A definitive guide to Sicilian genealogy and a Sicilian identity. Can the eclectic medieval european connections dating of the world’s most conquered island be a lesson for our times? Find out as you meet the peoples! Find an island’s feminine soul in the first book about Sicily’s historical women written in English by a Sicilian woman in Sicily.
Norman Sicily stood forth in Europe –and indeed in the whole bigoted medieval world– as an example of tolerance and enlightenment, a lesson in the respect that every man should feel for those whose blood and beliefs happen to differ from his own. Sicilians are a diverse people, having had contact with a great variety of ethnic stocks and physical types throughout the centuries. The most personal of biological sciences, genetics influence everything about who we are. Our appearance, talents and health – even our identities – are all shaped to a great extent by the genes we inherited through our parents.
This all seems rather abstract –even impersonal– until you start to trace your own ancestral DNA. That’s the idea behind the 5 year long Genographic Project sponsored by the National Geographic Society. The brotherhood of mankind has ancient roots. In the remote shadows of human pre-history, there was only a single primitive culture.
Genetic tracking” is a new science but it indicates that “modern” man existed as a hunter-gatherer in eastern Africa around 150,000 years ago, with evidence of these same people discovered in the Middle East dated from around 80,000 years ago. By some estimates, as few as 2,000 humans survived the disaster –in Africa. They were already making simple jewelry. Art was a reflection of the modern mind, and early culture.
The Ice Man found frozen in the Alps in 1991 lived about 5,300 years ago, and genetic testing indicates his considerable affinity with the present Alpine population. Observations made here concerning genetic differentiation relate only to the last twelve thousand years or so. Sicily were present at least 10,000 to 12,000 years ago and many lived in caves. People are interested in the physical appearance of their ancestors, whether recent or ancient. For lack of a more descriptive term, the earliest Sicilians would be identified as “Caucasoid” in appearance. Generally, they probably had darker hair and eyes than most of their northern-European counterparts, and probably tanned easily.
We are on more solid ground in describing the civilizations of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs and Normans of Sicily through extensive literary, archeological, linguistic and artistic evidence. Their migrations and activities are well-chronicled. It’s important to remember that gene markers are placed into their proper chronology based on generations rather than years, and an average historical generation is presumed to span 25 years. European in origin while others are African.
Some simple examples of this immigration and residence information are in order. Broadly defined, population genetics is the study of the distribution of, and change in, allele frequencies in particular populations. Allele frequency is a term used in describing the genetic diversity of any species population. Mediterranean” has again become popular in recent years. This “cultural” perspective of Mediterranean ethnography is far from perfect, but it compares favorably to the blind geographic point of view espoused by those who would have us believe, despite reliable iconographic and numismatic evidence to the contrary, that Jesus was a blue-eyed “Caucasoid” European and Hannibal was a dark “Negroid” African. Was Sicily geographically part of Africa when it was ruled by Carthaginians or Saracens, only to be re-integrated into Europe when it was ruled by Romans and Normans? A good question, but one that was rarely posed before the modern era.
Twelfth-century Sicily’s multiculturalism was not a trendy socio-political concept. By then, the human race had splintered into numerous ethnic groupings and societies. Haplogroups reflect the most ancient genetic influences, dating to at least 8,000 years ago. While this is a tiny fragment of one’s genetic heritage, it is easy to isolate. M173 originated about 30,000 years ago. 8,000 BC with the introducton of agriculture to a native people sometimes referred to as the “Proto-Sicanians.
It has been plausibly suggested that M172 may be associated with the arrival of neolithic farmers from the Fertile Crescent who were the probable predecessors of the Indo-European society which later emerged in western Asia, a “hypothetical” society whose culture and language greatly influenced prehistoric peoples from India to Ireland. The language of Sicily’s Sicanians does not seem to have had Indo-European roots, though the issue is far from conclusive. As they are based on several sources, the percentages indicated here may vary somewhat from what you find reported elsewhere. Haplogroup E1b1b, for example, is sometimes reported at a slightly higher frequency. If this were the case in Sicily, today’s Sicilians would be genetically identical to the Proto-Sicanians of 6000 years ago. Instead, they reflect a fair degree of genetic diversity. Attempts to ascertain Sicilian “ethnic” origins should be undertaken with caution because haplogroups do not correspond precisely to medieval or modern conceptions of nationality.
