Etruscan sarcophagus from Cerveteri (520-530 BC)With the help of cattle, and Herodotus was right after all. According to an article in New Scientist, the Etruscans, a culturally distinct civilisation that inhabited central Italy from about 800 BC till 400 BC when they were assimilated into Rome, might have originated in Anatolia (in present day Turkey).
The article reports that a team found that 60 per cent of the mitochondrial DNA in cows in central Tuscany were the same as that of cows in Anatolia and the Middle East, without any genetic convergence in the surrounding regions.
The origins of the Etruscans, with their own non-Indo-European language, have been debated by archaeologists, geneticists and linguists for centuries. Writing in the 5th century BC, the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Etruscans [whom the Greeks called Tyrrhenians] had arrived in Italy from Lydia, now called Anatolia in modern-day Turkey.
Herodotus writes in his Histories (full text here):
“The customs of the Lydians are like those of the Greeks, except that they make prostitutes of their female children. They were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency; and they were the first to sell by retail. And, according to what they themselves say, the games now in use among them and the Greeks were invented by the Lydians: these, they say, were invented among them at the time when they colonized Tyrrhenia. This is their story: […] their king divided the people into two groups, and made them draw lots, so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus, of those who departed. […] they came to the Ombrici [Umbria in Italy], where they founded cities and have lived ever since. They no longer called themselves Lydians, but Tyrrhenians, after the name of the king’s son who had led them there.”
Greek and Roman historians often commented on the morality of the Etruscans, which was similar to that of the Lydians. According to Theopompus of Chios (4th century BC), sharing of wives was common among them, and that the women were expert drinkers who would often sleep with men other than their husbands.
Also read:
Mysterious Etruscans, a site with numerous photographs of Etruscan art.
Chocolate Amer 