Who were and are the Albanians and their DNA

LABERIA said:
Anyway, i have to admit that from Caucasus Albania to 'relative autochthony' is a Great Leap Forward. Let's see where will end this charade.
Click to expand...

That's just transparent well-poisoning.

There was one 19th Arberesh writer who actually agreed with the Caucasus theory too apparently, and that makes perfect sense in the early linguistic and ethnographic climate where pretty much any theory you can think of was made up (its long-term apparent abuse by some Serb writers notwithstanding). An equally important stream, actually more so, that you conveniently ignore here would be all those theories of common ancient "Pelasgian" descent, often equally ridiculous.

No actual linguists (or recent historians) took/take seriously a connection of Albanian to the Caucasus rather than the ancient Balkans but it's also very clear that the specifics of the latter question have been far from settled and the potential advance will come via aDNA.
 
LATGAL said:
Whatever disagreements there are, and it isn't like Matzinger's theory is the be-all end-all of things, it's clear that he is a serious contemporary scholar. I'm sure no one can fully "objectively evaluate" the evidence when it comes to such contentious issues (and I mean that in the sense of the evidence pointing either way).



I'm sure linguists can tell the difference between cognates and loanwords, this specific point seems to be one that virtually all linguists I've come across seem to agree with (though most likely via secondary means).



Though this particular point isn't about the existence of Latin in other Balkan languages on its own, but the relative ratio of Latin/Greek. But in general, that's not the only piece of evidence Matzinger thinks exists for the conclusion that proto-Albanian was spoken overall somewhat to the northeast of the current territory since you read the paper.



I wouldn't say it's understated. The potential specifically West Greek words are very few as far as I know and some are uncertain whether specifically from that kind of dialect.



Actually if I understood him correctly Matzinger seems to make that point that the pre-Romance language of the ancestors of the Romanians (i.e. around Moesia) might even have been related to proto-Albanian so the common words might be explained that way.



Indeed, so the diocese of Dacia minus Praevelitana.[/FONT][/COLOR]
Click to expand...

He literally starts off the Albanian text by saying "the illyrian-albanian hypothesis is a cliche enjoyed.."

And then he makes snide jabs at Cabej and the overall tone of it all is just very transparent. Far from a neutral analysis of the facts.

DNA evidence doesn't corroborate what he theorizes anyway, so thats that.
 
Johane Derite said:
He literally starts off the Albanian text by saying "the illyrian-albanian hypothesis is a cliche enjoyed.."

And then he makes snide jabs at Cabej and the overall tone of it all is just very transparent. Far from a neutral analysis of the facts.

DNA evidence doesn't corroborate what he theorizes anyway, so thats that.
Click to expand...

It's fine to be annoyed at the usual cliches that introduce Balkan articles and focus on local nationalisms but I don't see how it discredits his general points. It's true that there's debate about these points and some others do end up agreeing with a position like Matzinger's (Orel comes to mind from recent ones).

The ancient DNA evidence is pretty slim right now to be able to easily tell what's going on. The ancient Y-DNA we have from the Balkans is extremely minimal (the only thing I'd say is that every important current clade except the two Slavic-associated suspects seems to broadly show up, but we don't know to what extent in what areas) and autosomally you have an overall very clinal population from the Peloponnese to Pannonia based on what's been published so far. In a few years this will likely change but right now most of the Balkans, including the whole of Albania which probably won't show any major suprises autosomally, are terra incognita.
 
LATGAL said:
That's just transparent well-poisoning.

There was one 19th Arberesh writer who actually agreed with the Caucasus theory too apparently, and that makes perfect sense in the early linguistic and ethnographic climate where pretty much any theory you can think of was made up (its long-term apparent abuse by some Serb writers notwithstanding). An equally important stream, actually more so, that you conveniently ignore here would be all those theories of common ancient "Pelasgian" descent, often equally ridiculous.

No actual linguists (or recent historians) took/take seriously a connection of Albanian to the Caucasus rather than the ancient Balkans but it's also very clear that the specifics of the latter question have been far from settled and the potential advance will come via aDNA.
Click to expand...

I can write an long answer to your post, but my interest was and is this medieval migration of Albanians, not Caucasus Albania.
 
LATGAL said:
It's fine to be annoyed at the usual cliches that introduce Balkan articles and focus on local nationalisms but I don't see how it discredits his general points. It's true that there's debate about these points and some others do end up agreeing with a position like Matzinger's (Orel comes to mind from recent ones).

