gipsy etc)...
So I find the map totally irrelevant under these conditions...
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Hm, while it's possible that that "Italian" look is due to Roman conquest, I would expect it to be more likely due to later Normand conquest, which also came from a former Roman teritory... Anyway, I don't find that map even remotely accurate or representative for "nation mapping", since it takes way too few samples and even the choice of sampling points across Europe is poor. Germany has 2 X 500 samples taken, which might be OK-ish, but all the rest of Europe only has about 1000 samples together. For instance, Italy has much less and Portugal has only 16. I think this is more of a "proof of concept" paper than a serious "mapping of Europe's genepool" as it claims. It actually is very far from that IMO.
Yeah, and for instance "French" means "Lyon" for them, according to their data. Lyon is just 1 southern city, where the population is likely to be more similar to Spanish or Italian (Lyon used to be the capital of the Roman rule of the region in ancient times). I would expect that if the sample was taken more north, e.g. Paris or Normandy, the similarity would have drawn much stronger towards Germany for instance.
If you check the article, Romania had only 12 samples taken, I don't think the map says anything about Romania under these conditions. Besides the Roman base, in Romania there are also Turkish (later conquests), Arab (one of the Roman legions stationed there was Syriana, an arab legion), Indian (very large gipsy population) influences, among others ...
I think the map is quite statistically irrelevant for some countries, such as Romania. Here is the table with the number of samples taken from each country: http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/table?uid=PIIS0960982208009561&tableid=tbl1&popup=y Romania (population 23 milion) had only 12 samples taken! In comparison, Netherlands (population 16 milion) had 500 samples taken. Other genetically diverse countries with small (or too localized) samples include France, Italy or Portugal. Of course, as others pointed out, add to this the fact that not all populations were studied, among which populations which had huge genetical influence, especially in South-Eastern Europe (Turkish, northern Slavic, Arab, Maurish, North African, Indian-gipsy etc)... So I find the map totally irrelevant under these conditions...