Who were and are the Albanians and their DNA

Generally speaking, Albanians predominately have predominantly Greek DNA in the south (Epirus) and predominantly Balkan (south Slav) in the north.

Balkan1992 said:

Generally speaking, Albanians predominately have predominantly Greek DNA in the south (Epirus) and predominantly Balkan (south Slav) in the north.

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False. Stop spreading lies

Sure, and the Italian influence too.

Johane Derite said:

False. Stop spreading lies

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Just ignore him.

Balkan1992 said:

Generally speaking, Albanians predominately have predominantly Greek DNA in the south (Epirus) and predominantly Balkan (south Slav) in the north.

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Funny how its actually the other way around and it isn't even proven that it's actually Slavic all of it.

Exaxtly Zanatis,i am bored about hearing how we tosks are slavic incests and northern are turkish or egyptians,
simply the difference persists because originally we were different peoples, tosks proto-indoeuropean albanians
while gegs proto balkanic, probably related to pre greek peoples, maybe doric, but guys about I2 look how many subclades
we tosks have, saying they are all slavic in my opinion is kind of propagandist, guess what: the highest slavic carriers of
I2 are serbians, croatians and bosnjaks, nothing more distant from tosks, between tosks and this block of slavs there
is gegs, so the only slavs that could some how influence toks are to be seen in bulgarians/makedonians
who i remember you are some of the highest carriers of R1a in the balkans, so if we have to state which are the
slavic influences in tosks of course we have to point R1a, and not all of his subclades, not I2.
Then if you take the results of haplogroups of only tosks you will see that R1b and I2 score almot the same, so i suggest
That original proto-tosks/albanians came from eastern eurpe instead from anatolia, like ghegs did, this would
explain the R1b-L51 same as armenians and one ore more subclades of I2, so when proto tosks came in modern day
south albania(Laberia,myzeqieja,etc.) They of course encountered balkan natives:E-V13 and J2b.
Now as i suggested in te prvious post about the proto balkanic component i would like to see if
I1 had any role.

markozd said:

The evidence is scarce, but Matzinger brings up the possibility of a Paleo-Balkanic macrogroup that includes Illyrian, Phrygian, Greek & Messapian and, of course, modern Albanian. Within this family Albanian seems to be closest to Messapian, but there is too little evidence to say that there's a direct descent. He places the homeland of the proto-Albanians in Moesia Superior & Dardania (so southern Serbia and Kosovo) due to the relative lack of early Greek influence in Albanian, which was strong in the regions of present day Bosnia, Dalmatia.

For the southern expansion Matzinger proposes a date after Christianisation & increasing Roman influence. The early Christian Albanians had a pastoral economy and ousted the pagan, agricultural Slavs whom they encountered in the coastal regions. This is reminds me of what Matasovic said about the interaction between Albanian & Slavic - Albanian borrowed words pertaining to industry and agriculture from Slavic, while Slavic borrowed words pertaining martial values and family relations from Albanian.

Edit: I'll translate the conclusion of the paper later this evening.

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Very interesting. Is this the same linguist along with another from Austria who suggested Albanians descended from a paleo-balkan people but related to and not descended from the more known categories illustrated above?

Balkan1992 said:

Generally speaking, Albanians predominately have predominantly Greek DNA in the south (Epirus) and predominantly Balkan (south Slav) in the north.

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Lies. South Slavs didn't have Balkan DNA before assimilating natives. Albanians are likely paleo-balkan natives. Leave your conjecture at the door.

