"Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Albanians" paper

[Archetype0ne]

Not that it makes much difference either way, given Lazaridis 2017.

We estimated the fixation index, FST, of Bronze Age populationswith present-day West Eurasians, finding that Mycenaeans were leastdifferentiated from populations from Greece, Cyprus, Albania, and Italy (Fig. 2), part of a general pattern in which Bronze Age populations broadly resembled present-day inhabitants from the same region(Extended Data Fig. 7).

But given the TMRCA/diversity, I would posit it was core to Albanian ethnogenesis.

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Jovialis, I am not sure if you are aware of this upcoming paper. But I think this will be quite interesting to you.

New abstract for the Kamenica paper:


Situated in southeastern Albania at the interface of the Aegean and the Adriatic, the Tumulus of Kamenice was used for inhumations from 1600 to 500 BCE. In this work, we generated genome-wide SNP data for 25 individuals from Kamenice that span the full time transect, providing the unique and first possibility for insights into, on one hand, genetic continuities and changes of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Albania, on the other hand, biological relatedness and demography of a single tumulus.


We identified a genetically homogeneous population throughout the respective time in contrast to all societal transformations in the wider region. Our results indicate that populations from Albania, the northern Aegean and Dalmatia form a joint cluster, which differs from the southern Aegean regarding the Neolithic Caucasus-like gene flow, but also from further inland Balkan in terms of hunter-gatherer ancestry.


Moreover, we found evidence for a patrilineal society, within which all the males’ Y chromosomes belong to two distinct sub-groups of R1b1a1b. We identified the biological relatedness up to 6th degree. The amount of relatedness raised after 750 BCE. We also detected a signature of a population size decrease around 750 BCE, which coincides with the prevalence of Y chromosome lineage R1b1a1b1b3 and a new way of grave construction. Overall, all the ancient DNA evidence support a local population bottleneck event.


So the paper is arguing that the population of Kamenica was essentially related and from the same ethno-cultural group from 1600-500 BCE; the increase in R1b-Z2103>Z2106 being associated with a local bottleneck rather than a migration of incomers. It is also outright stated that they will form an autosomal cluster with samples from the western Balkans and the 'northern Aegean' - bearing less 'Neolithic Caucasus-like gene flow' than 'southern Aegean' populations, as well as being distinct from 'inland Balkan' samples based on HG admixture.

 

[Jovialis]

Very fascinating, I look forward to seeing the samples.

 

[Jovialis]

But given the TMRCA/diversity, I would posit it was core to Albanian ethnogenesis.

That would be incredibly remarkable, I think both scenarios are viable and not mutually exclusive either.

 

[Riverman]

That would be incredibly remarkable, I think both scenarios are viable and not mutually exclusive either.

Indeed. Pre/Proto-Greeks might have existed in Albania, ancient Greek tribes lived there, Greek colonies existed in Albania and there is even a modern Greek minority in Albania to this day.

If we think about Epirus, that region might have been Greek before ancient Greece in the narrower sense was ethnically Greek. Molossians and other Greek tribes of Epirus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molossians

 

[Jovialis]

I agree and good overview of possible recent and further ancient origins. Jovialis` and the Albanians' TMRCA is 1050 ybp, that is significantly close.

@Jovialis So you belong to R1b-PF7562>PF7563>Z29758>PF7566>Y227216 (time to most recent common ancestor 1050 ybp). You must be this https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y227216/ sample with origins from Bari then. If so, it is interesting as Z29758 especially PF7566 clades have the highest frequency and diversity among Albanians in Southeast Europe.

Yep that is me.

 

[Jovialis]

Indeed. Pre/Proto-Greeks might have existed in Albania, ancient Greek tribes lived there, Greek colonies existed in Albania and there is even a modern Greek minority in Albania to this day.

If we think about Epirus, that region might have been Greek before ancient Greece in the narrower sense was ethnically Greek. Molossians and other Greek tribes of Epirus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molossians

It is also interesting that both Albanian, and Greek are theorized to descend directly from Yamnaya.

