Extensive female-biased immigration in Early Medieval Bavaria

Angela

Elite member
Messages
21,823
Reaction score
12,325
Points
113
Ethnic group
Italian
The men seem to be quite similar to modern northern and central Europeans, but the women are quite different.

See: Krishna R. Veeramah, et al (inc. Hellenthal and Burger)
"Population genomic analysis of elongated skulls reveals extensive female-biased immigration in Early Medieval Bavaria"

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/03/06/1719880115

"Significance

"Many modern European states trace their roots back to a period known as the Migration Period that spans from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. We have conducted the first population-level analysis of people from this era, generating genomic data from 41 graves from archaeological sites in present-day Bavaria in southern Germany mostly dating to around 500 AD. While they are predominantly of northern/central European ancestry, we also find significant evidence for a nonlocal genetic provenance that is highly enriched among resident Early Medieval women, demonstrating artificial skull deformation. We infer that the most likely origin of the majority of these women was southeastern Europe, resolving a debate that has lasted for more than half a century.

Abstract

Modern European genetic structure demonstrates strong correlations with geography, while genetic analysis of prehistoric humans has indicated at least two major waves of immigration from outside the continent during periods of cultural change. However, population-level genome data that could shed light on the demographic processes occurring during the intervening periods have been absent. Therefore, we generated genomic data from 41 individuals dating mostly to the late 5th/early 6th century AD from present-day Bavaria in southern Germany, including 11 whole genomes (mean depth 5.56×). In addition we developed a capture array to sequence neutral regions spanning a total of 5 Mb and 486 functional polymorphic sites to high depth (mean 72×) in all individuals. Our data indicate that while men generally had ancestry that closely resembles modern northern and central Europeans, women exhibit a very high genetic heterogeneity; this includes signals of genetic ancestry ranging from western Europe to East Asia. Particularly striking are women with artificial skull deformations; the analysis of their collective genetic ancestry suggests an origin in southeastern Europe. In addition, functional variants indicate that they also differed in visible characteristics. This example of female-biased migration indicates that complex demographic processes during the Early Medieval period may have contributed in an unexpected way to shape the modern European genetic landscape. Examination of the panel of functional loci also revealed that many alleles associated with recent positive selection were already at modern-like frequencies in European populations ∼1,500 years ago."


Anyone familiar with this cultural practice? I never heard of it. This is what the authors say about it:


As to the genetics:

"A population assignment analysis (PAA) at the level of individual modern nation states suggested greatest genetic similarity of these normal-skulled individuals with modern Germans, consistent with their sampling location (Fig. 4 A and B and SI Appendix, Table S35). The only exceptions to this general pattern of northern/central European ancestry were the two women, STR_300 and STR_502, which were of a more southern ancestry associated with present day Greece and Turkey, respectively (SI Appendix, Fig. S29)."

Lots of Tuscan like people in southeastern Europe still in the late 400s and early 500s.

Blue is normal skulls, green is intermediate, and red is elongated.

NlyjY7W.png
[/IMG]

"A much more diverse ancestry was observed among the females with elongated skulls, as demonstrated by a significantly greater group-based FIS(SI Appendix, Fig. S35). All these females had varying amounts of genetic ancestry found today predominantly in southern European countries [as seen by the varying amounts of ancestry inferred by model-based clustering that is representative of a sample from modern Tuscany, Italy (TSI), Fig. 3], and while the majority of samples were found to be closest to modern southeastern Europeans (Bulgaria and Romania, Fig. 4C), at least one individual, AED_1108, appeared to possess ∼20% East Asian ancestry (Fig. 3), which was also evident from the high number of haplotypes within the 5-Mb neutralome that were private to modern East Asian 1000 Genomes individuals (EAS), while also demonstrating an overall ancestry profile consistent with Central Asian populations (SI Appendix, Fig. S33). "

Kitmf39.png
[/IMG]

GzORJ4s.png
[/IMG]

