Etruscan origins

In classical antiquity, several theses were elaborated on the origin of the Etruscans from the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been already established for several centuries in its territories, that can be summarized into three main hypotheses. The first is the autochthonous development in situ out of the Villanovan culture, as claimed by the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus who described the Etruscans autochthonous people who had always lived in Etruria.^[1] The second is a migration from the Aegean Sea, as claimed by two Greek historians: Herodotus, who described them as a group of immigrants from Lydia in Anatolia,^[2] and Hellanicus of Lesbos who claimed that the Tyrrhenians were the Pelasgians originally from Thessaly, Greece, who entered Italy at the head of the Adriatic Sea in Northern Italy.^[3] The third hypothesis was reported by Livy and Pliny the Elder, and puts the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and other populations living in the Alps.^[4]

The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins.^[5] The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus^[6] referred to them as pirates.^[7] Unlike later Greek authors, such as Herodotus and Hellanicus, these earlier Greek authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from elsewhere.

According to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, etruscologists, geneticists, linguists, all the evidence gathered so far points to an autochthonous origin of the Etruscans.^{[8][9][10][11]} Moreover, there is no archeological evidence for a migration of the Lydians or the Pelasgians into Etruria.^{[12][9][10][11]} It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians" or the "Lydians". There is consensus among modern scholars that these Greek tales are not based on real events.^[13] The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900 BC: this is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization,^{[14][15][16][17][18]} which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region, part of the central European Urnfield culture system.^[19]

Helmut Rix's classification of the Etruscan language in the Tyrsenian language family reflects the ambiguity of the stories about their origins. Rix finds Etruscan on the one hand genetically related to the Rhaetic language spoken in the Alps north of Etruria, suggesting autochthonous connections, but on the other hand he notes that the Lemnian language found on the "Lemnos stele" is closely related to Etruscan, entailing either Etruscan presence in "Tyrsenian" Lemnos, or "Tyrsenian" expansion westward to Etruria.^[20] After more than 90 years of archaeological excavations at Lemnos, nothing has been found that would support a migration from Lemnos to Etruria,^[21] the indigenous inhabitants of Lemnos, also called in ancient times Sinteis, were the Sintians, a Thracian population.^[21] Some scholars believe the Lemnian language might have arrived in the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age, when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries from Sicily, Sardinia and various parts of the Italian peninsula.^[22] Other scholars have concluded that the Lemnian inscriptions might be due to an Etruscan commercial settlement on the island that took place before 700 BC, not related to the Sea Peoples.^{[23][24][25][26][27]}

A mtDNA study published in 2013 concluded that the Etruscans' mtDNA appears very similar to that of Neolithic population from Central Europe and to other Tuscan populations.^[28][29] This coincides with the Rhaetic language, which was spoken south and north of the Alps in the area of the Urnfield culture of Central Europe. The Villanovan culture, the early period of the Etruscan civilization, derives from the Proto-Villanovan culture that branched from the Urnfield culture around 1200 BC. An autochthonous population that diverged genetically was previously suggested as a possibility by Cavalli-Sforza.^[30]

A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the autosomal DNA of 11 Iron Age samples from the areas around Rome, concluding that Etruscans (900-600 BC) and the Latins (900-200 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, and Etruscans also had Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a pre-Indo-European language.^[31]

A 2021 genetic study published in the journal Science Advances analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio and confirmed that the Etruscan individuals displayed the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages as found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and that the Etruscans' DNA completely lacks a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.^[32]