Atlantis, as Plato describes it in the Timaeus and Critias around 360 BCE, is one of the most enduring narratives of the Western tradition. A powerful maritime civilization located beyond the Pillars of Hercules, defeated by Athens and then submerged in a single night and day around 9600 BCE. Modern theories have multiplied the possible locations: the central Atlantic, Tartessos in Andalusia, Santorini and the Minoan civilization, Doggerland beneath the North Sea, Antarctica, Cuba, and many others. For centuries, these hypotheses relied on archaeological, geological, and textual arguments. Since 2015, the massive arrival of ancient DNA has added a new dimension to the debate, one that can, in certain cases, exclude specific scenarios. The central idea is simple: an advanced civilization that existed and disappeared, leaving or not leaving descendants, should leave a recoverable genetic trace. If it transmitted genes to modern populations or to the Bronze Age populations that succeeded it, those genes should be detectable in autosomal admixture and in Y and mt lineages. If it was absorbed by surrounding populations, their genetic signal should show a mysterious component unfamiliar to documented sources. If it disappeared without descendants, its existence should still have left an observable demographic gap. The paleogenetic data accumulated over the past ten years now allows these predictions to be tested region by region. The results, for the most widely discussed theories, are largely negative: none of the Mediterranean or Atlantic Bronze Age populations requires an unknown genetic source, and all modern populations from the regions concerned model cleanly from documented sources (European hunter-gatherers, Anatolian Neolithic farmers, Yamnaya steppe pastoralists, and later regional inputs).

Atlantis theories meet ancient DNA: from submerged ruins to laboratory bone analysis

Key Points

  • Plato's original account (Timaeus and Critias, 360 BCE) dates the submersion of Atlantis to approximately 9600 BCE, during the Younger Dryas, when all of Europe and the Mediterranean were inhabited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.
  • The paleogenetics of European Mesolithic populations (Loschbour WHG, Cheddar Man, and all genomes published to date) reveal hunter-gatherer populations with no trace of an advanced civilization, neither in their ancestral sources nor in their genetics.
  • Mediterranean Bronze Age populations (Minoans and Mycenaeans studied by Lazaridis et al. 2017 and Skourtanioti et al. 2020) model fully from documented sources: Anatolian Neolithic farmers, ancient Iranian (CHG) component, and limited steppe input for the Mycenaeans.
  • The Nuragic civilization of Sardinia, sometimes proposed as an Atlantis candidate, shows perfect genetic continuity with the local Sardinian Neolithic (G25 distance of 0.0127 between Nuragic_avg and Sardinia_N).
  • Tartessos in Andalusia, another famous candidate, has a single individual in the G25 panel (Spain_EIA_Tartessian:I12171) who models as 79% Argar BA (local southern Iberian substrate) + 18% Bell Beaker steppe + 2.6% Levantine input: a normal descendant of the Iberian Bronze Age.
  • Doggerland, the continental shelf now submerged beneath the North Sea, was inhabited during the Mesolithic by the same WHG populations as the rest of Western Europe, with no trace of supra-village organization or technological advancement.
  • The eruption of Santorini (Thera) around 1600 BCE is a real and documented event that affected the Minoan civilization, but the Minoans were genetically continuous with surrounding Aegean populations, and their civilization did not disappear: it was progressively absorbed by the Mycenaeans.
  • None of the genetic predictions of a "lost civilization" (foreign autosomal component, unknown Y lineages, abnormal sex ratio, demographic vacuum) is observed in modern or ancient populations of the regions discussed. Paleogenetics therefore excludes the versions of the Atlantis hypothesis that assume a demography distinct from documented populations.

1. The original account and its chronological problem

Plato attributes his Atlantis story to Solon, who reportedly learned it from the Egyptian priests of Sais. In the Timaeus, the account places the Atlantean civilization beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), on an island larger than Libya and Asia combined. In the Critias, Plato specifies that the Atlantean civilization was submerged in a single night and day, after losing a war against Athens, and that approximately nine thousand years had passed between this catastrophe and his own time, placing the event around 9600 BCE.