Gannicus said:

Exaxtly Zanatis,i am bored about hearing how we tosks are slavic incests and northern are turkish or egyptians,
simply the difference persists because originally we were different peoples, tosks proto-indoeuropean albanians
while gegs proto balkanic, probably related to pre greek peoples, maybe doric, but guys about I2 look how many subclades
we tosks have, saying they are all slavic in my opinion is kind of propagandist, guess what: the highest slavic carriers of
I2 are serbians, croatians and bosnjaks, nothing more distant from tosks, between tosks and this block of slavs there
is gegs, so the only slavs that could some how influence toks are to be seen in bulgarians/makedonians
who i remember you are some of the highest carriers of R1a in the balkans, so if we have to state which are the
slavic influences in tosks of course we have to point R1a, and not all of his subclades, not I2.
Then if you take the results of haplogroups of only tosks you will see that R1b and I2 score almot the same, so i suggest
That original proto-tosks/albanians came from eastern eurpe instead from anatolia, like ghegs did, this would
explain the R1b-L51 same as armenians and one ore more subclades of I2, so when proto tosks came in modern day
south albania(Laberia,myzeqieja,etc.) They of course encountered balkan natives:E-V13 and J2b.
Now as i suggested in te prvious post about the proto balkanic component i would like to see if
I1 had any role.

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Here's a fun fact:

There is a I2-Din branch, pre-dating the branches common in Southern Slavs. It is so far(per BigY tests) only found in Greeks and Jews. Its TMRCA is 200BC roughly. Which could mean it arrived with some atypical line of either a Goth or Bastarnae that arrived as Vlachs.

So far no Southern Slavs belong to this minor older cluster under I2-Din. Also Albanians have some I2a2a-Balkan as well. Albanians are extremely under-tested. For all we know a good amount of Albanian I2-Din in the South belongs to this older Greek Cluster:

Dibran said:

Here's a fun fact:

There is a I2-Din branch, pre-dating the branches common in Southern Slavs. It is so far(per BigY tests) only found in Greeks and Jews. Its TMRCA is 200BC roughly. Which could mean it arrived with some atypical line of either a Goth or Bastarnae that arrived as Vlachs.

So far no Southern Slavs belong to this minor older cluster under I2-Din. Also Albanians have some I2a2a-Balkan as well. Albanians are extremely under-tested. For all we know a good amount of Albanian I2-Din in the South belongs to this older Greek Cluster:

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Realy appritiated your intevention, but could it fit with toks? Meaning could tosks be R1b-L51 + I2(one of its subclades)
Because what we can clearly see is that we tosks are the indo european component who came in the neolithic who borught
Indo european languge and genes(partially), so what now i am suggesting is that proto-tosks were R1b+I2.
Then what about gegs, what subclade of I haplogroup do you think could of be jutified as paleo-balkanic in them?

Gannicus said:

Realy appritiated your intevention, but could it fit with toks? Meaning could tosks be R1b-L51 + I2(one of its subclades)
Because what we can clearly see is that we tosks are the indo european component who came in the neolithic who borught
Indo european languge and genes(partially), so what now i am suggesting is that proto-tosks were R1b+I2.
Then what about gegs, what subclade of I haplogroup do you think could of be jutified as paleo-balkanic in them?

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I am not sure what came from where. Most linguistics research seems to suggest Albanians ancestors coming from Moesia Superior. Basically Kosova and Serbia, and then theoretically were pushed southwards in the early middle ages. They cite the lack of maritime vocabulary as one of the possibilities since we do not have our own words in this regard, but borrowed.

The cluster is not specifically Greek. It seems that way at the present. For all we know Southern Albanians belong to this branch and maybe some Arvanites carried it south?

For instance I am probably part of a Germanized Slavic native that arrived as Goth. Considering at present my clade predates the migration and formed a founder effect within Albanians.

Something similar with this I2 cluster could have happened with Greeks and Jews. Maybe Southern Albanian I2-Din belongs in part to it? I did read the Baiounitai(a Slavic tribe mixed with Vlachs and some Goths) settled in central and southern Albania for a time. They could have been assimilated into Byzantium and then re-assimilated into Albanians, creating that North/South, Gheg/Tosk cline. We would need more bigy samples to know for sure.

As far as I can tell there are not any I2-Din samples for Albanians on Yfull. If any in the Albanian bloodlines project with ancestry from the south that are confirmed I2-Din are willing to test further, I would definitely donate what I can towards that end.

