Alemannic DNA

Angela

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Amazingly, it seems that it's taken two years for this paper to be published? Or is this a slightly different paper?

Our previous discussion:
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/32807-Upcoming-paper-on-Alemannic-dna?highlight=Alemannic

The present paper:
See:Niall O’Sullivan1,2,3,*,
Cosimo Posth2,4,
Valentina Coia1,
Verena J. Schuenemann4,5,,
T. Douglas Price6,
Joachim Wahl7,8,
Ron Pinhasi3,9,
Albert Zink1,*,
Johannes Krause2,4,* and
Frank Maixner1



"Ancient genome-wide analyses infer kinship structure in an Early Medieval Alemannic graveyard"
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/9/eaao1262

I'm going to have to go over this carefully. From the "soon to be published" information, the "ethnic identification", if it is of the same samples, was: 5 Eastern European like samples, two German Austrian like samples, and 1 Southern European like sample.

I'll be interested to see if they were more egalitarian than Lombards or just more open to appropriating from other cultures.



"From historical and archeological records, it is posited that the European medieval household was a combination of close relatives and recruits. However, this kinship structure has not yet been directly tested at a genomic level on medieval burials. The early 7th century CE burial at Niederstotzingen, discovered in 1962, is the most complete and richest example of Alemannic funerary practice in Germany. Excavations found 13 individuals who were buried with an array of inscribed bridle gear, jewelry, armor, and swords. These artifacts support the view that the individuals had contact with France, northern Italy, and Byzantium. This study analyzed genome-wide sequences recovered from the remains, in tandem with analysis of the archeological context, to reconstruct kinship and the extent of outside contact. Eleven individuals had sufficient DNA preservation to genetically sex them as male and identify nine unique mitochondrial haplotypes and two distinct Y chromosome lineages. Genome-wide analyses were performed on eight individuals to estimate genetic affiliation to modern west Eurasians and genetic kinship at the burial. Five individuals were direct relatives. Three other individuals were not detectably related; two of these showed genomic affinity to southern Europeans. The genetic makeup of the individuals shares no observable pattern with their orientation in the burial or the cultural association of their grave goods, with the five related individuals buried with grave goods associated with three diverse cultural origins. These findings support the idea that not only were kinship and fellowship held in equal regard: Diverse cultural appropriation was practiced among closely related individuals as well."




 
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I think one of the most interesting aspects in this study is the observation that they were apparently very open to assimilation of foreigners (not creating an immediately visible caste society along ethnic lines, as was the case with those Lombard graves, where socioeconomic status and grave goods were directly correlated with different genetic makeup) and cultural appropriation (not the ludicrous PC thing of these days, but simply the assimilation of foreign ideas and practices). I wonder how, if that observation is really ture, that different social and cultural structure of Alemannic people helped them make their language and ethnic identity prevail over the centuries, while the Lombards never assimilated their conquered people, instead being slowly absorbed.
 
For those like me who had to refresh their recollection:
Central_Europe_5th_Century.jpg


I wonder if this correlates with the genetic and linguistic cline in Germany.

As to your point above, I think it's a good one. I think the Lombards had much less contact with the Empire and so perhaps were both more primitive and more fearful of being absorbed. They were anyway, of course, sort of like the Chinese with their Mongol invaders.

I wonder, though, whether there were just MORE Alemanni in relationship to the local population and so that was a factor as well.
 
"five related individuals had culturally diverse grave goods despite the evidence that all of them showed local isotope signals with northern European genetic affiliations; these data show how diverse cultural appropriation could exist even among close relatives."

"
Most individuals belong to the R1b haplogroup (individuals 1, 3A, 3C, 6, 9, 12A, 12B, and 12C), which has the highest frequency (>70%) in modern western European populations (20). Five individuals (1, 3A, 9, 12B, and 12C) share the same marker (Z319) defining haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b1a1. Because of incomplete SNP capture and coverage on the Y chromosome, most of the individual’s haplotypes do not overlap across the entire International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) Y-haplogroup tree, but multiple positions with the same haplotype and/or consistent root allow estimation of Y chromosome ancestry anyway. For example, individuals 1, 3A, and 6 have R1b lineage and marker Z347 (R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b), which belongs to the same male ancestral lineage as marker Z319. Individual 3B instead carries NRY haplogroup G2a2b1, which is rare in modern north, west, and east European populations (<5%), only reaching common abundance in the Caucasus (>70%), southern Europe, and the Near East (10 to 15%) (21)."

