Of course they do. RM wants to have it both ways by claiming non-white blood in Northern Europeans makes them "impure" but black blood in Italians should be ignored.
In fact, Italians have more black blood than Northern Europeans. RM quotes a study by M.B. Richards et al. about "a tiny minority of sequences (approx. =1%) from...sub-Saharan African (L1, L2, L3a and L3b)...clusters appear to have contributed to the European mitochondrial pool within the last few thousand years." What RM fails to mention is, that same studied showed a higher proportion of sub-Saharan lineages in Italy than elsewhere in Europe. RM goes even further and claims "genetic studies demonstrate conclusively that Italians, north and south, have no more black ancestry than any other Western European population." This can be nothing but willful deception on RM's part. Richards reports that:
Two sequences, from Sardinia and Portugal, are members of RFLP haplogroup L2 (confirmed by testing for the HpaI site at position 3592 characterizing L1 and L2 in Africans: Chen et al. 1995). One, from Iberia, is a one-step derivative f the most frequent and widespread member of L3b. An individual from North Germany, one from Britain and one from Sardinia are members of L1, and the 6209±16223±16311 sequence is a member of an African subcluster of L3a, and ndeed is found in a Portuguese subject with Angolan ancestry.[M. B. Richards et al., Ann. Hum. Genet., 1998]
So, we have two sub-Saharan sequences from Sardinia, one from Germany, and one from Britain. The sample size in Britain is at least 100, vs 49 in Italy. Thus, according to this study, Italians have at least 4 times the Negroid ancestry the British do.
Additionally, as much as RM likes to talk about "Mongoloid" ancestry in Northern Europeans, the only individuals in this study with mtDNA sequences from Asian haplogroup M were "two individuals in the Mediterranean-West and Mediterranean-Central regions". This, even though the study showed "a sampling bias towards the more northerly and westerly extremes of Europe" -- that is, proportionately more samples were collected in NW Europe compared to Southern Europe.
Other research, illustrated for example by table 3 in mtDNA and the Islands of the North Atlantic: Estimating the Proportions of Norse and Gaelic Ancestry, confirms that non-white maternal ancestry is higher in Southern Europe than in Northern Europe. Here is a list of populations, followed by their percentage of "other" mtDNA in parenthesis. "Other" includes both sub-Saharan L lineages and Asian M lineages.
Frequency of M and L mtDNA
Bulgaria/Turkey (2.92%) France/Italy (2.42%) Spain/Portugal (1.99%) Germany (1.14) England/Wales (.47%) Scandinavia (.47%) Scotland (.11%) Iceland (0%) Ireland (0%) |
Like the Richards study, this data shows that Italians probably have four or more times the amount of non-white maternal ancestry as the English, and they probably have more than 20 times the amount of non-white mtDNA the Irish or Scottish have.
On the paternal side, one Y-chromosome from sub-Saharan haplogroup 8 was detected out of a sample of 10 Sardinians, suggesting a possible substantial Negroid paternal contribution in some areas of Italy. The same study found zero Negroid Y-chromsomes in the British Isles, out of the combined total of more than 600 sampled.
Some people have objected that gene flow between Sardinians and other Italians may be lmiited. This is irrelevant for my purposes. The Sardinians are Italians. If the Sardinians have black ancestry, then one can't claim "Italians don't have black ancestry". In any event, there is ample evidence for black genes elsewhere in Italy.
It should go without saying that, yes, the Sicilians have black ancestry. Again, RM wants us to believe, based on the retraction of one flawed mtDNA study, that Sicilians are "pure" while Northern Europeans are "not pure". Even if there is no trace of sub-Saharan mtDNA in Sicily, that doesn't mean Sicilians have no Negroid ancestry. It seems likely that North African males were one of the main vectors of Negroid gene flow into Sicily. Negroid ancestry in North Africa is largely on the maternal side. So, even if they have a significant sub-Saharan autosomal complement, Sicilians might be left with no sub-Saharan mtDNA markers and few or no sub-Saharan Y-chromosome markers.
In any event, the idea that Sicilians are free of black genes is ridiculous and patently false, as demonostrated by studies like those mentioned on my page about sickle cell. A recent study on mtDNA also confirms the presence of Negroid ancestry on Sicily:
Two haplogroups not common in Europe are present: haplogroup M, separated from Eastern Africa to Western Asia and Eurasia about 50,000 years ago (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999) has been found in Sciacca (8%), Castellammare (3%) and Ragusa (2%); and haplogroup L1/L2 originating from Africa (Watson et al. 1997) has been found in Sciacca (2%) and Castellammare (less than 1%).[Source: Romano et al. Autosomal Microsatellite and mtDNA Genetic Analysis in Sicily (Italy). Annals of Human Genetics. Volume 67 Issue 1 Page 42 - January 2003.]
Perhaps more significant than the Negroid ancestry in southern Europeans are their Asiatic and non-European Caucasoid ancestry. From ancient Greek and Roman times (and even before) to the Turkish and Moorish invasions, southern Europe experienced gene flow from North Africa and the Near East. Italy has high levels (by European standards) of non-Caucasoid mtDNA. Italians have 20% Middle Eastern HG9 and 13% North African HG21. Greeks have 28% HG9 and 28% HG21, plus 3% Mongoloid HG26. One recent study even estimated that 85-100% of Greek male lineages are Neolithic (and at least some of those lineages arrived in Greece well after the Neolithic, one expects).
Even given all of the above, Europeans do cluster tightly genetically. While Europeans are all "white", they are not identical, and one can not wish away genetic differences. There is a hierarchy of relatedness. Northwest Europeans are most closely related to other northwest Europeans, and least related to southeast Europeans. NW Europeans are still more closely related to southeast Europeans than they are to non-Europeans, of course.