Archaeogenetics & other methods contribute to the understanding of the battles of Himera between Carthaginian & the Greeks. The 1st battle was won by the Greeks. The second under the lesser known 1st Hannibal decimated the Greeks for good. Hannibal then pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
made a human sacrifice of 3000 yavana-s & enslaved all their women. Probably some victims of his gruesome sacrifice were among those whose genomes were sequenced by the authors. At least 2 individual seem to be fighters from the steppes with East Asian admixture, like shaka-s
One of them has a potential Mongolic mito haplogroup leaving no doubt that these were likely shaka-s who had mixed with groups on the eastern steppe. It is also notable that there were Baltic groups in the war -- I wonder if these were actually the famous Thracian peltasts who
were mobilized by the Greeks, rather than actually hailing from the Baltic region; see:
I think the group 5 individual high in CHG was likely an Iranian mercenary, but it is unclear on whose side he was fighting in 480 BCE
https://twitter.com/blog_supplement/status/1574278581752156160
I think the group 5 individual high in CHG was likely an Iranian mercenary, but it is unclear on whose side he was fighting in 480 BCE
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