Plato's date is precisely the element that creates a major problem for any literal interpretation. Around 9600 BCE, the end of the Younger Dryas, all of Western Europe, the North Atlantic, and the Mediterranean were inhabited exclusively by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Archaeology has never found, at that date, monumental structures, agriculture, metallurgy, writing, or any other marker of civilization in the sense Plato attaches to the word. The earliest attested monumental structures are those of Gobekli Tepe in Anatolia, around 9500 BCE, but they belong to pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer communities without organized agriculture. Urbanization and civilization as Plato describes them appear in the archaeological record only from the fourth millennium BCE onward, in Mesopotamia first, then in Egypt.

Paleogenetics complements this archaeological observation. The Mesolithic European and Atlantic genomes published to date, several dozen in total, including Loschbour (Luxembourg, 8000 BCE), Cheddar Man (England, 7000 BCE), La Brana-1 (Spain, 7000 BCE), and Bichon (Switzerland, 13700 BCE), all reveal a coherent hunter-gatherer population descended from European Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (mt U5 lineages, Y I2 lineages), with a way of life incompatible with an advanced maritime civilization.

2. What paleogenetics can and cannot say

Paleogenetics has precise capabilities and precise limits in evaluating a lost-civilization hypothesis. It can, from autosomal sequences, Y and mt haplogroups, and formal admixture analyses such as qpAdm or G25 models, test whether a given population requires an unknown ancestral source or models entirely from documented sources. If an advanced civilization had existed in the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age and had been absorbed by surrounding populations, its genetic contribution should be recoverable as a specific autosomal component with distinctive Y and mt haplogroups.

What paleogenetics cannot do is rule out the existence of a civilization that left no identifiable descendants, for example a population entirely eliminated by catastrophe before any genetic transmission. What paleogenetics also cannot do is test the hypothesis if the "Atlanteans" were simply one of the known populations, with advanced political organization but ordinary genetics. Paleogenetics therefore excludes certain versions of Atlantis theories, but not all of them.

3. Theory 1: the central Atlantic

The theory that Atlantis was located in the middle of the Atlantic, defended by Ignatius Donnelly in his 1882 book "Atlantis: The Antediluvian World," supposes that Plato's island was literally situated in the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and the Americas. Donnelly imagined that Atlantis had been the source of a cultural diffusion to Europe on one side and the Americas on the other, explaining the supposed similarities between Mesoamerican and Egyptian civilizations. Paleogenetics has completely excluded this Atlantic diffusion hypothesis.

Pre-Columbian populations of the Americas model as descended from a single migration through Beringia (the Bering land bridge) approximately 16,000 years ago, with affinities to ancient Siberian populations and no European or Atlantic input prior to post-1492 contact. Formal admixture analyses on hundreds of Native American genomes, ancient and modern, show no pre-Columbian European component. If an Atlantean civilization had colonized the Americas from the central Atlantic, its genetic contribution would be massively visible in pre-Columbian Native American populations. It is not.

Similarly, Western European populations (Irish, Bretons, Galicians, Atlantic Portuguese) model entirely from documented European sources: Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG), Anatolian Neolithic farmers (EEF), steppe pastoralists (Yamnaya), and historical regional inputs. No unexplained autosomal component requires an unknown Atlantic source.

4. Theory 2: Tartessos in Andalusia

The Tartessos hypothesis, supported by the German archaeologist Adolf Schulten from 1922 and revived recently by Richard Freund (2011) at the Donana site, identifies Atlantis with the Tartessian civilization of southwestern Spain (approximately 800-500 BCE). This civilization, mentioned by Greek and Phoenician sources, controlled the metallurgical resources of the lower Guadalquivir valley and maintained extensive maritime contacts in the western Mediterranean. Schulten and his successors suggested that Tartessos could be the historical source of Plato's account, its collapse around 500 BCE (probably through a combination of political upheaval and natural catastrophe, possibly a tsunami) explaining the Platonic motif of sudden disappearance.