AtXCtg5.png
[/IMG]

With all the usual caveats about PCAs, this seems to show that these ancient Alamanni plot at the intersection of the modern Germans and French, or at least Northern French. (When are they going to start including Southern French samples?) The two "outlier" samples plot variously with Albanians/mainland Greeks, and what they call Northern Italian, but is perhaps closer to Tuscan. The one who plots with the Albanians/Greeks carries G2a2b1, and the one who plots with Italians carries R1b1a2.

One can see why modern companies have trouble telling someone whether they're southern/southwestern German or eastern/northern French.

JCMoCNS.png
[/IMG]
 
I wonder if this correlates with the genetic and linguistic cline in Germany.

As to your point above, I think it's a good one. I think the Lombards had much less contact with the Empire and so perhaps were both more primitive and more fearful of being absorbed. They were anyway, of course, sort of like the Chinese with their Mongol invaders.

I wonder, though, whether there were just MORE Alemanni in relationship to the local population and so that was a factor as well.

I think there is some correlation, indeed. Dutch and other Franconic languages/dialects correspond with Netherlands, part of Belgium and Western Germany even nowadays. Bavarian, Austrian and other dialects also roughly correspond to the Alemannic realms, and the North of Germany is still the native territory of Low German a.k.a Low Saxon. In other parts of the Germanic-speaking Europe a linguistic (and maybe partly genetic) replacement seems to have happened: the Ingvaeonic Jutes and Angles that would "Germanize" Britain together with their southern neighbors, Saxons, would be replaced by the Norse-speaking Dani.

I agree with you that the fact that the number of immigrants and also the relative population density of the lands they settled in must've influenced the final linguistic outcome after the Migration Period. I'd say, however, that sociocultural attitudes and the dynamics of power and social status between different ethnicities must have had at least some influence, because even some parts of Gallo-Roman territory, like southern Belgium and northeastern France, seem to have received a really large Frankish influx, but eventually they were mostly absorbed, first becoming bilingual and later native Romance speakers.
 
I think one of the most interesting aspects in this study is the observation that they were apparently very open to assimilation of foreigners (not creating an immediately visible caste society along ethnic lines, as was the case with those Lombard graves, where socioeconomic status and grave goods were directly correlated with different genetic makeup) and cultural appropriation (not the ludicrous PC thing of these days, but simply the assimilation of foreign ideas and practices). I wonder how, if that observation is really ture, that different social and cultural structure of Alemannic people helped them make their language and ethnic identity prevail over the centuries, while the Lombards never assimilated their conquered people, instead being slowly absorbed.

What's particularly interesting is that not only were clearly foreign men incorporated into society, they had equal status as members of the family in this particular site. The authors suggest that the explanation for this might have been the adoption of foreign boys who were trained as warriors and raised as normal members of the household. This would explain why the men with southern European genetic makeup are as per their strontium values not from a local conquered population but clearly foreigners who came to southern Germany as immigrants.

I'd mention as another possible explanation the strong preference for the avunculate relationship over the agnatic line among early Germanics. In such a society high-status females would often be married to foreign men to relieve intra-tribal feuds & tensions. This kind of family organisation used to be very common, even though it sounds strange to us since we are so used to the patrilineal Greco-Roman system. In the Germanic vision of the apocalypse, the poems predict that when the world ended the sister's sons would break kinship with the clan - the relationship between father and son apparently wasn't considered important enough to get a mention. This wasn't peculiar to the Germanic tribes; for example, even in the later Middle Ages the Arabs would often marry off high-status women to captured European men so as to avoid potentially inconvenient relations with other Arab families.
 
In such a society high-status females would often be married to foreign men to relieve intra-tribal feuds & tensions. This kind of family organisation used to be very common, even though it sounds strange to us since we are so used to the patrilineal Greco-Roman system. In the Germanic vision of the apocalypse, the poems predict that when the world ended the sister's sons would break kinship with the clan - the relationship between father and son apparently wasn't considered important enough to get a mention. This wasn't peculiar to the Germanic tribes; for example, even in the later Middle Ages the Arabs would often marry off high-status women to captured European men so as to avoid potentially inconvenient relations with other Arab families.

wasn't that the normal practice most of the time in many other cultures? first of all if we say that many women where married to foreign men then also many men were married to forreign women if we assume monogamy. the difference was that in times of peace the high status men stayed to follow their fathers while the women were given away. that was the case even in rome and even in the last few centuries. the first born son often inherited most things.
now the arabs were not monogamous so there it were more foreign women who were given to arab men than arab women who were given to foreign men otherwise it was the same.
 
wasn't that the normal practice most of the time in many other cultures? first of all if we say that many women where married to foreign men then also many men were married to forreign women if we assume monogamy. the difference was that in times of peace the high status men stayed to follow their fathers while the women were given away. that was the case even in rome and even in the last few centuries. the first born son often inherited most things.
now the arabs were not monogamous so there it were more foreign women who were given to arab men than arab women who were given to foreign men otherwise it was the same.