There seems to be some middle ages records suggesting Jews had a large presence in the south at one time. Considering only Jews and Greeks belong to this cluster at present; it could have arrived with Arvanite settlers. To be sure we would need more I2-Din Albanians to take a bigy or fullgenomes to put the possibility to the test.

For example, a Greek user Leandros belongs to a typically South Slavic branch of I2-Din(not the cluster that seems specific to Greeks and Jews). So we would need to have more Albanians doing big why to see what percentage would correlate to this cluster and the predominant South Slavic clusters.

One thing is certain. Outside of Albania(as it remains under-tested), most all I2-Din are all part of very young clades between 1500-900ypb, which all seem to correlate with the Slavic migration and specific branches. PH908 for instance is one of the predominant branches among South Slavs(Bosnians and Serbs) which has a TMRCA of 1500ypb. However, most of them belong to further downstream clades which are only between 900-1100ypb.

The only basal CTS10228* sample seems to occur in France per yfull.

If any Albanians belong to the "Greek" I2-Din cluster above, they could be the result of Arvanites, Greeks, Vlach or perhaps assimilated Jews prior to our expansion. Time will tell as the data grows. It was only a year ago that it was suggested Mycenaean were R1a, until remains proved that J2a seems to have been predominant. There is some theory that I2a2a was in the Balkans for very long. I2a1b-Din however has its most recent ancestor in North Europe around Poland. Most I2-Din only arrived in the early middle ages.

It is unlikely that it was paleo-balkan. However if some basal I2a1* starts popping up, perhaps we can hypothesize that it would in that case. At present however, all of it(with exception of the cluster dating to 200BC) seems to have arrived with the Slavic migrations, as the branches are young.

Dibran said:

Here's a fun fact:

There is a I2-Din branch, pre-dating the branches common in Southern Slavs. It is so far(per BigY tests) only found in Greeks and Jews. Its TMRCA is 200BC roughly. Which could mean it arrived with some atypical line of either a Goth or Bastarnae that arrived as Vlachs.

So far no Southern Slavs belong to this minor older cluster under I2-Din. Also Albanians have some I2a2a-Balkan as well. Albanians are extremely under-tested. For all we know a good amount of Albanian I2-Din in the South belongs to this older Greek Cluster:

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Doesn't seem to be the case, I2-CTS10228 found among seems pretty divers. Which points out to different slavic communities being absorbed independently across all regions. Not a founder effect.

Leka said:

Doesn't seem to be the case, I2-CTS10228 found among seems pretty divers. Which points out to different slavic communities being absorb independently across all regions. Not a founder effect.

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Didn't say that it wasn't a common Slavic ancestor in the Proto-Slavic area. However, given the age of the branch, and the fact it only has Greeks and East-European Jews, I hypothesized a possibility that it came with a earlier assimilated Proto-Slav native moving with Goths and or Bastarnae. Bastarnae were not uniform. Their very name suggests they were mixed tribal confederation.

My branch for instance is a "Albanian" founder effect, where only me and another Albanian belong to, a yet undefined subclade stemming from L1029-B-Western which is most common in Germany and Poland. It diverged much earlier however, and likely was a Germanized Proto-Slav that arrived as a Goth. Theres alot of atypical cases. This I2-Cluster(while not a founder effect) could have been one such case of absorption. I guess the future will tell. If the cluster keeps growing with Greek samples and no South Slavs, then it could very well be due to earlier movements absorbed before the migration.

TMRCA of that branch is 200BC and no South-Slavs belong to at as of yet.

I-A2512 split from I-Y3120 2300ypb(300BC). Whilst I-Z17855 diverged from I-Y3120 as well, the South Slavic samples that make up that cluster have a TMRCA between 400-500AD. I-A2512 cluster has a TMRCA dating to 200BC and only has Greek and East-European Jews as mentioned. Its closest cluster I-Y4460 which also split from I-Y3120 has a TMRCA of 200BC as well, and so far has a Ukrainian Swedish sample, and Belarussian.