A single individual studied genetically, labeled Spain_EIA_Tartessian:I12171, is available in the current G25 panel to test this hypothesis. His G25 coordinates place him in a region of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Iberian variation, close to the El Argar populations of southeastern Iberia (BA Argar) and to the low-steppe Bell Beaker component. NNLS modeling produces a clean result: 79% Argar Bronze Age + 18% Bell Beaker with high steppe input + 2.6% South Levant, with an excellent fit (0.0341). The residual Levantine component probably reflects historically documented Phoenician contacts.

This Tartessian individual is therefore, genetically, a normal Iberian Bronze Age descendant, with a strong local substrate, a moderate steppe input (typical of post-Bell Beaker Iberian populations), and a slight Levantine component attributable to Phoenician maritime contacts. No unknown genetic source is required. The Tartessian civilization, whose existence and metallurgical sophistication are well documented archaeologically, carries no exotic demographic signature.

5. Theory 3: the Minoan civilization and Santorini

The Minoan hypothesis, popularized by the Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos in 1939, identifies Atlantis with the Minoan civilization of Crete, whose peak corresponds to the Middle and Late Bronze Age (1900-1450 BCE). The eruption of Santorini (Thera) around 1600 BCE, one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the Holocene, did effectively cause a catastrophe on Thera itself (complete burial of the Akrotiri site under ash) and probably contributed to the progressive decline of Minoan civilization over the following two centuries. The similarity with Plato's motif of sudden submersion is attractive.

The paleogenetic studies of Lazaridis et al. 2017 (Nature, "Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans") and Skourtanioti et al. 2020 (Cell, "Genomic history of the Bronze Age Mediterranean") sequenced several dozen Minoan and Mycenaean individuals directly. The results are remarkably precise. Minoans model as a population derived primarily from Anatolian Neolithic farmers (approximately 79%) with an ancient Iranian / CHG (Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer) input of approximately 17%, and a small European hunter-gatherer (WHG) component of approximately 4%. No "outlier" non-documented component is required. Mycenaeans add to this base a steppe component (approximately 4 to 16%), reflecting the Yamnaya-derived migrations that reached mainland Greece between 2500 and 1500 BCE.

Modern Cretan Greeks (Greek_Crete in the G25 panel) confirm this continuity: at G25 distance 0.0174 from Italian_Calabria, 0.0287 from Greek_Laconia, 0.0336 from Greek_Peloponnese. The modern Cretan profile is entirely integrated into the central Mediterranean landscape, with no exotic component. The Minoan civilization, despite its remarkable sophistication (the palace of Knossos, the Linear A script, the Thera frescoes), is genetically continuous with neighboring Bronze Age Aegean populations.

6. Theory 4: Doggerland and the North Sea

More recently, some researchers have proposed that the motif of Atlantis submersion may reflect, in distorted form, the real memory of the submersion of Doggerland, the vast continental shelf that connected England to the European continent and that was progressively submerged between 18,000 and 6,500 BCE during the post-Wurm deglaciation. The date of final submersion (approximately 6500 BCE, following a tsunami caused by the Storegga submarine landslide) is closer to the Platonic date than other theories, though it remains 3,000 years earlier.

The archaeological evidence from Doggerland (Mesolithic artifacts recovered from the North Sea floor by trawlers, late Mesolithic coastal sites on the current shores of northeastern England and Frisia) clearly indicates a population of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, without agriculture, without metallurgy, without monumental structures. The few human remains from Doggerland studied genetically (including cranial fragments recovered off the Dutch coast) correspond to the Western WHG population, identical to Loschbour, Cheddar Man, and other contemporary western European Mesolithics. Doggerland was a habitable and inhabited land, but its inhabitants were not Atlanteans: they were Western hunter-gatherers entirely typical for their era.