The difference is that we're looking at a local genetically Germanic (the local samples plot with modern Germans & Scandinavians) kinship group with two men whose strontium values indicate foreign origin. One of foreigners plots with northern Italians, the other with Greeks in the PCA. This would make little sense in a society that ascribes much importance to the patrilineal, agnatic relation.
 
do we know where locals in the region of modern day switzerland plot at the time of the alemanic conquest?
 
"five related individuals had culturally diverse grave goods despite the evidence that all of them showed local isotope signals with northern European genetic affiliations; these data show how diverse cultural appropriation could exist even among close relatives."

"
Most individuals belong to the R1b haplogroup (individuals 1, 3A, 3C, 6, 9, 12A, 12B, and 12C), which has the highest frequency (>70%) in modern western European populations (20). Five individuals (1, 3A, 9, 12B, and 12C) share the same marker (Z319) defining haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b1a1. Because of incomplete SNP capture and coverage on the Y chromosome, most of the individual’s haplotypes do not overlap across the entire International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) Y-haplogroup tree, but multiple positions with the same haplotype and/or consistent root allow estimation of Y chromosome ancestry anyway. For example, individuals 1, 3A, and 6 have R1b lineage and marker Z347 (R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b), which belongs to the same male ancestral lineage as marker Z319. Individual 3B instead carries NRY haplogroup G2a2b1, which is rare in modern north, west, and east European populations (<5%), only reaching common abundance in the Caucasus (>70%), southern Europe, and the Near East (10 to 15%) (21)."

AtXCtg5.png
[/IMG]

With all the usual caveats about PCAs, this seems to show that these ancient Alamanni plot at the intersection of the modern Germans and French, or at least Northern French. (When are they going to start including Southern French samples?) The two "outlier" samples plot variously with Albanians/mainland Greeks, and what they call Northern Italian, but is perhaps closer to Tuscan. The one who plots with the Albanians/Greeks carries G2a2b1, and the one who plots with Italians carries R1b1a2.

One can see why modern companies have trouble telling someone whether they're southern/southwestern German or eastern/northern French.

JCMoCNS.png
[/IMG]

My "gut feeling" is that Central & Southern Germany was genetically kind of like North France (roughly the eventual "langue d'oil" area) minus the Germanic influx of Franks (and others, like Burgundians). North Sea Germany was already pretty Germanic since early on, then the wave of Germanization (not only linguistic and cultural, but also genetic/demographic change) spread in a north-to-south and east-to-west cline, so that the impact was weakest (within Germany) in South Germany, creating a similar effect in North France: similar pre-Germanic substrates + significant but not prevalent Germanic contribution.
 
do we know where locals in the region of modern day switzerland plot at the time of the alemanic conquest?

I think we don't, and that's where it gets interesting. The strontium values of the foreigners are consistent with an origin in a high-altitude region, and not consistent with an origin near the sea. This of course begs the question whether autosomally Greek/Albanian people could have existed in the Alps in the Middle Ages. Rhaetian or Etruscan peoples?
 
Interesting that the G2a2b1 man has an I5a1b mtdna. I think that's one of the mtDna which Maciamo thinks arrived in Europe with steppe people.

"Grave 1: Lance, shield, saex, double-edged-sword.Grave 2: Saex.Grave 3A: Lance, shield, saex, double-edged-sword, arrows, and bridle with silver pressed sheetmetal fittings of Byzantine ornamentation.Grave 3B: Lance, shield, saex, double-edged-sword.Grave 3C: Lance, shield handle, saex, double-edged-sword.Grave 4: Belt, pearls and golden ring.Grave 5: Belt ornamentation dated to beginning of 7th centuryGrave 6: Double-edged-sword, belt and bridle originating from Lombard Italy. Beltornamentation dated to beginning of 7th century.Grave 7: Beads with no human remains. Evidence of being plundered.Grave 8: Horse remains.Grave 9: Lance, shield, shield handle, saex, double-edged-ring-sword. The ring-sword has a silverpommel and bead golden decorative button, and the lance engravings indicate Frankish origin.Grave 10: Double-edged-sword.Grave 11: Remains of two horses.Grave 12a: Shield, shield handle, double-edged-sword, lamella armour Byzantine style.Grave 12B: Double-edged-sword, lance, shield, lamella helmet Byzantine style.Grave 12C: Double-edged-sword."
 