"A diverse ancestry was also inferred for the two non-Bavarian samples with elongated heads. KER_1 from Ukraine possessed significant southern European ancestry as well as South Asian ancestry, with an overall profile that best matched modern Turkish individuals. The Gepid VIM_2 from Serbia demonstrated a similar Central Asian-like genetic profile to the Medieval Bavarian AED_1108 with an even larger East Asian component and number of private haplotypes but with less southern European/Middle Eastern ancestry (SI Appendix, Figs. S31 and S33). The two Sarmatian individuals (PR_4 and PR_10) fitted a general eastern European/western Asian profile, but also possessed a much larger northern European component [as represented by modern Finnish individuals (FIN)] similar to modern Russians, consistent with their sampling location. As previously observed in Schiffels et al. (12) contemporary Anglo-Saxon samples appeared to be primarily of northern/central European ancestry, with greatest similarity overall to modern British and Scandinavian individuals (SI Appendix, Fig. S32)."


"It was also notable that no Bavarian individual (normal or ACD, male or female) possessed ancestry related to southwestern Europe, as represented by a sample of individuals sequenced from the Iberian population in Spain (IBS). This is in contrast to the Roman soldier dating to around 300 AD sampled from the same region, for which its largest ancestry component was IBS, with greatest genetic similarity to modern Spanish and southern French individuals (SI Appendix, Fig. S31). Based on an analysis of patterns of haplotype sharing, the Roman soldier (FN_2: 11.08×) was found to have substantially more southern European, West Asian, and Middle Eastern ancestry than two normal-skulled Early Medieval Bavarians with high genomic coverage (ALH_10: 12.17×, ALH_1: 13.27×) (SI Appendix, Figs. S48 and S49)."

I have no idea why some people in the pop gen community are assuming that this Roman soldier from 300 AD would necessarily have been Italian of any kind. He could just as likely indeed been Iberian from what I can see. The days were long gone by 300 AD that all the Roman soldiers were from the Italian peninsula.
3fFpxJj.png
[/IMG]



 
Cool, those two ladies (300 and 502) seem to plot in southern Italy. South Italian like people were still living in northern areas at that time, ill read more but it's late
 
in other forums its stated, for some samples
PR_4 and PR_10 very precise matches to Tajikistan with high probability (p70, S31).
Most likely populations Table S35 ("A population assignment analysis (PAA) at the level of individual modern nation states") gives:
(Sample, Pop, Probability)
VIM_2 (Gepid, Serbia) - NOG (Nogai) - 0.94
PR_10 (Sarmartian) - TAJ (Tajik) - 0.96
PR_4 (Sarmartian) - TAJ (Tajik) 0.8
FN_2 (Roman Soldier, Munich ) - ITN (Italian) - 0.38
KER_1 (Crimean Goth, Ukraine) - TUS (Tuscan) - 0.29

with another IBS ( sample FN_2) being labelled as north italian, its getting tiresome when papers place IBS next to Bergamo and declare its a north-italian
The Gepid from Serbia is an interesting find with a big % of east asian

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2018/03/06/1719880115.DCSupplemental/pnas.1719880115.sapp.pdf
 
Southeastern European women, one of which has ~20% of East Asian ancestry, living around 500 AD in Central Europe? My bets would be on the remnants of Hun people after they lost their power, or on the incipient arrival of the Avars or Bulgars from the Eurasian steppes around the 6th century, through the usual "corridor" from Dobruja to Bulgaria and Serbia and then northwards to Central Europe.
 
Goths could explain there the presence of steppe and Balkan women and steppe practices as they settled modern Ukraine two centuries and lower Danube half century.
 
As to the "Roman" soldier...

In the Supplement, authors usually show all the results using numerous methods. Both the map and the Admixture chart I posted above show that this Roman soldier was majority Iberian, which is the conclusion stated in the paper. Whether the North Italian which shows up in some analyses is factually accurate, i.e. he was part Northern Italian, or whether it's an artifact of the relationship between Northern Italy and the populations running from there to southern France and on to Spain, I don't know.