7. Continuity vs. replacement: what an Atlantis event would leave in the genome

If an advanced Atlantean civilization had existed and had been suddenly eliminated, as Plato describes, two alternative genetic scenarios are possible. First scenario: the Atlanteans left descendants who mixed with surrounding populations. In this case, their distinct genetic component should be detectable as a fraction of ancestry unexplained by documented sources in Mediterranean or Atlantic Bronze Age populations and later periods. Second scenario: the Atlanteans disappeared without descendants, but their satellite populations (traders, slaves, allies) would have carried their genetic signal, and would also have been absorbed into surrounding populations.

In both scenarios, paleogenetics would have ways to detect the signal. Formal admixture analyses on modern and ancient populations use methods (qpAdm, ADMIXTURE, fastNGSadmix) that identify fractions of ancestry unexplained by documented sources. The resolution of these methods is sufficient to detect ancestral components representing 1 to 5 percent of a population, provided the component is sufficiently distinct genetically. The analyses published to date on Mediterranean and Atlantic Bronze Age populations reveal no component of this nature. All populations are explained by known sources: WHG, EEF (Anatolian farmers), CHG (Caucasus hunter-gatherers), Yamnaya, and later regional inputs.

8. The phases of the Mediterranean Bronze Age

9600 BCE (Platonic date)
Mesolithic: no civilization possible

The date given by Plato corresponds to the end of the Younger Dryas, a period when all of Europe and the Mediterranean were inhabited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. WHG genomes (Loschbour, Cheddar Man, La Brana-1) confirm a hunter-gatherer population with no civilizational capacity in the Platonic sense. The earliest known monumental site, Gobekli Tepe, was itself pre-Neolithic and organized by hunter-gatherers.

7000-5000 BCE
Neolithic: the first real civilization arrives

Anatolian Neolithic farmers (EEF) cross the Aegean around 7000 BCE, bringing agriculture, ceramics, and a new genetic profile. They progressively colonize the Mediterranean and Atlantic Europe around 5500-4500 BCE. This Neolithic migration is the first true demographic and civilizational transformation of the post-glacial Mediterranean.

3000-2500 BCE
Bell Beaker and steppe input

The Bell Beaker expansion, partially derived from Corded Ware descendants of the Yamnaya migration, reaches Iberia, Brittany, and the British Isles. Atlantic European populations acquire their characteristic steppe component. The Iberian Bronze Age population (including the direct ancestors of the Tartessians) forms through Bell Beaker + local Neolithic substrate mixture.

1900-1450 BCE
Minoan apogee

Minoan civilization reaches its peak on Crete. Genetically, the Minoans are 79% Anatolian Neolithic + 17% CHG + 4% WHG, with no exotic component. Contemporary Mycenaeans add a moderate steppe input to this base. The Santorini eruption around 1600 BCE does not significantly alter the regional genetic profile.

800-500 BCE
Tartessos in Andalusia

The Tartessian civilization controls the metallurgical resources of the Guadalquivir and maintains extensive commercial contacts with the Phoenicians. The genetically studied individual I12171 models as 79% Argar BA + 18% Bell Beaker steppe + 2.6% Levant: a normal Iberian descendant with a slight Phoenician input.

From Neolithic to modern
Sardinia: perfect continuity

The Sardinian Nuragic civilization (1600-700 BCE), proposed by some as an Atlantean candidate, shows exceptionally complete genetic continuity with the Sardinian Neolithic. G25 distance of 0.0127 between Nuragic_avg and Sardinia_N. The Nuragic civilization emerged from the local Sardinian population without significant external input.

9. Myths and paleogenetic realities

Myth: an Atlantean civilization preceded all others and transmitted agriculture, writing, and monumental architecture to them

This idea, defended by Donnelly (1882) and by various modern esoteric traditions, supposes a cultural diffusion from a central Atlantean source to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Mesoamerican civilizations.

Reality: agriculture appeared independently in at least seven global centers

Neolithic origins are independent and well traced genetically: Fertile Crescent (12000 BCE), China (10000 BCE), Mesoamerica (8000 BCE), Andes (8000 BCE), sub-Saharan Africa (5000 BCE), New Guinea (7000 BCE), North America (4000 BCE). No common external source is required or detectable.

