Originally Posted by
Nik
Just wanted to give my 2 cents after reading several pages on this forum about this topic.
I would suggest everyone interested to focus their attention in the Vlachs of Yugoslavia, Albania, FYROM and Greece and their respective haplogroups.
Studies have shown that several Vlach populated villages in Albania and FYROM show very high I-P37 concentration (sometimes higher than Herzegovina itself), indicating a non-Slavic origin of I-Din in the Balkans.
Similarly, despite the lack of proper studies on ex-Yugoslavian Vlachs, one can turn to history and realize that the area of Northern Montenegro, Herzegovina and Dalmatia were historically heavily populated by ethnic Vlachs (especially the mountainous areas) who only got assimilated into Serbs/Montenegrins, Croats or Bosniaks only after 15-16th century despite the strong Orthodox tradition (or Catholic sometimes).
An interesting proof of these Romance speaking or bilingual communities are the Stecaks (medieval monumental tombstones) made exclusively by Vlachs in the aforementioned regions. In the same time, we known from anthropological studies that these communities were and still are predominantly Dinarid/Dinaric-CM with Atlanto-Med minorities, indicating a pre-Slavic origin of the vast majority of the population despite their modern Slavic tongue.
These facts altogether do not prove they are simply Illyrian, but at least they give us strong hints of a Northern Illyrian/Pannonian/Dacian population been pushed both westward and southward during the Barbarian Invasions.
Korbyn: Its none of my business or anything but I've read yours and Angela's posts and it doesn't seem fair to accuse her of "having an agenda". She's merely stating facts while you're pushing for your personal opinion on the matter, which sorry to say but seems very illogical.
On the contrary, you appear to have the so-called "agenda" by bringing up topics about the Middle Eastern origin of the Albanians on a thread for I-Din. Maybe u should take her advise, do some reading and tone it down a bit. But hey, who am I to tell u?!