Genetic borders in Europe

[Angela]

so either the local population was replaced by the Slavic newcomers or ..

Angela, was the plague also raging in Slovenia prior to the arrival of the Slavs?

I don't know about replacement, but they had a big impact on Slovenia in contrast to what happened in Italy with the Lombards. I guess it was a race as to which tribes were going to get to which area first, and the Lombards got to Italy first. The interesting part is that the Lombards didn't have the same kind of impact on Italy, not even in the Veneto, Venezia-Giulia, and eastern Lombardia, where their influence was strongest, that the Slavs had on the Balkans, or so I've always assumed based both on the autosomal signature and the yDna distribution. In the Veneto and parts of Lombardia there's definitely I1 and R1b U-106, even in northwestern Sicily, but not like the levels of the "Slavic" I2a and R1a in the Balkans, although the rates differ by country. They also didn't succeed in imposing their language. However, all bets are off now until I see that actual paper on the Lombards. If the incoming Lombards also carried some lineages of U-152, then their contribution may have been greater, but it's been masked because they were such an admixed group.

I guess larger population sizes in Italy might have been a factor, which leads to your question about the plague. The plague is attested around 542, but I don't know of anything that compares its severity to what was going on in the Balkans.

According to the Lombard chroniclers like Paul the Deacon the Gothic Wars had left Italy devastated, much worse off than after the initial Gothic invasions, with fields lying barren, people scattered and decimated by disease.

I have grown increasingly skeptical about so called "historical" accounts by ancient historians or generals, for instance in the accounts by Roman generals as to how there were no longer any Celt-Ligurians. Usually, they were just hacks for whichever "royals" or " nobles" paid them well.

However, I don't doubt that there was devastation. The question is, how much of the "native" population remained in comparison to the number of newcomers? The Lombards in total, even according to their own estimates, numbered only 100,000 people, plus about 20,000 Saxons, women and children and older men included, so you wonder how much of an impact they might have had. Still, in the early years of their rule, they were firmly planted in the Veneto, which may have been enough to keep the Slavic speakers at bay.

"The first important city to fall was Forum Iulii (Cividale del Friuli) in northeastern Italy, in 569. There, Alboin created the first Lombard duchy, which he entrusted to his nephew Gisulf. Soon Vicenza, Verona and Brescia fell into Germanic hands. In the summer of 569, the Lombards conquered the main Roman centre of northern Italy, Milan. The area was then recovering from the terrible Gothic Wars, and the small Byzantine army left for its defence could do almost nothing. Longinus, the Exarch sent to Italy by Emperor Justin II, could only defend coastal cities that could be supplied by the powerful Byzantine fleet. Pavia fell after a siege of three years, in 572, becoming the first capital city of the new Lombard kingdom of Italy.In the following years, the Lombards penetrated further south, conquering Tuscany and establishing two duchies, Spoleto and Benevento under Zotto, which soon became semi-independent and even outlasted the northern kingdom, surviving well into the 12th century. Wherever they went, they were joined by the Ostrogothic population, who was allowed to live peacefully in Italy with their Rugian allies under Roman sovereignty.^[60] The Byzantines managed to retain control of the area of Ravenna and Rome, linked by a thin corridor running through Perugia."

 

[Angela]

I don't know about replacement, but they had a big impact on Slovenia in contrast to what happened in Italy with the Lombards. I guess it was a race as to which tribes were going to get to which area first, and the Lombards got to Italy first. The interesting part is that the Lombards didn't have the same kind of impact on Italy, not even in the Veneto, Venezia-Giulia, and eastern Lombardia, where their influence was strongest, that the Slavs had on the Balkans, or so I've always assumed based both on the autosomal signature and the yDna distribution. In the Veneto and parts of Lombardia there's definitely I1 and R1b U-106, even in northwestern Sicily, but not like the levels of the "Slavic" I2a and R1a in the Balkans, although the rates differ by country. They also didn't succeed in imposing their language. However, all bets are off now until I see that actual paper on the Lombards. If the incoming Lombards also carried some lineages of U-152, then their contribution may have been greater, but it's been masked because they were such an admixed group.

I guess larger population sizes in Italy might have been a factor, which leads to your question about the plague. The plague is attested around 542, but I don't know of anything that compares its severity to what was going on in the Balkans.

According to the Lombard chroniclers like Paul the Deacon the Gothic Wars had left Italy devastated, much worse off than after the initial Gothic invasions, with fields lying barren, people scattered and decimated by disease.

I have grown increasingly skeptical about so called "historical" accounts by ancient historians or generals, for instance in the accounts by Roman generals as to how there were no longer any Celt-Ligurians. Usually, they were just hacks for whichever "royals" or " nobles" paid them well.

However, I don't doubt that there was devastation. The question is, how much of the "native" population remained in comparison to the number of newcomers? The Lombards in total, even according to their own estimates, numbered only 100,000 people, plus about 20,000 Saxons, women and children and older men included, so you wonder how much of an impact they might have had. Still, in the early years of their rule, they were firmly planted in the Veneto, which may have been enough to keep the Slavic speakers at bay.