Myth: the Minoans had exotic origins (Atlantean, Egyptian, or other)

Various theories have proposed that Minoan civilization, by its early sophistication, must have had origins outside the Aegean.

Reality: the Minoans descend directly from Anatolian Neolithic farmers, themselves ancient in the Aegean

Lazaridis et al. 2017 showed that the Minoans are genetically continuous with the Anatolian Neolithic populations that colonized Crete around 7000-6500 BCE, with an ancient Iranian input and a minor European hunter-gatherer contribution. No exotic source is required.

Myth: the Tartessians were a non-Iberian people of Atlantean origin

Several authors have suggested that the Tartessians, given their Atlantic location and metallurgical sophistication, must have had origins outside the Iberian peninsula.

Reality: the Tartessians are normal Iberian Bronze Age descendants

The individual Spain_EIA_Tartessian:I12171 models as a local descendant: 79% Argar BA (southern Iberian substrate) + 18% Bell Beaker steppe + 2.6% South Levant (Phoenician input). Profile entirely compatible with contemporary documented Iberian populations.

Myth: an advanced population disappeared in the North Sea with Doggerland

The idea that the submersion of Doggerland (around 6500 BCE) eliminated a hidden civilization has circulated in recent popular literature.

Reality: Doggerland was inhabited by WHG hunter-gatherers like the rest of Western Europe

Artifacts recovered from the North Sea floor and the few human remains studied correspond to standard Mesolithic material culture and the Western WHG genetic profile. No distinct demographic signature.

10. Conclusion: what paleogenetics excludes

Paleogenetics now allows several precise versions of the Atlantis hypotheses to be excluded. First, it excludes the existence of a pre-Neolithic advanced maritime Atlantic civilization that left demographically traceable descendants: no European or Mediterranean population carries an unexplained ancestral component corresponding to a pre-7000 BCE Atlantic source. Second, it excludes the identification of Tartessos as a genetically distinct civilization: the studied Tartessian individual is a normal local descendant. Third, it excludes the identification of the Minoans as an exotic population: their profile derives cleanly from documented Aegean sources. Fourth, it excludes the identification of Doggerland as a lost civilization: its inhabitants were ordinary Western hunter-gatherers.

What paleogenetics cannot exclude is the allegorical interpretation of Plato (which most classical scholars have favored since Antiquity), nor the idea that the Atlantis account reflects, in distorted form, the memory of real natural events (Santorini eruption, Doggerland submersion, Storegga tsunami, decline of Tartessos) that impressed the oral sources transmitted to Plato. Paleogenetics eliminates versions of the hypothesis that assume a distinct demography; it leaves intact the purely cultural, allegorical, or symbolic versions.