People should try reading the whole paper instead of jumping to the first table they see. Of course, some of them have difficulty reading, or maybe they just prefer numbers so much that they skip over the words. Bad practice. Then there's the fact that agendas skew analysis.
 
They continue to use the 1000 genomes dataset that has a very limited number of populations (CEU, FIN, GBR, IBS, TSI...), so the results of PAA and ADMIXTURE are not 100% accurate when it comes to the modern-day best reference population. Not to mention that TSI (Tuscany) is based on samples "from individuals who identified themselves as having at least three out of four grandparent born in Tuscany". Self-identification and three out of four native grandparent are not exactly the highest achievable accuracy.

For example in the Procrustes-transformed PCA STR_310 in the PAA has Romanian as best modern reference populaton but in the PCA is closer to Bergamo (north Italy) and Tuscans.

So we must take these results as indicative rather than literally, but definitely the women examined are genetically southern European.



R0GcOYO.jpg
 
As to the "Roman" soldier... In the Supplement, authors usually show all the results using numerous methods. Both the map and the Admixture chart I posted above show that this Roman soldier was majority Iberian, which is the conclusion stated in the paper. Whether the North Italian which shows up in some analyses is factually accurate, i.e. he was part Northern Italian, or whether it's an artifact of the relationship between Northern Italy and the populations running from there to southern France and on to Spain, I don't know. People should try reading the whole paper instead of jumping to the first table they see. Of course, some of them have difficulty reading, or maybe they just prefer numbers so much that they skip over the words. Bad practice. Then there's the fact that agendas skew analysis.
Of course there is no evidence either that a Roman soldier dating to around 300 AD sampled from the same region can be representative for all the ancient Romans, especially the Latin tribes who founded Rome 1000 years before him.
 
They continue to use the 1000 genomes dataset that has a limited number of populations (CEU, FIN, GBR, IBS, TSI...), so the results of PAA are not 100% accurate when it comes to the modern-day best reference population.

For example in the Procrustes-transformed PCA STR_310 in the PAA has Romanian as best modern reference populaton but in the PCA is closer to Bergamo (north Italy) and Tuscans.

So we must take these results as indicative rather than literally, but the women examined are definitely genetically European south.



R0GcOYO.jpg

Yes, you're right. That's why everyone keeps coming out Tuscan: it's the closest of the 1000 genomes populations.

For those who haven't seen it, in the back of the Supplement starting on page 68 they have a map for each sample:

Neither STR 300, which looks Greek, Albanian, Southern Italian, nor STR 510 which looks like a Southern Italian/Turkish, have altered skulls. So, perhaps they arrived in Bavaria by a different route? AEF_1 by that analysis looks generally Italian, but does have the elongated skull, so things are complicated.

Most of the women look to be, however, from southeastern Europe, specifically Bulgaria and Romania.

The outliers...

SBSfPC4.png
[/IMG]

Of course there is no evidence either that a Roman soldier dating to around 300 AD sampled from the same region can be representative for all the ancient Romans, especially the Latin tribes who founded Rome 1000 years before him.

Again, you're right. It's just idiocy from the usual suspects most of the time, people who don't know anything, and I mean ANYTHING about the history of this era, the Romans, the Legions, or on and on.

I also think this paper is a salutary lesson that when we get "exotic" results in ancient dna, no matter where they are found, the people represented by those samples did not necessarily make an impact on the total genomic make up of that geographic area.
 
as some have stated,.... the roman soldier, 60 years old and mtdna H3 could have IBS due to this "iberian H3" marker ..........clearly we still have scholars pushing for IBS influences regardless .......silly people.
when will people stop using these low level old models?
 
"Again, you're right. It's just idiocy from the usual suspects most of the time, people who don't know anything, and I mean ANYTHING about the history of this era, the Romans, the Legions, or on and on."