"The first important city to fall was Forum Iulii (Cividale del Friuli) in northeastern Italy, in 569. There, Alboin created the first Lombard duchy, which he entrusted to his nephew Gisulf. Soon Vicenza, Verona and Brescia fell into Germanic hands. In the summer of 569, the Lombards conquered the main Roman centre of northern Italy, Milan. The area was then recovering from the terrible Gothic Wars, and the small Byzantine army left for its defence could do almost nothing. Longinus, the Exarch sent to Italy by Emperor Justin II, could only defend coastal cities that could be supplied by the powerful Byzantine fleet. Pavia fell after a siege of three years, in 572, becoming the first capital city of the new Lombard kingdom of Italy.In the following years, the Lombards penetrated further south, conquering Tuscany and establishing two duchies, Spoleto and Benevento under Zotto, which soon became semi-independent and even outlasted the northern kingdom, surviving well into the 12th century. Wherever they went, they were joined by the Ostrogothic population, who was allowed to live peacefully in Italy with their Rugian allies under Roman sovereignty.^[60] The Byzantines managed to retain control of the area of Ravenna and Rome, linked by a thin corridor running through Perugia."

As for the Slavs, this is what Gimbutas had to say:

"According to Marija Gimbutas, "Neither Bulgars nor Avars colonized the Balkan Peninsula; after storming Thrace, Illyriaand Greece they went back to their territory north of the Danube. It was the Slavs who did the colonizing ... entire families or even whole tribes infiltrated lands. As an agricultural people, they constantly sought an outlet for the population surplus. Suppressed for over a millennium by foreign rule of Scythians, Sarmatians and Goths, they had been restricted to a small territory; now the barriers were down and they poured out".^[103] In addition to their growth, the depopulation of eastern Europe (due, in part, to Germanic migration) and the lack of imperial defences encouraged Slavic expansion."

In terms of lifestyle:
"Early Slavic settlements were no larger than 0.5 to 2 hectares (1.2 to 4.9 acres). Settlements were often temporary, perhaps reflecting their itinerant form of agriculture,^[124] and were often along rivers. They were characterized by sunken buildings, known as Grubenhäuser in German or poluzemlianki in Russian. Built over a rectangular pit, they varied from 4 to 20 m² (43 to 215 sq ft) in area and could accommodate a typical nuclear family. Each house had a stone or clay oven in a corner (a defining feature of Eastern European dwellings), and a settlement had a population of fifty to seventy.^[125] Settlements had a central, open area, where communal activities and ceremonies were conducted, and were divided into production and settlement zones.^[126]"

Like the Lombards, they were small scale subsistence farmers who often moved locations. It may be that like the Lombards they didn't fertilize the soil or practice crop rotation, and so when the soil was depleted they tried to move on to new fields.

The Lombards, at least, weren't very skilled at making a living from their farming, because when they were in Pannonia many of them were suffering from malnutrition, or perhaps everyone around the area also suffered from it because of the unsettled conditions.

 

[Cato]

How is possible that Aosta is closer to Canarias than Piedmont ? ...Also the big distance between Lazio and Abruzzo is somewhat unexpected

 

[Ailchu]

I'm going to say this one last time and then I'm done:

There is no BREAK in the ecosystem at the Italo-Slovenian border.

There were NO non-EEF type people anywhere in Iberia, or the Balkans, or Central Europe, for that matter, in the NEOLITHIC. There would only be people with slightly differing proportions of WHG or perhaps CHG. EVERY SINGLE European genome from the Middle to Late Neolithic shows the same thing. SLOVENIA IS NOT GOING TO BE ANY DIFFERENT. The only reservoirs of WHG types seems to have been in the far north, and there was EHG in the far eastern areas.

Read the papers.

Look at the PCAS. This one is from Kilinc et al. Although different papers might show it a bit differently (in this case the samples are shown further apart), the story is the same. Note the placement of even the two Copper Age samples: Otzi and Baden.

that may not be a question about the topic of this thread, sorry. until now i have only seen this graphic without the EHG but now where they are included on the map it seems like the impact the yamna had on the genome of north and western europeans was not really big. it rather looks like the influence ot eastern hunter gatherers is way higher?
if we assume that western europe was populated by EEF who then were mixed with incoming indo europeans why doesn't it look like they are pulled towards the yamna? it looks more like they were pulled towards the EHG.
i mean the lithuanians or even the scots and english do not really look like they were EEF who were pulled towards yamna. especially the lithuanians look more like a mix of EHG and SHG/WHG.

 

[Angela]

^^It's best to stick to academic papers and pcas produced by academicians, as well, of course, to the formal stats produced by them so you don't get confused.

 

[brick]

Here is my PCA with regional averages, probably the biggest genetic border that showed up, is this between Slovenia and North-Eastern Italy. Any ideas why, how and when did this genetic border emerge? Geographically, Veneto-Friuli and Slovenia are neighbours, but in terms of DNA there is a big distance between them:

Veneto-Friuli is closer to southern Germanic people rather than to Slavic people.

 

[Angela]

By the time the Slavs got this far, the Italian regions were already controlled by Germanic tribes. That's why there was little bleed over.

There is extremely little Slavic admixture in Italy.