Most South Slavic I2-Din is all young, Serbs and Bosnian belong in large part to clusters under PH908 that have far younger clades.

If this cluster of I2-Din that dates to 200 BC moved with the Sklavenoi, then where are the South Slavic samples? Also, what Sklavenoi do you know moved earlier than the 5th-7th century? Even if they moved a few hundred years after the TMRCA, its still 400 years earlier than their first arrival. Couple this with Michals TMRCA methods which potentially place the age of clades back 150-300 years and you have a bigger issue of explaining this disparity.

I suggest we wait for more data to pile up. If the cluster is a rare case of earlier movements it shouldnt have any South-Slavic samples, and so far it doesn't.

The problem here is Dibran that the Jews belonging to this subcluster seem to be Ashkenazis from Eastern Europe. That should clear any doubts you had regarding its origin and time of expansion to my opinion. That those Greeks are upstream of those samples doesn’t mean much, honestly. This specific subclade seems like is a minor lineage, anyway.

Leka said:

The problem here is Dibran that the Jews belonging to this subcluster seem to be Ashkenazis from Eastern Europe. That should clear any doubts you had regarding its origin and time of expansion to my opinion. That those Greeks are upstream of those samples doesn’t mean much, honestly. This specific subclade seems like is a minor lineage, anyway.

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No ok, if your doubt is this i have to crack it down right now, there were no jews as far as germany or poland before christianiy, around the year 1000 as i remember the spanish started persecuting jews, then other countries did so, but in german principlities and in poland thy openly accepted them, knowing their ability to do money and economic exchanges, ashkenazi were born, but we are speaking of a quite recent phenomenom.

Dibran said:

Didn't say that it wasn't a common Slavic ancestor in the Proto-Slavic area. However, given the age of the branch, and the fact it only has Greeks and East-European Jews, I hypothesized a possibility that it came with a earlier assimilated Proto-Slav native moving with Goths and or Bastarnae. Bastarnae were not uniform. Their very name suggests they were mixed tribal confederation.

My branch for instance is a "Albanian" founder effect, where only me and another Albanian belong to, a yet undefined subclade stemming from L1029-B-Western which is most common in Germany and Poland. It diverged much earlier however, and likely was a Germanized Proto-Slav that arrived as a Goth. Theres alot of atypical cases. This I2-Cluster(while not a founder effect) could have been one such case of absorption. I guess the future will tell. If the cluster keeps growing with Greek samples and no South Slavs, then it could very well be due to earlier movements absorbed before the migration.

TMRCA of that branch is 200BC and no South-Slavs belong to at as of yet.

I-A2512 split from I-Y3120 2300ypb(300BC). Whilst I-Z17855 diverged from I-Y3120 as well, the South Slavic samples that make up that cluster have a TMRCA between 400-500AD. I-A2512 cluster has a TMRCA dating to 200BC and only has Greek and East-European Jews as mentioned. Its closest cluster I-Y4460 which also split from I-Y3120 has a TMRCA of 200BC as well, and so far has a Ukrainian Swedish sample, and Belarussian.

Most South Slavic I2-Din is all young, Serbs and Bosnian belong in large part to clusters under PH908 that have far younger clades.

If this cluster of I2-Din that dates to 200 BC moved with the Sklavenoi, then where are the South Slavic samples? Also, what Sklavenoi do you know moved earlier than the 5th-7th century? Even if they moved a few hundred years after the TMRCA, its still 400 years earlier than their first arrival. Couple this with Michals TMRCA methods which potentially place the age of clades back 150-300 years and you have a bigger issue of explaining this disparity.

I suggest we wait for more data to pile up. If the cluster is a rare case of earlier movements it shouldnt have any South-Slavic samples, and so far it doesn't.