11. References

  1. Lazaridis, I., Mittnik, A., Patterson, N., Mallick, S., Rohland, N., Pfrengle, S., et al. (2017). Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans. Nature, 548(7666), 214-218. DOI: 10.1038/nature23310 Minoans Mycenaeans
  2. Skourtanioti, E., Erdal, Y. S., Frangipane, M., Balossi Restelli, F., Yener, K. A., Pinnock, F., et al. (2020). Genomic history of Neolithic to Bronze Age Anatolia, Northern Levant, and Southern Caucasus. Cell, 181(5), 1158-1175. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.044 Bronze Age Mediterranean
  3. Olalde, I., Mallick, S., Patterson, N., Rohland, N., Villalba-Mouco, V., Silva, M., et al. (2019). The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years. Science, 363(6432), 1230-1234. DOI: 10.1126/science.aav4040 Iberia Tartessos
  4. Marcus, J. H., Posth, C., Ringbauer, H., Lai, L., Skeates, R., Sidore, C., et al. (2020). Genetic history from the Middle Neolithic to present on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Nature Communications, 11, 939. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14523-6 Sardinia Nuragic
  5. Mathieson, I., Alpaslan-Roodenberg, S., Posth, C., Szecsenyi-Nagy, A., Rohland, N., Mallick, S., et al. (2018). The genomic history of southeastern Europe. Nature, 555(7695), 197-203. DOI: 10.1038/nature25778 SE Europe
  6. Olalde, I., Brace, S., Allentoft, M. E., Armit, I., Kristiansen, K., Booth, T., et al. (2018). The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe. Nature, 555(7695), 190-196. DOI: 10.1038/nature25738 Bell Beaker
  7. Lazaridis, I., Patterson, N., Mittnik, A., Renaud, G., Mallick, S., Kirsanow, K., et al. (2014). Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans. Nature, 513(7518), 409-413. DOI: 10.1038/nature13673 Ancestral Europe
  8. Reich, D. (2018). Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. Pantheon Books. Reference synthesis on modern paleogenetics. Synthesis
  9. Plato. Timaeus and Critias (circa 360 BCE). Primary sources of the Atlantis account. Reference edition: Plato, Complete Works, John M. Cooper (ed.), Hackett Publishing. Primary source
  10. Marinatos, S. (1939). The volcanic destruction of Minoan Crete. Antiquity, 13(52), 425-439. Founding article of the Minoan Atlantis hypothesis. Minoan hypothesis
  11. Schulten, A. (1922). Tartessos: Beitrag zur altesten Geschichte des Westens. Hamburg. Tartessos hypothesis. Tartessos hypothesis
  12. Davidski, A. (ongoing). Global25 PCA modern and ancient population averages. eurogenes.blogspot.com G25
G25 coordinates - Populations tested for the Atlantis hypotheses 
Spain_EIA_Tartessian:I12171,0.108132,0.119832,0.04527,0.011637,0.040623,0.005020,0.005402,-0.004615,0.012885,0.010570,0.000162,0.001049,-0.018880,-0.027937,0.010179,0.010214,0.001565,0.004941,-0.011187,-0.000750,0.001372,-0.003339,0.011216,0.001686,0.001437
Iberia_BellBeaker_high_steppe,0.097888,0.090886,0.034706,-0.064923,0.034776,-0.001394,-0.004465,-0.012923,0.029861,0.067555,0.011529,-0.005096,-0.024826,-0.034266,0.022937,0.003315,-0.022818,0.009248,0.001131,-0.005378,0.002746,-0.010881,0.004067,-0.000843,-0.000479
Spain_SE_Iberia_BA_Argar:CMO001,0.110408,0.122879,0.043009,0.005168,0.034468,0.000279,0.005637,-0.010846,0.024137,0.039320,0.012179,0.007643,-0.025272,-0.025460,0.014794,0.003580,0.005215,-0.000507,-0.001131,0.001751,0.005989,-0.000371,0.005423,-0.014579,-0.001317
Italy_Sardinia_N,0.124067,0.066879,0.119399,0.024555,0.039392,-0.000559,0.007990,-0.022769,0.036610,0.034626,-0.002111,-0.011540,-0.014866,-0.039497,0.029858,-0.002519,-0.000522,0.012023,0.013576,-0.005628,-0.009109,0.013478,0.003574,0.030727,0.000838
Italy_Sardinia_BA_Nuragic,0.129231,0.087840,0.106337,0.014860,0.046470,-0.001952,0.005870,-0.014769,0.027006,0.032714,-0.005195,-0.001948,-0.025272,-0.043488,0.038815,0.008486,-0.005215,0.005954,0.010056,-0.005628,-0.005740,0.008780,0.003574,0.026630,-0.001317
Italy_Sardinia_LBA,0.135449,0.090886,0.108221,0.011637,0.052010,0.000139,0.001645,-0.018230,0.024546,0.029522,-0.005195,-0.005246,-0.020812,-0.047204,0.038408,0.001856,-0.003781,0.005321,0.015841,-0.004127,-0.012603,0.008780,0.000123,0.027233,-0.000718
Sardinian,0.124067,0.121863,0.027106,-0.023820,0.034468,0.000279,-0.000235,-0.001846,0.018192,0.029522,-0.001787,-0.000599,-0.024826,-0.029866,0.014523,-0.000928,-0.022427,-0.002280,-0.003897,-0.004127,-0.001872,-0.005069,-0.002218,-0.005301,-0.000838
Greek_Crete,0.114436,0.130003,0.040368,-0.012921,0.045854,-0.005020,0.000470,0.000231,0.019215,0.020411,-0.001624,0.005096,-0.030177,-0.027525,0.005565,-0.000662,-0.020600,-0.006208,0.001886,-0.002126,-0.001247,-0.005317,-0.002834,-0.011927,0.001078
Greek_Peloponnese,0.117851,0.137096,0.034329,-0.014860,0.040007,0.003626,0.000470,-0.000231,0.013090,0.013846,-0.005521,-0.002847,-0.018880,-0.018579,0.005158,0.002917,-0.013821,-0.002280,0.000503,0.001876,0.001996,-0.001236,-0.001725,-0.004579,-0.001317
Luxembourg_Loschbour_WHG,0.130896,0.109677,0.203645,0.094893,0.118483,0.085159,-0.060866,-0.072690,-0.013704,-0.011115,-0.002111,0.011840,0.012636,0.030414,-0.027957,-0.063063,-0.038463,0.005954,-0.013576,-0.001751,0.012976,-0.000247,0.011709,-0.001686,-0.001317
Anatolia_Central,0.106994,0.115785,0.062602,0.005168,0.071933,-0.020638,0.020332,-0.027770,0.018602,0.018769,0.013316,0.025978,-0.013974,-0.013764,-0.013572,-0.024264,-0.011083,0.005321,-0.001509,-0.009005,-0.008984,0.000866,0.014913,-0.014096,-0.005508
Italian_Calabria,0.115574,0.131019,0.040745,-0.011637,0.041854,0.001394,0.001645,0.000692,0.011045,0.012574,0.000487,-0.000749,-0.020366,-0.018855,0.011401,-0.000928,-0.011344,-0.001520,0.000503,0.001125,0.001995,-0.002104,-0.001479,-0.000241,-0.000958
Aegean,0.114436,0.130003,0.038484,-0.009053,0.043392,0.001952,0.000470,-0.000462,0.013090,0.012574,-0.002111,0.001349,-0.022150,-0.022019,0.009907,0.000397,-0.014864,-0.003041,0.000378,0.000625,0.001247,-0.002844,-0.002218,-0.005542,-0.000599