 

[Riverman]

It is also interesting that both Albanian, and Greek are theorized to descend directly from Yamnaya.

That's possible, but even if it wouldn't have been the case, the Albanian and Greek ancestors and historical populations lived always fairly close to each other and mutual gene flow happened in all likelihood all the time.

 

[Archetype0ne]

I would be careful with ascribing 18th century ethnonyms, to specific subclades. Not only because modern ethnonyms denote more political matters than science, but also because it can get unexpectedly messy. Here, approaches akin to what Pax mentioned earlier, I think serve the best.

Because first these R1b clades are not the most prevalent in Minoans or Myceneans to be the cultural bearing marker (albeit we have limited samples). As for proper classical Greek tribes do we have any samples?

But more importantly, even if one makes rigorous distinction between the various people (Minoan, Myceneans, this and that Ancient Greek tribe, Balkan Romans, Christians*, modern Greeks), and then tries to apply Greek*-ness (whatever that is decided to mean) to a specific clade things get very confusing. Like the paradox of anther ethnos being more Greek* than Greeks (based on the prevalence of the very subclade one was trying to argue as Greek), facebook comments level degeneration. We should strive away from such cans of worms.

With all that said. I do have a feeling that the story of R1b subclades, is the one that connects the Albanian and Greek languages within the IE branch. So I am looking forward to future papers of people like Lazaridis, Patterson, and rigorous linguists, archeologists and historians to untangle what's what.

 

[Archetype0ne]

It is also interesting that both Albanian, and Greek are theorized to descend directly from Yamnaya.

Synchronicity here. Was making that point in my previous post while you were posting that.

 

[mount123]

Not that it makes much difference either way, given Lazaridis 2017.



But given the TMRCA/diversity, I would posit it was core to Albanian ethnogenesis.

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Jovialis, I am not sure if you are aware of this upcoming paper. But I think this will be quite interesting to you.

Yes, there are three additonal interesting samples of which one is a low coverage Albanian Balkan Yamnayan sample negative for L23 and possibly PF7562, one IA sample from Northern N. Macedonia that could also be poentially PF7562+ as well as one late IA sample from North Eastern Albania. As was stated in the abstract of the paper that is due to be published the auDNA of the earlier predominantly PF7562+ samples does not look like that of Mycenaeans therefore likely would fit into the realm of typical Southern Central Balkan auDNA.

There is a consistent appearance of PF7562+ in ancient Greek contexts, yes, but since we are dealing with a lineage that likely spread with Yamnaya into SE Europe there is no hindering in certain clades contributing to the later Mycenaean ethnos as well as South Central Paleo-Balkan groups. Z9758 and esp. PF7566 incredible diversity and frequency in Albanians (one of the Greek samples is of Arvanite descent FYI) rather speaks of a much likelier birth in the formation of non-Greek Paleo-Balkan groups.

It is interesting to notice that in modern Greeks PF7562 is insignificant today.

 

[Jovialis]

Out of votes today, unfortunately.

@Archetype, indeed both Greeks and Albanians so intertwined genetically, the main difference is purely cultural. Which at the core of it, is not even that different.

@mount123, that is very interesting regarding the Balkan Yamnaya, and makes perfect sense with the chart.

 

[mount123]

@Riverman

That would be LPIE groups as in Balkan Yamnaya putting the label Albanian or Greek on them is in my opinion erroneous. The latter mix is what makes the charactaeristics of the BA-Classical people. By the way I have never heard any linguist or geneticist consider Albania to have been the route of most Balkan Yamnayan input that we see in later early Greeks. The general consensus is the East Balkan route.

We have gotten the verification of various farmer and late farmer lineages that pop up later in ancient Greece in the East Balkans such as C1a2-V20+ or in the last paper J2a1-Y7010>Y13128 in Bulgaria and Romania.

 

[Hawk]

There is a presence of R1b-PF7562 in Anatolia, i wonder whether it came with Phrygians, Anatolians or Ancient Greeks.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Phrygian. It's presence in ancient Greece so far only hints that it was nearby and dripped down from time to time, but not a core cultural bearer of the ancient Greeks. Though it was likely present in good numbers among Dorians through their historical proximity with the Phrygians. The fact that is barely exists in modern Greeks, does not indicate a core haplogroup among them.

 

[Excine]

R-Y227216 is a medieval Albanian subclade of R-Z29758, one of the most diverse lineages among Albanians. R-Y227216 is distributed from north to south and the medieval TMRCA with Bari (Jovialis) indicates a medieval Albanian/Arbëresh origin. Neither this subclade, nor R-Z29758 have any relation to Greeks or ancient Greeks. The earliest R-M269 in Albania is likely R-PF7562 (2400 BC) and so was one of the Illyrians from the same site in the Iron Age (Çinamak). It's certain that R-Y227216 in Italy has to do with Albanian migrations and it isn't related to any Greek presence while R-Z29758 in Greece comes from younger branches linked to medieval Albanian migrations.

The few R-PF7562 in Mycenaean Greece are very distant to major clades and it seems that they didn't play any major role. See their phylogenetic position in FTDNA's tree https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/R-PF7563/tree . It's not certain how they ended up in Greece but they had a very small presence. As such, the samples from Mycenaean Greece belong to clades which don't have any ancestral relation to Z29758>Y227216 besides both being part of the same haplogroup when they were in the Ukrainian steppe.

The linguistic PIE ancestors of Albanians and Greeks were steppe peoples but the historical Proto-Albanians and Proto-Greeks didn't have much in common besides both being Paleo-Balkan. Neolithic Aegean branches formed Proto-Greeks, while haplogroups like E-V13, J-L283 and steppe haplogroups like R-CTS9219 and R-PF7563 which are important for Proto-Albanians didn't play any role for the formation of Proto-Greeks. Some steppe haplogroup in the early Proto-Greek movements might have had some proximity to Proto-Albanians, but by the Mycenaean era R1b doesn't seem to have been a key part of Aegean societies.

 

[Jovialis]

Here's a PCA I made when the Southern Arch papers came out:

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/42789-A-genetic-probe-into-the-ancient-and-medieval-history-of-Southern-Europe-and-WestAsia/page8?p=656305#post656305


Albanians, like the Greeks, follow the "Northern Model", which was proposed for the origins of the Mycenaean (a two-way between Yamnaya and Neolithic/BA Aegeans (Minoan-like)

Albanian_N and Albanian_NChL is fairly similar to Greece_N, but as Archetype points out, has a bit more Balkan HG.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Indeed. Pre/Proto-Greeks might have existed in Albania, ancient Greek tribes lived there, Greek colonies existed in Albania and there is even a modern Greek minority in Albania to this day.

If we think about Epirus, that region might have been Greek before ancient Greece in the narrower sense was ethnically Greek. Molossians and other Greek tribes of Epirus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molossians

The Greek minority is largely made up of Hellenized Slavs based on their y-haplogroups, the only exception are the Greek speaking villages of Himara(which also has Albanian villages) who are dominated by high ratios of J2a, they are the only genuine Greek minority that seems to have heritage going back to LBA. No R-PF7563 association is visible with modern Greek speakers yet, I doubt this will change.

 

[Archetype0ne]

@Jov
Coincidentally and expectedly in the Southern Arc supplement, when I was ctrl+f-ing for "Albania", every second quote mentioned Greece. But not in equivalence terms. The quotes speak for themselves.




Here are some interesting and relevant quotes from that paper.

Two individuals from
Boyanovo (2500-2000 BCE) also belong to the same “high-steppe” cluster, whose ancestral
proportions are reminiscent of the high-steppe individuals from Romania and Moldova and the
outlier in Çinamak from Albania.

The EHG ancestry is ~3-fold lower in the
Mycenaean samples than in Bronze Age samples from North Macedonia and Albania
immediately to the north of Greece and ~10-fold lower than in Moldova on the edge of the
steppe. Thus, our results suggest that although steppe-derived ancestry was present in Bronze
Age Greece it was quantitatively the weakest discernible component, only a little above the
practically non-existent Balkan hunter-gatherer ancestry.

Estimated admixture proportions for the Minoan sample from
Kephala Petras is within 1% of those of the rest of the Minoans. EHG ancestry of the ElatiLogkas MBA samples from northern Greece is high (16±2%) and contrasts with that of the
Mycenaean population and reaches levels seen in neighboring Albania at Çinamak. The Logkas
samples are separated by a few hundred kilometers and a few centuries from the LBA
Mycenaeans of Central-Southern Greece and are an important datapoint in the Southeastern
European continuum between the low-EHG Mycenaean south and the higher-EHG north.

The existence of these high-steppe individuals thus traces a path Moldova->Romania-
>Bulgaria of southward steppe intrusion into southeastern Europe; moreover the fact that
individuals with high EHG ancestry are found in Bulgaria at the southern end of this expansion
suggests that this is not gradual diffusion (in which case it would be diluted over time by
admixture with intermediate populations) but was—at least in part—due to migration of
individuals of steppe ancestry southward. The presence of these individuals well beyond the
geographical limits of the Steppe (as exemplified by the Çinamak EBA sample from Albania),
suggests that the high-steppe individuals avoided significant admixture with the local population
which would have been expected if the diffusion of steppe ancestry was protracted and gradual.

Other Bronze Age samples from
Serbia have reduced EHG ancestry; the group labeled SRB_BA (2100-1800 BCE; Mokrin and
Ostojicevo) has ~15%, similar to levels observed in other Bronze Age groups from neighboring
Albania, North Macedonia, and Montenegro.

Overall, Bronze Age samples from throughout southeastern Europe average ~15% EHG
ancestry with ~3× more such ancestry in Moldova, the high-steppe group from Romania and
individuals already discussed from Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and northern Greece, and ~3× less
such ancestry in Mycenaean central/southern Greece.

Not surprisingly I was able to make some runs (for Albanian samples of various ages) succeed (IIRC, have to check SE as sample quality was low) with Ukraine Yamnaya as well as (surprisingly) Moldova Catacomb. I suspect the later worked due to it having substantial earlier Yamnaya ancestry.

Quotes are in order of appearance in the supplements (ctrl + f Albania), hence the point might be disjointed, but still evident.
More rigorous quotes from Lazaridis, not mentioning "Greek", but Myceaneans, and rather Greece and Albania geographic terms, which I feel is a fair standard.


All in all, we see that the even on the first sign of early IE peoples in Albania and Greece there seems to already be a substantial autosomal difference.
Log02 and Log04 were not the same as Myceneans, and rather they were similar to MD, RO, BG, AL straight out of steppe movement, the quotes explicitly mention it so that is not controversial.

Now, when I have time I will check what Y these high steppe "outliers" have, maybe it has something to do with these R1bs (whether PF or Z2103). If someone does not get to it first.

 

[epirus1000]

That could be the proto-Greek R1b clade (PF7562/63).

Do you need other proto-Albanian clades to call as proto-Greek?

 

[eupator]

Yes, the PF7562s found in the actual Palace of Nestor are not ancient proto-Greek speakers, they are proto-Illyrians/Albanians or w/e going to the beach for the summer.

Instead, the Logkas cave females, nowhere near any Mycenean centre with no related archaeology are the proto-Greek speakers.

Haha.


PS. And modern Greeks not carrying many or even any pf7562s is irrelevant. This part of the world was the Eastern Roman Empire for 1000+ years, hardly a shaky case for the ethnos of the Graecorums.