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Now about your replyies thank you for the infos, really apriciated there, but what i am suggesting is that if we find I2 in a 1:1 scale with R1b-L51, then we could clearly say that tosks were an indo-european tribe, coming from (i suggest) eastern europe in neolithic times ho brought to gegs(E-V13+sonething else probably) albanian languge, R1b were both rulers and suddens, I2 were just suddens.
When proto-tosks came they conquered ghegs and bypassed them going further, i would say at this point that E-V13 was founded as far as south bosnja and south serbia, but not further, but these proto-tosks expanded even more further conquering the equivalent of jugoslavia, of cours for obvious cultral reasons akin to te ino european peoples they were divided into tribes ad ruled themeselves indipendently,
Common feature of germans, celts, slavs, nordics, etc.
So what I am now saying is that till south bosnja you could still find E-V13 so gegs, but tosks pushed even further till modern day croatia, so there was south albania who developed as epirus, the tosks of epirus, norhern albania who developed int Ardiaei nd Dardanians, and northern of this area there were tosks who developed into Dalmatiaei,Daorsi, etc.
So about greek I2 it is not te greeks whi hve it is epirotes(tosks) who were as far as near the peloponnese territorialy, so greeks absorbed this I2, probably from arvanites, descendants of epirotes.
Then to find evidence for tosks till modern day serbia, bosnja and croatia we have to see what subclaes od R1b was founded in serbians(aroud 10%), if it is L51 then my clamis are proved if it is not peace.
Then we have to take more samples of ancient people's bones in the area to see if they had, except fron R1b-L51, any I2 of the so called "greek" subclade.

Gannicus said:

Now about your replyies thank you for the infos, really apriciated there, but what i am suggesting is that if we find I2 in a 1:1 scale with R1b-L51, then we could clearly say that tosks were an indo-european tribe, coming from (i suggest) eastern europe in neolithic times ho brought to gegs(E-V13+sonething else probably) albanian languge, R1b were both rulers and suddens, I2 were just suddens.
When proto-tosks came they conquered ghegs and bypassed them going further, i would say at this point that E-V13 was founded as far as south bosnja and south serbia, but not further, but these proto-tosks expanded even more further conquering the equivalent of jugoslavia, of cours for obvious cultral reasons akin to te ino european peoples they were divided into tribes ad ruled themeselves indipendently,
Common feature of germans, celts, slavs, nordics, etc.
So what I am now saying is that till south bosnja you could still find E-V13 so gegs, but tosks pushed even further till modern day croatia, so there was south albania who developed as epirus, the tosks of epirus, norhern albania who developed int Ardiaei nd Dardanians, and northern of this area there were tosks who developed into Dalmatiaei,Daorsi, etc.
So about greek I2 it is not te greeks whi hve it is epirotes(tosks) who were as far as near the peloponnese territorialy, so greeks absorbed this I2, probably from arvanites, descendants of epirotes.
Then to find evidence for tosks till modern day serbia, bosnja and croatia we have to see what subclaes od R1b was founded in serbians(aroud 10%), if it is L51 then my clamis are proved if it is not peace.
Then we have to take more samples of ancient people's bones in the area to see if they had, except fron R1b-L51, any I2 of the so called "greek" subclade.

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Im I2 from Greece and I have 0 connection with Epirus or Albania. Im from Thrace and 100% Greek.



Y Haplogroup: I2(I-S17250)
mtDNA: U5b2a

Leka said:

The problem here is Dibran that the Jews belonging to this subcluster seem to be Ashkenazis from Eastern Europe. That should clear any doubts you had regarding its origin and time of expansion to my opinion. That those Greeks are upstream of those samples doesn’t mean much, honestly. This specific subclade seems like is a minor lineage, anyway.