Common sense wouldn't expect most of Rome to be Iberian either. And arguing that based on that one sample would be like using the British Roman solider (I think there was one who was actually close to Britain genetically aside from the middle eastern one) to argue that most of Rome was close to northwestern Europe.

Of course, a similar argument using the middle eastern soldier is also a bad idea.
 
Roman Bavaria:

German Limes:
Limes_map1.jpg


roman%2Bempire%2Bmap%2Bgermania%2Barminius.png


500px-Romancoloniae.jpg


"Augustus Caesar, whose legions pushed as far as the Elbe, establishing the provinces of Germania Inferior, Germania Superior and Rhaetia. The Romans then settled along the Rhine and Danube and erected the Limes, a nearly 500-kilometer-long system of fortifications to ward off the hostile Germanic tribes. Their rule over today's western and southern Germany lasted 450 years and left an indelible legacy.

BAVARIA The Romans were all over Bavaria. Augsburg was first founded in 15 B.C. as Augusta Vindelicorum, and grew to be the capital of Rhaetia province. Its city symbol, the Zirbelnuß, or pine cone, was Augustus' royal symbol, and serves as an ubiquitous reminder of the town's imperial past. Its Roman Museum, housed in an old church, overflows with sculpture, architectural fragments, and a wealth of artifacts. The lawn adjacent to the cathedral harbors the foundations of a Roman villa, as well as other archeological findings displayed out of doors.

Kempten, just an hour southwest of Munich, was a Celtic settlement called Cambodonum when the Romans conquered it in 15 B.C. Soon thereafter it became an important trade center. Excavations have been underway for decades, and since the 1980s there has been an archaeological park with reconstructions of the forum.

Regensburg, to the northeast of Munich, was founded in 179 A.D. as Castra Regina, the headquarters of the crack 3rd Italian Legion. The military contingent alone numbered 6,000, but with families, camp followers, craftsmen, merchants and slaves, the residents comprised a fortified town double that size. Its mint struck the last Roman coin in Germany at the beginning of the fifth century, marking the ultimate downfall of Italian hegemony north of the Alps. Though most of the recovered antiquities are in Regensburg's City Museum, sections of the Roman wall remain visible, including the massive Porta Praetoria gate.

XANTEN Xanten, downstream from Düsseldorf, was a flourishing trade and shipping center two thousand years ago.Called Colonia Ulpia Traiana, it had a population of 15,000 Roman army veterans turned merchants who thrived behind the city's extensive defensive wall. The colony's heyday ended in the fourth century when theFranks stormed it. Instead of building on top of the old outpost, the invaders erected their own settlement called Xanten several hundred yards south of the abandoned Roman city. That practice benefited later archaeologists, since the remains of the earlier settlement remained intact.

http://www.munichfound.com/archives/id/26/article/494/

From the paper:
"In the course of archeological investigations previous to construction works in the newlydeveloped Munich district “Freiham-Nord”, a previously unknown Late Roman cemeterycontaining inhumation graves was discovered in autumn 2014."

"The man was probably buried on a woodenboard (“Totenbrett”) and there were no signs of burial offerings in the drawn in head sectionof the grave cavity. Meat offerings of chicken and pork were deposited at four positions nextto the shoulders and the feet of the man.Close to his left thigh a pierced bronze sheet and a thin iron ring could be found, as well as abig iron knife with a bronze plate pommel on the right of his right knee. A crossbow broochof type 1 according to Keller/Pröttel could be recovered at the man’s right ankle (Fig. S2).Finally, a soapstone bowl with antique traces of repair and a small bowl of the form Alzey2/Chenet 320 a (Fig. S2), which probably resembles an imitation, could be recovered from thefoot section of the grave cavity that was also slightly drawn in. Bowls comparable to the smallone described here were found in Late Roman graves from Potzham, county of Munich, andGilching, county of Starnberg near Munich. The crack in the bottom of the soapstone bowlwas repaired using a riveted bronze clamp while the bowl’s rim was fixed with an iron metalsheet. This allowed for further use of the bowl, with some limitations. The bronze crossbowbrooch (Pröttel type 1) that was probably deposited in the foot section of the grave cavitytogether with an associated coat, is crucial for the dating of the burial. Similarly, cast piecescould be recovered from sites at Passau, Eining or Burghöfe where they were probably 7manufactured. It is among the oldest types of crossbow brooches, whose wearers were veryoften identified to be executives in the Late Roman military. Dating around 300 AD, grave1335 is among the oldest inhumation burials of the small cemetery at Freiham."

