Human Biology Volume 84 | Issue 3 Article 2 2012 General Method to Unravel Ancient Population Structures through Surnames, Final Validation on Italian Data Alessio Boattini Dipartimento di Biologia ES, University of Bologna, Italy Antonella Lisa Istituto di Genetica Molecolare, CNR, Pavia, Italy Ornella Fiorani Istituto di Genetica Molecolare, CNR, Pavia, Italy Gianna Zei Istituto di Genetica Molecolare, CNR, Pavia, Italy Davide Pettener Dipartimento di Biologia ES, University of Bologna, Italy Franz Manni Unité d’Eco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, National Museum of Natural History, Paris,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol Recommended Citation Boattini, Alessio; Lisa, Antonella; Fiorani, Ornella; Zei, Gianna; Pettener, Davide; and Manni, Franz (2012) "General Method to Unravel Ancient Population Structures through Surnames, Final Validation on Italian Data," Human Biology: Vol. 84: Iss. 3, Article 2. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol84/iss3/2 General Method to Unravel Ancient Population Structures through Surnames, Final Validation on Italian Data Abstract We analyze the geographic location of 77,451 different Italian surnames (17,579,891 individuals) obtained from the lists of telephone subscribers of the year 1993. By using a specific neural network analysis (Self-Organizing Maps, SOMs), we automatically identify the geographic origin of 49,117 different surnames. To validate the methodology, we compare the results to a study, previously conducted, on the same database, with accurate supervised methods. By comparing the results, we find na overlap of 97%, meaning that the SOMs methodology is highly reliable and well traces back the geographic origin of surnames at the time of their introduction (Late Middle Ages/Renaissance in Italy).