The Italian Peninsula, a natural pier across the Mediterranean Sea, witnessed intricate population events since the very beginning of the human occupation in Europe. In the last few years, an increasing number of modern and ancient genomes from the area have been published by the international research community. This genomic perspective started unveiling the relevance of Italy to understand the post-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) re-peopling of Europe, the earlier phase of the Neolithic westward migrations, and its linking role between Eastern and Western Mediterranean areas after the Iron Age. However, many open questions are still waiting for more data to be addressed in full. With this review, we summarize the current knowledge emerging from the available ancient Italian individuals and, by re-analysing them all at once, we try to shed light on the avenues future research in the area should cover. In particular, open questions concern (1) the fate of pre-Villabruna Europeans and to what extent their genomic components were absorbed by the post-LGM hunter-gatherers; (2) the role of Sicily and Sardinia before LGM; (3) to what degree the documented genetic structure within the Early Neolithic settlers can be described as two separate migrations; (4) what are the population events behind the marked presence of an Iranian Neolithic-like component in Bronze Age and Iron Age Italian and Southern European samples.

意大利半岛是横跨地中海的天然码头，自人类占领欧洲一开始就见证了错综复杂的人口事件。在过去的几年里，越来越多的来自该地区的现代和古代基因组已被国际研究界发表。这种基因组学观点开始揭示意大利与了解欧洲后末次盛冰期 (LGM) 重新人口、新石器时代向西迁移的早期阶段及其在铁器时代之后东地中海地区和西地中海地区之间的联系作用的相关性。然而，许多悬而未决的问题仍在等待更多数据得到全面解决。通过这篇评论，我们总结了从可用的古代意大利个体中出现的当前知识，并通过一次重新分析它们，我们试图阐明该领域未来研究应涵盖的途径。特别是，未解决的问题涉及（1）前维拉布鲁纳欧洲人的命运以及他们的基因组成分在多大程度上被后LGM狩猎采集者吸收；(2) 西西里岛和撒丁岛在 LGM 之前的角色；（3）在新石器时代早期定居者中记录的遗传结构在多大程度上可以描述为两次独立的迁移；(4) 在青铜时代和铁器时代的意大利和南欧样本中明显存在类似伊朗新石器时代的成分背后的人口事件是什么。(2) 西西里岛和撒丁岛在 LGM 之前的角色；（3）在新石器时代早期定居者中记录的遗传结构在多大程度上可以描述为两次独立的迁移；(4) 在青铜时代和铁器时代的意大利和南欧样本中明显存在类似伊朗新石器时代的成分背后的人口事件是什么。(2) 西西里岛和撒丁岛在 LGM 之前的角色；（3）在新石器时代早期定居者中记录的遗传结构在多大程度上可以描述为两次独立的迁移；(4) 在青铜时代和铁器时代的意大利和南欧样本中明显存在类似伊朗新石器时代的成分背后的人口事件是什么。