From the debate on Anthrognica on the new paper on Albanian origins:
I guess
this paper will generate some comments.
First interesting thing I read (I assume it concerns the V13s):
That comment is great, because it is
EXACTLY what I said when looking at those samples at first. Something close to Belegis II-G?va and/or Basarabi from South Western Romania/Banat-Northern Serbia comes to mind.
The best arguments they deliver are IBD sharing:
Despite being one of the most frequent haplogroups in modern Balkan populations (67, 80?83),
the origins of E-V13 are enigmatic. The earliest record of this haplogroup among historically
attested groups is in BA-IA Bulgaria (Figs. 8-9, S10), suggesting an association with the people
known as the ?Thracians?. By the early Roman era, E-V13 likely experienced significant
demographic increase, as it appears at medium to high frequencies in areas where in the preceding
Bronze and Iron Age it was either very rare (Croatia, Hungary) or entirely absent (Serbia) (Figs.
8-9). An association of the expansion of E-V13 with southeastern Balkan populations from the
Thracian world is reinforced by one of the Avar-era outliers from Hungary, who is assigned to E-
V13 and clusters with BA-IA populations from Bulgaria on the PCA (Fig. 5A), an affinity
confirmed by qpAdm (Table S14), and IBD-sharing (Table S21) (50). A Scythian from Moldova
(Table S21) who clusters close to Balkan IA populations (Fig. 4A) and belongs to E-V13 (Fig.
S10) also displays IBD-sharing with Bulgaria IA (Table 21). Our findings support late Roman
historical records which mention the presence of ?Thracian? groups known as the ?Bessi?
throughout the Balkans until the 6th century CE (2, 36, 62, 64).
That doesn't wonder, because there we dealt with, undoubtedly, an Eastern branch.
However, the Himerans are a clear signal for something different going on as well, beside the direct Thracian connection. Basically the authors of the paper might have read my comments, or came just to the same conclusions on their own, if reading this highly important paragraph - especially the highlighted parts:
However, not all populations with E-V13 were characterised by a Bulgaria EIA-like autosomal
profile, as shown by the two E-V13-bearing Himera mercenaries (Fig. 4), who were likely related
to EBA-LBA populations from Serbia (Supplementary Methods; Table S10). Furthermore, several
Roman-era samples with a West Balkan autosomal profile [(Croatia: Sipar R3664, ?čitarjevo
R3659); Serbia (Viminacium R6756)] also harboured E-V13 (Tables S23, S28). This does not
exclude a Thracian origin, as the historical region of Dardania (roughly modern Kosovo, southern
Serbia, and western North Macedonia) is recorded as a zone of linguistic contact between
?Illyrian? and ?Daco-Thracian? groups (Fig. S7) (1, 7). It is therefore likely that the population
that introduced E-V13 into Albanians would plot close to Roman era West Balkan groups.
Remarkably, several E-V13 subclades found in Avar and Medieval era Hungary, as well as in one
of the Himera mercenaries, are characterized by sister or daughter branches that comprise almost
exclusively Albanians (Table S34). Whether the individuals from Hungary had an ultimately
Balkan origin is unknown, as most do not share IBD segments with Balkan populations and are
significantly admixed with northern European and Central Asian populations (Table S21).
That they don't share segments with Balkan populations is extremely important and underscores the early dichotomy of Dacians-North Thracians vs. Thracians/South Thracians. I stress early, because many of these Northern Thracians and Dacians are likely to have migrated and mixed South, in different periods, but especially in Late Antiquity, with the mass resettlement of Dacians and the movements during the migration period.
That is exactly what I have argued all along, based on YFull and FTDNA data:
Unlike the abovementioned haplogroups, E-V13 exhibits continuous subclade diversification from
the Bronze Age to the Roman period (Fig. 10), suggesting that populations with a high frequency
of E-V13 may have followed a different demographic trajectory from those with J2b-Z600, R1b-
BY611, R1b-PF7562, and I-M223.
E-V13 came from a major Bronze Age population which branched and diversified later, up to the historical period. It was never restricted or downgraded in the same way as some of the above mentioned haplogroups, and can't be associated with an exclusively South Balkan source population before the Roman period.
And this is the main conclusion:
Based on the above, it is possible that currently unsampled populations from the Central-
West Balkan interior that were characterised by high frequencies of E-V13 may have entered the
region of modern Albania around 500 CE, where they merged and co-expanded with local groups.
This may also explain the absence of E-V13 from the aDNA transect of Albania, despite being the
commonest haplogroup in the modern Albanian population
Like I said, both for Southern Vlachs and Albanians, not all, but the bulk of E-V13 appeared in Late Antiquity with resettled Dacians and incoming tribals, including Slavs. It was not as common or widespread before, in the Southern Balkans, especially not some of the main modern branches. They moved from around the Danube down fairly late. Which is also why they are in Hungary, because Hungary is closer to their original source region than Albania.
The TMRCA graphic is truly impressive and reproduces my efforts with YFull data:
Source: Fig. 10 from
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790v1.full.pdf
The pre-Albanian ethnogenesis and demographic expansion base of surviving E-V13 was many times as large as that of all the other main haplogroups taken together! This is because E-V13 had a significantly larger, the whole Daco-Thracian and Eastern Urnfield sphere, demographic base.
Now this paper says it all, but we need the final confirmation with DNA from Eastern Hungary, Eastern Slovakia and especially from Western Romania early and Romania in general later. Especially from the G?va, Belegis II-G?va and Bosut-Basarabi context. The
Gomolava mass burial and Transylvanian samples might be a good start for getting a better picture.