The ancient DNA evidence is pretty slim right now to be able to easily tell what's going on. The ancient Y-DNA we have from the Balkans is extremely minimal (the only thing I'd say is that every important current clade except the two Slavic-associated suspects seems to broadly show up, but we don't know to what extent in what areas) and autosomally you have an overall very clinal population from the Peloponnese to Pannonia based on what's been published so far.
Click to expand...

No, its not fine to have a scientific article and present your argument by saying the counter argument (that there is illyrian - albanian language continuity) is a cliche. That's juvenile.
 
Johane Derite said:
No, its not fine to have a scientific article and present your argument by saying the counter argument (that there is illyrian - albanian language continuity) is a cliche. That's juvenile.
Click to expand...

Yeah sure, I don't disagree that it's annoying especially since most Balkan debates are heated most of the time but his points go well beyond that and about internal Albanian changes, the treatment of toponyms and so on.

I always took an Illyrian scenario as a sort-of-default position, considering where the Albanians first appear historically, when we're generally agnostic about it but it's also clear that linguists themselves don't fully agree with that, however we weigh their arguments. Luckily another discipline has come along and might provide some indisputable answers either with Y-DNA or high quality autosomal data.
 
LATGAL said:
The ancient DNA evidence is pretty slim right now to be able to easily tell what's going on. The ancient Y-DNA we have from the Balkans is extremely minimal (the only thing I'd say is that every important current clade except the two Slavic-associated suspects seems to broadly show up, but we don't know to what extent in what areas) and autosomally you have an overall very clinal population from the Peloponnese to Pannonia based on what's been published so far. In a few years this will likely change but right now most of the Balkans, including the whole of Albania which probably won't show any major suprises autosomally, are terra incognita.
Click to expand...


Ah yes, J2b2-L283 the infamous Dacian haplogroup. Dacians were known to be in Croatian coast...

KoOf3h8.png
 
LATGAL said:
Luckily another discipline has come along and might provide some indisputable answers either with Y-DNA or high quality autosomal data.
Click to expand...

Here I agree with you, thank god
 
Johane Derite said:
Ah yes, J2b2-L283 the infamous Dacian haplogroup. Dacians were known to be in Croatian coast...
Click to expand...

I'm sure you know all about the relevant Balkan subclades much better judging by other posts but something like L283 seems pretty widespread, including in areas that don't necessarily seem particularly plausibly derived from the historical West Balkan area. There's another problem with Ghegs expectedly looking particularly conservative in their Y-DNA, and even autosomally, compared to pretty much every other Balkan group - do we know for sure what the ancient distributions were generally like unless something generally looks like a recent invader like most of the R1a subclades? There seem to e.g. be ancient chance BA-IA findings of G in parts of Eastern Europe where today at least it doesn't seem particularly prevalent. That was sort of my point here.
 
LATGAL said:
I'm sure you know all about the relevant Balkan subclades much better but something like L283 seems pretty widespread, including in areas that don't necessarily seem particularly plausibly derived from the historical West Balkan area. There's another problem with Ghegs looking particularly conservative in their Y-DNA, and even autosomally, compared to pretty much every other Balkan group - do we know for sure what the ancient distributions were generally like unless something generally looks like a recent invader like most of the R1a subclades? There seem to e.g. be ancient chance BA-IA findings of G in parts of Eastern Europe where today at least it doesn't seem particularly prevalent. That was sort of my point here.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree with you that its still early days to say anything definitive. But nonetheless the unraveling has begun, and I eagerly await it, wherever it will lead us.

I just want to say that I don't base my leaning toward the Illyrian side only on the last couple of years dna results, but also on anthropological, ethnographic, archaeological and mythological evidence.

And linguistic.
 
Sile said:
it is part of the cetina culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetina_culture
.
.
https://indo-european.eu/2017/12/be...rming-the-pre-germanic-community-scandinavia/
.
https://www.world-archaeology.com/world/europe/croatia/cetina-valley-croatia/
.
Click to expand...

You might want to read the following post from our Serbian friend, Aspurg. He archaeologically identified it as a Proto-Illyrian sample :):

Aspurg said:
I seem to have made an error earlier while posting here.. Anyway, regarding this Veliki Vanik find, it is archaeologically identifiable:

Footnote from "The Genomic History Of Southeastern Europe"
Radiocarbon dates and preserved artifacts (hair ornament made of coiled copper wire and fragments of pottery) date these burials to the Early/Middle Bronze Age.28


28
Mucić, K. & Kovačević Bokarica, N. Doprinosi poznavanju povijesti Vrgoračke krajine
na osnovi rezultata novijih arheoloških istraživanja. In: Arheološka istraživanja na trasi
autoceste u Zabiokovlju i Plini (ed M Tomasović) 125-212 (Gradski muzej Makarska,
2011).