DNA of Germany’s Early Medieval Warriors Studied

NIEDERSTOTZINGEN, GERMANY—Science Magazine reports that analysis of DNA samples taken from the 1,400-year-old remains of ten Germanic, noble warriors and three children discovered in southern Germany suggests that some of them had been born locally, while others may have originated in different parts of Europe. The study, led by Niall O’Sullivan, now of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, also revealed that at least 11 of the individuals were male—the test results of the remaining two were inconclusive. Overall, five of the individuals in the sample were directly related to each other, but three people who had been buried in the same grave were unrelated. One of them had DNA associated with people from northern, eastern, and central Europe, while the other two had DNA suggesting they were related to people from southern Europe. Analysis of isotopes obtained from their teeth suggests that only one of the two individuals with southern European relatives grew up in the same area as the burial. O’Sullivan and his colleagues wonder whether the Germanic warriors may have welcomed foreigners into their households, or whether it is possible they adopted child hostages for use in intertribal negotiations. To read in-depth about a Roman settlement in Germany, go to “The Road Almost Taken.”

https://www.archaeology.org/news/6950-180906-germanic-warrior-dna
 
Actually it is the same study as the one Angela posted here.
 
For those like me who had to refresh their recollection:
Central_Europe_5th_Century.jpg


I wonder if this correlates with the genetic and linguistic cline in Germany.

As to your point above, I think it's a good one. I think the Lombards had much less contact with the Empire and so perhaps were both more primitive and more fearful of being absorbed. They were anyway, of course, sort of like the Chinese with their Mongol invaders.

I wonder, though, whether there were just MORE Alemanni in relationship to the local population and so that was a factor as well.
Great map. What time frame does it comprise?
 
Great map. What time frame does it comprise?

This is all I know.

The map shows the kingdom of Odoacer, so we're talking about sometime around 476-493.

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

"[FONT=&quot]The [/FONT]Alemanni[FONT=&quot] (also known as the Alamanni and the Alamans, meaning "All Men" or "Men United") were a confederacy of Germanic-speaking people who occupied the regions south of the Main and east of the Rhine rivers in present-day Germany. Many historians claim that the Alemanni first enter the historical record in 213 CE when Cassius Dio records the campaigns of [/FONT]Caracalla[FONT=&quot] and his duplicitous dealings with the Alemanni. It is true that the name "Alemanni" first appears in Cassius Dio but, if one accepts that the Alemanni and the Suebi (or Suevi, who appear in earlier records) were the same (as not all do), then their first mention comes in 98 CE in Tacitus' [/FONT]Germania[FONT=&quot]. "

They were ultimately dominated by the Merovingians/Franks.

[/FONT]https://www.ancient.eu/alemanni

I'm glad you asked the question, because I read the whole thing. It explains a lot.

"[FONT=&quot]By the time of Dio's account, the Alemanni were largely Romanized from their long acquaintance with the Romans. Halsall writes how, in the border region of the Danube and the Roman [/FONT]Empire[FONT=&quot],[/FONT]
some of the Alemanni, who it has been suggested were formed at least partly by the Romans themselves from inhabitants of the agri decumates [a term possibly meaning 10 agricultural regions]and authorised barbarian settlers, occupied former Roman villa sites, such as at Wurmlingen in Baden Wurttemberg (128).
Roman Emperor Caracalla[FONT=&quot]The Alemanni at this time wore Roman attire and emulated Roman social customs. Even so, they were not 'Romans' in the accepted sense of that word and maintained their own language and culture. Therefore, when they asked the emperor Caracalla for help against a neighboring tribe in 213 CE, he saw no reason why he should not conquer them instead. Cassius Dio writes:[/FONT]
Antoninus [Caracalla] made a campaign against the Alamanni and whenever he saw a spot suitable for habitation, he would order, "There let a fort be erected. There let a city be built." And he gave these places names relating to himself, though the local designations were not changed; for some of the people were unaware of the new names and others supposed he was jesting. Consequently he came to feel contempt for these people and would not spare even them, but accorded treatment befitting the bitterest foes to the very people whom he claimed to have come to help. For he summoned their men of military age, pretending that they were to serve as mercenaries, and then at a given signal — by raising aloft his own shield — he caused them all to be surrounded and cut down, and he sent horsemen round about and arrested all the others (78.13.4).
[FONT=&quot]Whether the Alemanni were particularly hostile to Rome before this is not known, but they became one of Rome's most bitter enemies afterwards.[/FONT]

Obviously not a smart move by Caracalla. Another one who didn't learn from history.
 

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