So, he seems to have been somehow associated with the Roman military, but not in any high position.

The Legio III Italica was formed specifically for the fighting in Germany probably in northern Italy given its name, but from 165 to 300 AD is a long time. The Legio was stationed at various times in the East although there was always a presence in Germany, but people from various areas were also incorporated. "Civilians" attached to the administration could have come from almost anywhere.

See:
http://www.livius.org/articles/legion/legio-iii-italica/
 
As well as the genetics, I'm fascinated by the skull deformations. Where on earth do people get these ideas? They have gotten it, however, and all over the world.

"Artificial cranial deformation or modification, head flattening, or head binding is a form of body alteration in which the skull of a human being is deformed intentionally. It is done by distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying force. Flat shapes, elongated ones (produced by binding between two pieces of wood), rounded ones (binding in cloth), and conical ones are among those chosen. Typically, it is carried out on an infant, as the skull is most pliable at this time. In a typical case, headbinding begins approximately a month after birth and continues for about six months."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation

"Intentional cranial deformation predates written history; it was practised commonly in a number of cultures that are widely separated geographically and chronologically, and still occurs today in a few places, including Vanuatu.The earliest suggested examples were once thought to include the Proto-NeolithicHomo sapiens component (ninth millennium BC) from Shanidar Cave in Iraq,[1][2][3] and also among Neolithic peoples in Southwest Asia.[1][4]
The earliest written record of cranial deformation—by Hippocrates, of the Macrocephali or Long-heads, who were named for their practice of cranial modification—dates to 400 BC.[5]

Paracas skulls​

In the Old World, Huns also are known to have practised similar cranial deformation.[6] as were the people known as the Alans.[7] In Late Antiquity (AD 300-600), the East Germanic tribes who were ruled by the Huns, the Gepids, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Rugii, and Burgundians adopted this custom.[citation needed] In western Germanic tribes, artificial skull deformations rarely have been found.[8]
The practice of cranial deformation was brought to Bactria and Sogdiana by the tribes who created the Kushan Empire. Men with such skulls are depicted in various surviving sculptures and friezes of that time, such as the Kushan prince of Khalchayan.[9]"

It doesn't look quite as bad when the person has hair, but still....

According to this site:

"
The practice of intentional deformation of the skull was once widespread all over the world. According to current beliefs, this custom probably appeared independently in different regions of the world, beginning as early as the Late Paleolithic Period, but possibly even earlier. In the Carpathian Basin, elongated skulls date to the late Iron Age, known in this region as the Hun-Germanic Period (5 th – 6 th century AD), and can be observed in all the people of the Carpathian Basin equally– the Sarmatians, Alans, Gothics, Depidics, and Hun populations. More than 200 elongated skulls have been found in the Carpathian Basin to date."

It seems that it was either imposed on or copied by people of southeastern Europe.

"
The Huns occupied the Carpathian Basin from the 5 th century from where they led campaigns against different regions of Europe. In 453 AD, Attila the Hun, leader of the Hunic Empire, suddenly died, whereupon many Germanic tribes, rebelled against the Huns and expelled them from the Carpathian Basin. The frequent appearance of artificial cranial deformation in Europe and the Carpathian Basin can be attributed to the movements of the Huns, who flowed into Europe in the 4 th and 5 th centuries, pushing people of different Germanic origin westward. The custom survived among the Germanic populations until the early 7 th century.

A team of researchers from the University of Debrecen and College of Nyiregyhaza in Hungary studied a subset of nine elongated skulls excavated between 1996 and 2005 from two cemeteries located 70 kilometres apart in the north-eastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. Their aim was to shed light on the origin and historical context of the custom practiced in the Carpathian Basin.
The research revealed that the skulls belonged to both male and female adolescents and adults ranging in age from 15 to 80. All of the skulls displayed characteristics of the Europid race, which characterised the common people of both Hun and Germanic tribes on a large scale. Four main types of cranial deformation could be distinguished – tabular oblique, tabular erect, circular oblique, and circular erect – which were produced through different methods including compression of the skull by firm rigid elements, such as cradle boards or tablets, and binding the skull with more flexible tools such as bandages, bands, tapes, and headdresses. The skulls ranged from slightly deformed to heavily deformed."

In some groups it wasn't limited to females.

"The authors maintain that the custom spread from east to west in 6 phases, originating up to 4,000 years ago. Beginning in Central Asia, in the territory west of the Tien-Shan, the custom spread through the Caucasus and Kalymykia Steppe, through to the Danube Basin (present day Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and Czech Republic), then split into three distinct regions – the Middle Germanic Group, in which curiously the elongated skulls were all female; South and Southwest Germanic group, known from burial sites in Bavarian and Rhenish territories; and the Rhone Group – located in the southwest of Switzerland, the east of France, and the north of Italy."

"Germanic group, VI = Rhone Group. Image source .

The elongated skulls in the Carpathian Basin belonged to the Danube Basin group, which represented the third phase in the Eurasian expansion of the custom transmitted by the Huns from the east to the west. The study authors believe that the custom might have enhanced the social status of individuals and became of sign of ethnicity in central Europe.
“It is conceivable that the Germanic peoples adopted the habits of the Huns (including intentional cranial deformation) in the first place because they wanted to be integrated into the Hun Empire and adapt to the conquerors in the hope of subsistence and advance,” wrote the study authors."

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news...gated-skulls-carpathian-basin-001530/page/0/1

Molnar, M., Jason, I., Szucs, L. & Szathmary, L. (2014). Artificially deformed crania from the Hun-Germanic Period (5 th-6th century AD) in northeastern Hungary: historical and morphological analysis.
http://thejns.org/doi/abs/10.3171/2014.1.FOCUS13466



 
I wonder if that practice impacted brain development...
 
Some examples:
27662elonreal.jpg


ElongatedGoth_0.jpg


Am I reaching here? I always found this particular Northern Europe fashion rather bizarre. Could they be trying to approximate that look by plucking the hair in front and adding the cap?

3204249092458c262dd1593a9205da0d.jpg


ladytalbotafter1460.jpg


Well, here's where cultural relativism comes into play. I hate really low foreheads too, but I think the above skulls and even this fashion are hideous.

@Davef,
I was thinking that too. A 0-6 month old's skull is still malleable to allow for brain growth. Wouldn't that perhaps cause cognitive deficits? Maybe that's why it was often women. Dumb women would be easier to handle.
 
Angela,

Ok I'm going to sound like a jerk here :) but those first two photos are not only hideous, they're downright frightening! My spine was tingling a bit looking at them!

And your theory of deliberately making women intellectually slow through cranial manipulation is interesting, perhaps it's safer to not have an intellectually impaired male due to him being stronger and more wreckless I would guess.
 
I think it might be good to echo Pax's point here that these "ethnic" assignments should* be taken as gospel.

Yes, the 300 AD Roman soldier looks pretty "Iberian" like in terms of modern Iberians, but there is still the chance he's just an admixed soldier who has quite a bit of "Balkan" as well. The III Italica records show they did absorb some Illyrians.

Another general fact to keep in mind is that in addition to these generally Southeastern European women with elongated heads, you have "Bavarians" who, as in the case of the Lombard settlement in Hungary, were very "southern", one almost Aegean like. The other "non modified" individuals are more "northern shifted" than the present day Bavarians, so I think that what we may be seeing is that admixture in the Migration period impacted the make up of the southern German gene pool. It was not static since the Bronze Age.

So, any similarities between southern Germans and, say, northern Italians may have something to do not only with Germanic, i.e. Gothic and Langobard migration to Italy, but "southern" ancestry in southern Germany.

I also don't think it should be a surprise that one can find people heavily admixed with Caucasus ancestry living in Ukraine at this time.
1200px-Greek_colonies_of_the_Northern_Euxine_Sea_%28Black_Sea%29.svg.png


Not that I mean to imply that this is the only source of this type of ancestry. I think there was also gene flow directly from the Caucasus.


My general impression has been that the southern Ukraine was depopulated by the depredations of the Huns and Mongols, and had to be repopulated from the north of the Ukraine and beyond, but perhaps someone more familiar with the history can chime in.

Ed. should NOT be taken as gospel.
 
Last edited:
I think it might be good to echo Pax's point here that these "ethnic" assignments should be taken as gospel.

Yes, the 300 AD Roman soldier looks pretty "Iberian" like in terms of modern Iberians, but there is still the chance he's just an admixed soldier who has quite a bit of "Balkan" as well. The III Italica records show they did absorb some Illyrians.

Another general fact to keep in mind is that in addition to these generally Southeastern European women with elongated heads, you have "Bavarians" who, as in the case of the Lombard settlement in Hungary, were very "southern", one almost Aegean like. The other "non modified" individuals are more "northern shifted" than the present day Bavarians, so I think that what we may be seeing is that admixture in the Migration period impacted the make up of the southern German gene pool. It was not static since the Bronze Age.

So, any similarities between southern Germans and, say, northern Italians may have something to do not only with Germanic, i.e. Gothic and Langobard migration to Italy, but "southern" ancestry in southern Germany.

I also don't think it should be a surprise that one can find people heavily admixed with Caucasus ancestry living in Ukraine at this time.
1200px-Greek_colonies_of_the_Northern_Euxine_Sea_%28Black_Sea%29.svg.png


Not that I mean to imply that this is the only source of this type of ancestry. I think there was also gene flow directly from the Caucasus.


My general impression has been that the southern Ukraine was depopulated by the depredations of the Huns and Mongols, and had to be repopulated from the north of the Ukraine and beyond, but perhaps someone more familiar with the history can chime in.

Wait, you meant they should not be taken as gospel (first sentence, I think you forgot the "not" ).
 
What about the Scandinavian "Germanic" ancestry of the Ostrogoth from Crimea or the Gepid from Serbia
A diverse ancestry was also inferred for the two non-Bavarian samples with elongated heads. KER_1 from Ukraine possessed significant southern European ancestry as well as South Asian ancestry, with an overall profile that best matched modern Turkish individuals. The Gepid VIM_2 from Serbia demonstrated a similar Central Asian-like genetic profile to the Medieval Bavarian AED_1108 with an even larger East Asian component and number of private haplotypes but with less southern European/Middle Eastern ancestry (SI Appendix, Figs. S31 and S33).

We certainly know that the "Gothi" practiced cranial deformation,but none of this elongated skulls either male or female had Germanic ancestry.

A much more diverse ancestry was observed among the females with elongated skulls, as demonstrated by a significantly greater group-based FIS (SI Appendix, Fig. S35). All these females had varying amounts of genetic ancestry found today predominantly in southern European countries [as seen by the varying amounts of ancestry inferred by model-based clustering that is representative of a sample from modern Tuscany, Italy (TSI), Fig. 3], and while the majority of samples were found to be closest to modern southeastern Europeans (Bulgaria and Romania, Fig. 4C
 

This thread has been viewed 37244 times.

Back
Top