Genetic history of Italy

The genetic history of Italy includes information around the formation, ethnogenesis, and other DNA-specific information about the inhabitants of Italy. Modern Italians mainly descend from the ancient peoples of Italy, including Indo-European speakers (Romans and other Latins, Falisci, Picentes, Umbrians, Oscans, Sicels, Elymians, and Adriatic Veneti, as well as Magno-Greeks, Cisalpine Gauls and Iapygians) and pre-Indo-European speakers (Etruscans, Ligures, Rhaetians, Euganei, Sicani, Nuragic peoples). Based on DNA analysis, there is evidence of regional genetic substructure and continuity within modern Italy dating back to antiquity.^[2][3][4][5]

In their admixture ratios, Italians are similar to other Southern Europeans of the Mediterranean region, and that is being of primarily Neolithic Early European Farmer ancestry, along with smaller, but still significant, amounts of Mesolithic Western Hunter-Gatherer, Bronze Age Steppe pastoralist (Indo-European speakers) and Chalcolithic or Bronze Age Iranian/Caucasus-related ancestry.^{[3][6][7][8][9]} According to multiple genome-wide studies, Southern Italians are closest to modern Greeks,^{[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][9]} while Northern Italians are closest to the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the Southern French.^{[10][17][19][20][21][16][22][23][24][25][18][26]} There is Bronze/Iron Age Middle Eastern and Western Asian admixture in Italy, with a much lower incidence in Northern Italy compared with Central Italy and Southern Italy.^[23][7] North African admixture is also found in Southern Italy with the highest incidence being in the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.^[23][7][3]