Demographic histories, isolation and social factors as determinants of the genetic structure of Alpine linguistic groups

Great European mountain ranges have acted as barriers to gene flow for resident populations since prehistory and have offered a place for the settlement of small, and sometimes culturally diverse, communities. Therefore, the human groups that have settled in these areas are worth exploring as an important potential source of diversity in the genetic structure of European populations. In this study, we present new high resolution data concerning Y chromosomal variation in three distinct Alpine ethno-linguistic groups, Italian, Ladin and German. Combining unpublished and literature data on Y chromosome and mitochondrial variation, we were able to detect different genetic patterns. In fact, within and among population diversity values observed vary across linguistic groups, with German and Italian speakers at the two extremes, and seem to reflect their different demographic histories. Using simulations we inferred that the joint effect of continued genetic isolation and reduced founding group size may explain the apportionment of genetic diversity observed in all groups. Extending the analysis to other continental populations, we observed that the genetic differentiation of Ladins and German speakers from Europeans is comparable or even greater to that observed for well known outliers like Sardinian and Basques. Finally, we found that in south Tyroleans, the social practice of Geschlossener Hof, a hereditary norm which might have favored male dispersal, coincides with a significant intra-group diversity for mtDNA but not for Y chromosome, a genetic pattern which is opposite to those expected among patrilocal populations. Together with previous evidence regarding the possible effects of "local ethnicity" on the genetic structure of German speakers that have settled in the eastern Italian Alps, this finding suggests that taking socio-cultural factors into account together with geographical variables and linguistic diversity may help unveil some yet to be understood aspects of the genetic structure of European populations

Living Arrangements and the Elderly: An Analysis of Old-Age Mortality by Household Structure in Casalguidi, 1819–1859

The elevated levels of protection, assistance, and care enjoyed by the elderly living in complex households has long been a key assumption of many family system theories. However, although this hypothesis has been demonstrated for contemporary contexts, quantitative evidence for past populations is particularly scarce, if not nonexistent. This article investigates the relationship between old-age mortality and living arrangements in a mid–nineteenth century Tuscan population, where the joint family system of sharecroppers coexisted alongside the nuclear system of day laborers. Our findings demonstrate that within complex households, the complexity of relationships, gender inequalities, and possible competition for care and resources among the most vulnerable household members—namely, the elderly and the young—weakens the assumption that the elderly benefitted from lower rates of old-age mortality

Theory Travelling through Time and Space: The Reception of the Concept of Amoral Familism

The American political scientist Edward Banfield formulated the concept of amoral familism in 1958, in The moral basis of a backward society and defined it as follows: ‘maximize the material, short-run advantage of the nuclear family; assume that all others will do likewise’. With this concept, he intended to explain the political ineffectiveness of the inhabitants of a small town in southern Italy. From its publication, Banfield’s book has engendered an impressive amount of controversies, remarkable for their longevity, since they initiated in 1958 and are still on-going. This article provides a critical overview and theoretical reflection on these controversies. After contextualizing in the introduction these controversies in a broader theoretical and historical context, I first provide an overview of Banfield’s research and its early reception (until the mid-1970s) in the international academic community, mainly amongst anthropologists and rural sociologists. A second section addresses the Italian reception, including the revival the concept underwent following the publication of Robert D. Putnam’s classic Making democracy work in 1993, and the importance this book attributed to the concept. A third section analyzes how within Italy scholars also provided important critical assessments of his fieldwork and critiques of his concept informed by postcolonial theory. In the conclusion, I propose to interpret the longevity of the concept and the persistence of the controversies it engendered.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe