"Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Albanians" paper

[Johane Derite]

"Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Albanians"

Big new paper. Think it should have a dedicated thread.

LINK:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790v1

Conclusions:

"However, in agreement with linguistic studies, we find that Albanians likely descend from a surviving West palaeo-Balkan population that experienced significant demographic increase approximately between 500-800 CE, perhaps after a population bottleneck. We show that in contrast to the rest of the Balkans, the Medieval samples from both North and South Albania experienced little to no contribution from surrounding Slavic populations and maintained high levels of BA-IA West Balkan ancestry. Remarkably, the same genetic profile persisted 500-800 years later in most of the post-Medieval samples from Bardhoc, as shown both by the PCA, qpAdm analyses, and IBD data, which indicate significant genetic continuity from the Medieval populations of Albania. However, qpAdm models cannot exclude the possibility of additional admixture with currently unsampled neighbouring late Roman-early Medieval palaeo-Balkan groups with a similar ancestry profile. Based on linguistic data, the area of modern Kosovo and southeastern Serbia may have been such a source.

Despite being largely unaffected by the demographic changes that took place during the Migration period, the historical Albanians did not emerge in isolation. At the peak of the Migration Period, the Medieval population of Albania displayed genetic links as far as Pannonia... Furthermore, two of the post-Medieval samples exhibit significant admixture with South Slavic populations, and modern Albanians display highly variable levels of Slavic ancestry. This indicates complex historical interactions with South Slavic populations, as suggested by toponymy and linguistics."

 

[Francesco]

That's a pretty solid continuity with their Iron age predecessors.

 

[Omino]

That's a pretty solid continuity with their Iron age predecessors.

yeah somewhere between 52-82%
View attachment 13911

 

[Kari]

yeah somewhere between 52-82%
View attachment 13911

My prediction is around 56-75%,since the slavic ancestry is around 25%.
The research also says:"The close clustering of BA-IA populations from Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia,
and northern Greece is also confirmed in proximate qpAdm models, as the ?inamak MLBA-IA
samples derive most of their ancestry from the West Balkans (Tables S8-S9), with a possible 15-
25% contribution from a southeast Balkan source (Bulgaria EIA, Greece BA Mycenaean) after the
Middle Bronze Age (MBA) (Table S9)"

The truth is that i had detected that southeast balkan source,and i think that modern albanians derive around 15-20% from southeast balkan populations.
Distance to: ITA_Sicily_Himera_480BCE_1
0.06629520 Albania_LIA-Roman_Republic_Cinamak
0.06695643 Albanian
0.07006565 Albania_LIA_Cinamak
0.07241172 Albania_LBA-LIA_Cinamak
0.08227858 Albania_MLBA-LIA_Cinamak
0.08268347 Albania_MBA

The thing is,that Cinamak albanians(LIA) are as close to Ancient Greeks as the modern albanians.How is that possible,having the same distances after a huge migration of slavs,from who you derive 1/4 of your ancestry?Did some Greeks migrate to Albania after the invasion or before to boost that Southeast Balkan source?

 

[bigsnake49]

No new samples are include with this paper. Also it has not gone through peer review yet. So hold on to your horses.

 

[Jovialis]

I see Davidski is an author, if I'm not mistaken. Based on his attitude towards academic papers, why do this? What happed to all that bullshit he says about appealing to authority and other garbage?

No new samples are include with this paper. Also it has not gone through peer review yet. So hold on to your horses.

Also one of the authors (Davidski) believes modern Greeks are Cypriots mixed with Slavs with little to no connections to the Ancient Greeks.

 

[torzio]

Another paper that states the Messapics arrived in Italy 400 years after the Daunians arrived in Foggia Italy ....................is he saying the area ( messapic ) is also related with Cypriots ?.....past studies have shown the link was with cretans

 

[torzio]

I have agreed with this comment for many years
Furthermore, all of the ethnonyms of ancient Balkan peoples, such as
“Illyrian” and “Thracian”, are likely artificial labels

Moesians are different from other thracian groups such as Getae, Dacians etc

 

[kingjohn]

 

[Jovialis]

I see Davidski is an author, if I'm not mistaken. Based on his attitude towards academic papers, why do this? What happed to all that bullshit he says about appealing to authority and other garbage?

Also one of the authors (Davidski) believes modern Greeks are Cypriots mixed with Slavs with little to no connections to the Ancient Greeks.

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2021/05/beware-of-greeks-bearing-gifts.html


I do not trust this guy to give a fair and accurate assessment, especially with assessments such as this.

Davidski said:

Note that most of the present-day Greek groups cluster together, and they also form fairly neat clines with the other Greeks, as well as Cypriots, other Balkan populations, including those speaking Slavic languages, and also the Slavic-speaking Ukrainians. On the other hand, they don't overlap with any of the ancient groups from Greece and surrounds, nor do they generally form obvious clines with them.

To me this suggests that most present-day Greeks harbor significant levels of Slavic ancestry and some sort of recent Cypriot-related ancestry, and in large part they're only coincidentally similar to ancient Aegeans, including those from the MBA (labeled Greece_Helladic_MBA in my graphs).

And let me assure you that no matter which ancient populations you run in such D-stats, you'll always see similar present-day Greek clusters and present-day Balkan clines.

Obviously, it's fair enough to assume that there's been some genetic continuity in the Aegean from the Iron Age, Bronze Age, and even the Copper Age and Neolithic era to the present-day. But the point I'm making is that no one has yet proved this, or even attempted to measure it properly.

Genetics has shown that Modern Greeks do in fact descend from the ancients, it is not a coincidence. The only people that think otherwise are ab invisible minority on the internet.

Even laymen already think the ancients are related to the modern Greeks, so they know better than people who have their mind polluted with sophistry, on the internet.

 

[Leopoldo Leone]

I see Davidski is an author, if I'm not mistaken. Based on his attitude towards academic papers, why do this? What happed to all that bullshit he says about appealing to authority and other garbage?
Also one of the authors (Davidski) believes modern Greeks are Cypriots mixed with Slavs with little to no connections to the Ancient Greeks.

How does it work? He co-authored a paper that argues for great continuity in Albanians, so in order to him to hold that Greeks are in a genealogical sense Cypriot mixed with Slavs he must believe that somehow by pure coincidence there's an overlap between north Greeks and Albanians (unless he believes north Greeks are genealogically speaking just Greek-speaking Albanians) and that two contiguous regions underwent totally different gene flows without much gene flows between them (in other words, for Albania he posits relative stability of the gene pool, for Greece he posits near-replacement level migrations from the east med followed by massive migrations from east Europe, but such two gene flows would have not affected Albania much despite being contiguous with Greece).

Such theories put Occam's razor on the shelf.

 

[Jovialis]

How does it work? He co-authored a paper that argues for great continuity in Albanians, so in order to him to hold that Greeks are in a genealogical sense Cypriot mixed with Slavs he must believe that somehow by pure coincidence there's an overlap between north Greeks and Albanians (unless he believes north Greeks are genealogically speaking just Greek-speaking Albanians) and that two contiguous regions underwent totally different gene flows without much gene flows between them (in other words, for Albania he posits relative stability of the gene pool, for Greece he posits near-replacement level migrations from the east med followed by massive migrations from east Europe, but such two gene flows would have not affected Albania much despite being contiguous with Greece).

Such theories put Occam's razor on the shelf.

Ironically, I found the paper linked by Lazaridis on twitter.

I wonder if Lazaridis knows how little Davidski think of his seminal works... Davidski told me himself that Lazaridis et al. 2017 was a bad paper, even when it came out. I pointed out that it was still being cited, so it can't be that bad, and that made him pretty angry. When I would point to an academic paper to refute his claims, he went on some tirade about how I'm "appealing to authority" and that the papers are not always right. Fine, but now here he is as an author. Maybe he should stay on his blog, and not act like a hypocrite.

 

[mount123]

Nice chart. Iosif Lazaridis and Razib Khan have shared this paper. The methodology used in the paper, and I have already said this in the Balkan BA thread, is really good. Would be great to see such nuanced work with other upcoming Balkan aDNA papers.

Also great work regarding uniparental analysis although I have mentioned suggestions for improvement for J2b-L283. Other uniparentals have also been discussed in the Bronze Age thread.

The Paleo-Balkan paternal heritage is a solid proven point for all major markers among Albanians: E1b-V13, R1b-Z2103, R1b-PF7562, J2b-L283.

 

[Archetype0ne]

To be honest, the paper is okay, some lapses here and there that I hope don't survive the peer review...
but overall there is nothing new in this paper, and the findings are in line with Lazaridis Southern Arc, and even his older work.

The second link, I think was the first paper attempting to quantify continuity in Greeks.

Overall this paper is a positive effort to summarize the research on Albanian archaeogenetics. At least in getting the ball rolling.
And while it needs improvement, my biggest pet peeve accepting models with <0.15SE (first time I see this standard in archeogenetics paper). They could have avoided themselves some ridiculous conclusions, had they stuck to the more scientific <0.05SE, but it is easily amended.

As to the authors, I dislike judging a book by its cover, so I will stick to criticizing the paper on its own merits. Still have to slow read the paper, reserving final judgment till then.

 

[Jovialis]

^^That's actually a Davidski quote, not mine.

Let me edit it for clarity. I wouldn't want people to get the wrong impression of my position on the topic.

I absolutely do think there's continuity from the Ancient Greeks to Modern (with some small but significant Slavic augmentation)

 

[Archetype0ne]

I see, I misunderstood. I remember well we discussed that paper at length some years ago, so I was sure you were aware of it.

 

[Jovialis]

^^Also, that is true about this being not a new breakthrough paper, and just using samples we already have. Though I actually like that format for papers, as it presents a more deliberated understanding of what is possible to theorize with the samples wholistically.

New samples create new questions, papers like this are basically trying to answer established ones.

 

[Archetype0ne]

^Agreed. It also is a more easily digestible format.

Sometimes following this hobby more seriously, feels like doing non rigorous postgrad work.
While more read members here and there that followed the publications and ran the models themselves, are aware of all these facts, for someone that does not have the time and drive to digest all that information, this format is superior. Just the Southern Arc supplement is textbook length and complexity, let alone concurrent publications on the topic.

 

[mount123]

This is also a nice layout:

Migration era haplogroups should have been divided into Imperial era and medieval Slavic ones, IMO. Tree diagram on the left side of the uniparentals is also a bit misleading and doesn't serve any purpose.

 

[torzio]

How does it work? He co-authored a paper that argues for great continuity in Albanians, so in order to him to hold that Greeks are in a genealogical sense Cypriot mixed with Slavs he must believe that somehow by pure coincidence there's an overlap between north Greeks and Albanians (unless he believes north Greeks are genealogically speaking just Greek-speaking Albanians) and that two contiguous regions underwent totally different gene flows without much gene flows between them (in other words, for Albania he posits relative stability of the gene pool, for Greece he posits near-replacement level migrations from the east med followed by massive migrations from east Europe, but such two gene flows would have not affected Albania much despite being contiguous with Greece).

Such theories put Occam's razor on the shelf.

he seems to be saying that the albanians where also further south than where they are now , but these became Greek speakers over time, in other words, NW Greeks are proto-albanians originally ...................reminds of of old Epirote lands, from the bay of Corinth to Durres western balkans