G25 test: Tartessian individual (I12171) modeled from documented sources

Argar BA (local southern Iberian substrate) Bell Beaker steppe (Yamnaya-derived input) South Levant (Phoenician input)
Spain_EIA_Tartessian:I12171 (fit 0.034)
79.4%
18.0%
2.6%

The Tartessian individual I12171 models as a standard Iberian descendant: 79% Argar Bronze Age substrate + 18% high-steppe Bell Beaker + 2.6% South Levant. The residual Levantine component reflects historically documented Phoenician contacts. No unknown genetic source is required to explain this genome. If Tartessos was Atlantis, its inhabitants were genetically identical to Iberian Bronze Age populations.

Sardinian genetic continuity: from Neolithic to Nuragic Bronze Age

G25 distance between Italy_Sardinia_BA_Nuragic (Nuragic civilization, 1600-700 BCE) and earlier or contemporary Sardinian populations.

Nuragic vs Sardinia_LBA
0.0114
Nuragic vs Sardinia_N (Neolithic)
0.0127
Nuragic vs Sardinia_EBA
0.0145
Nuragic vs Iberia_BellBeaker_no_steppe
0.0319
Nuragic vs modern Sardinian
0.0428

The Nuragic Sardinian civilization, sometimes proposed as an Atlantean candidate because of its remarkable megalithic towers (nuraghi), is genetically the simple continuation of the local Sardinian Neolithic population, with minimal external input. The distance between Nuragic and Sardinia_LBA (0.0114) is smaller than the distance between contemporary neighboring populations: the Nuragic Bronze Age Sardinia emerged from the local Sardinian substrate without significant migration. No "Atlantean" demographic signature is detectable.