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Your disagreement without evidence holds no weight. It is merely that, your disagreement. Besides, Ashkenazim had a pivotal presence in Italy since the late Roman era. Jews were also concentrated heavily in Southern Albania and parts of Macedonia during the early middle ages, including prior to the Slavic migrations. The fact the Ashkenazim belong to further downstream of that branch at present DOES say something about it. It means they share a common ancestor from the Greek samples, whom are possibly from early Jews in Southern Europe. Until you have data to support the clade is found in Southern Slavs, your claim that individual cluster came with the Sclanvenoi as well is unfounded.

Leandros said:

Im I2 from Greece and I have 0 connection with Epirus or Albania. Im from Thrace and 100% Greek.



Y Haplogroup: I2(I-S17250)
mtDNA: U5b2a

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He is speaking about a rare cluster of I2(I-A2512), which is only thus far common in a small group Greeks and Ashkenazi Jews which has a recent ancestor since 200BC. I hypothesized since Jews had a huge presence in Southern Albania, that maybe Southern Albanian I2 is part of this branch and moved south with Arvanites:



Your cluster(as is the case for most I2-Din clusters in the Balkans so far is I2(I-S17250). This is a basal branch with most recent ancestor living 150AD. If you take a BigY test you should be further downstream(LivingDNA doesn't test your whole genome). So far your cluster is common in South-Slavs. Considering you're from Thrace, it is most probably from Sklavenoi settlements in Byzantium in the early middle ages that were assimilated in Greece.

Gannicus said:

Now about your replyies thank you for the infos, really apriciated there, but what i am suggesting is that if we find I2 in a 1:1 scale with R1b-L51, then we could clearly say that tosks were an indo-european tribe, coming from (i suggest) eastern europe in neolithic times ho brought to gegs(E-V13+sonething else probably) albanian languge, R1b were both rulers and suddens, I2 were just suddens.
When proto-tosks came they conquered ghegs and bypassed them going further, i would say at this point that E-V13 was founded as far as south bosnja and south serbia, but not further, but these proto-tosks expanded even more further conquering the equivalent of jugoslavia, of cours for obvious cultral reasons akin to te ino european peoples they were divided into tribes ad ruled themeselves indipendently,
Common feature of germans, celts, slavs, nordics, etc.
So what I am now saying is that till south bosnja you could still find E-V13 so gegs, but tosks pushed even further till modern day croatia, so there was south albania who developed as epirus, the tosks of epirus, norhern albania who developed int Ardiaei nd Dardanians, and northern of this area there were tosks who developed into Dalmatiaei,Daorsi, etc.
So about greek I2 it is not te greeks whi hve it is epirotes(tosks) who were as far as near the peloponnese territorialy, so greeks absorbed this I2, probably from arvanites, descendants of epirotes.
Then to find evidence for tosks till modern day serbia, bosnja and croatia we have to see what subclaes od R1b was founded in serbians(aroud 10%), if it is L51 then my clamis are proved if it is not peace.
Then we have to take more samples of ancient people's bones in the area to see if they had, except fron R1b-L51, any I2 of the so called "greek" subclade.

Click to expand...

I am not sure bro. Albania is still under-tested. We need Albanians with I2a1b to get further resolution tests to make any assumptions. However, as far as I understand, Tosk dialect diverged from common Proto-Albanian only in the early middle-ages, shortly after Gheg. Reason being, even Tosk does not have maritime vocabulary. Albanian per most evidence most likely developed North of the Jiricek line, around Dardania.

Proto-Albanians are believed to have derived from a paleo balkan people. The split with Gheg and Tosk happened much later in the early middle ages. Even in Tosks, J2b and V13 is still prevailing. It appears Proto-Albanians were composed mostly of J2b/E-V13/R1b.

You should do Y-Full to test further and see what your branch is. The prevailing theory is L51 and some celtic clades under it were the result of Dorians(as far as the Balkans). Highest diversity of L51 supposedly was in Central Europe somewhere.

So far there doesn't seem to be any I2 specific to Albanians(though we have low resolution samples). We need more samples. If we can identify an older Albanian founder clade then maybe. As it stands, Proto Albanians were most probably dominant in J2b/V13/R1b.