One last year's work:
Majića gradina (Drinovci) - novo nalazište licenske keramike u Hercegovini (new find of Litzen ware in Herzegovina)


U kulturnom i kronološkom pogledu navedene razlike nisu toliko izražene, barem ne u kontekstu promatrane kulturne regije, gdje često i ne postoji uža distinkcija prema načinu izvođenja ornamenta, nego se konvencionalno takva vrsta nalaza, bilo da su oni ukrašeni otiskivanjem dvonitne uzice ili otkane tkanice/vrpce, često deklarira kao licenska.16


16 Usp. B. Čović, "Posuška kultura", 70, 75, 77-78, T. VIII, 5, T. X, 5, 4; Marinko Tomasović, "Arheološka topografija lijeve strane donjeg toka Cetine", u: Jacqueline Balen - Hrvoje Potrebica (prir.), Arheološka istraživanja u cetinskoj krajini, Izdanja Hrvatskoga arheološkog društva, vol. 27, Zagreb, 2011., T. I, 5-6; Vedran Katavić - Ana Sunko Katavić - Andrea Devlahović, "Istraživanje grobnog tumula, dviju vrtača, gradine i gradinice u Gornjim Rašćanima kod Vrgorca", u: Marinko Tomasović (prir.), Arheološka istraživanja na trasi autoceste u Zabiokovlju i Plini, Makarska, 2011., str. 46, kat. jed. 7; Konstanta Mucić - Nela Kovačević Bokarica, "Doprinosi poznavanju povijesti Vrgoračke krajine na osnovi rezultata novijih arheoloških istraživanja", u: Marinko Tomasović (prir.), Arheološka istraživanja na trasi autoceste u Zabiokovlju i Plini, Makarska, 2011., str. 130, kat. jed. 2; B. Marijanović, nav. dj., str. 105, T. LXXXV, 5; T. LXXXVI, 1,2; Ivan Šuta, "Korištenje vrtača u prapovijesti Dalmacije", u: Tusculum, 6, Solin, 2013., str. 11-12, sl. 6.


So Litzen ware clearly places Veliki Vanik in the context of what B.Čović called Posušje culture, while Govedarica classified it as Dinara culture. Dinara culture was markedly different in comparison to neighboring Cetina culture, as you know Raf Ceustermans of E-M35 Project already put up a hypothesis of connection between E-V13 and Cetina culture. Tying J-M241 with coexisting neighboring Dinara culture actually adds indirectly additional weight to his hypothesis.
It must be said that Dinara culture has clear ties to Apennine Peninsula. It's origin can be through some connections be further traced to Ljubljana culture. Ljubljana culture had strong and clear Bell Bekaer element. In it's first phase Vuledol element was present, then at the end of it came the Bell Beaker element, some archaeologists suggested they coexisted and together proceeded to the south, but Slovenian archaeologist Paola Korošec was of the opinion that Bell Beaker element destroyed Vučedol element. W3a is a steppe mtdna, but it was also found in one Bell Beaker sample from Deggendorf, Bavaria. She traced this Bell Beaker element to north Italian Remedello culture. And that brings us to J-M241, as all older clades are found in Italy, I strongly believe J-M241 is this Bell Beaker element. So it was an indoeuropean element coming not from the steppes but from the West. All in all, I believe this J2b2 find explains itself very nicely, the nature of this culture and location of early M241 clades just fit nicely.

It is without doubt proto-Illyrian, and likely J-M241 might have been the most numerous Illyrian hg. Additionally this sample being J-Y15058* points that even several clades under it that have ties to Eastern Balkans (Bulgarians, Aromanians) ultimately have western origins.

E-V13 is another theme, but I think Indoeuropean element V13 encountered was markedly different from Bell Beakers. Likely all E-V13's are a "grecoid" population originally, they migrated much more eastwards and southwards, but those clades that stayed of course played their part in ethnogenesis of Illyrians.
Click to expand...
 
LATGAL said:
Read some Ducellier, he refers to them. Actually even sources that you yourself have brought (like Giakoumis who almost takes some sort of intermediate stance where Greco-Albanian cohabitation in Epirus -specifically the area of Gjirokaster- is "quite old", while still explicitly referring to later Albanian migrations) refer to those.

Particularly weird thing to ask after a post that refers to a(n obviously not necessarily correct, an Illyrian connection is obviously plausible too with Albanians being 'native' to Central-North Albania and related contemporary Gheg-speaking territories but Matzinger thinks it doesn't relate to the phonological evidence; ancient DNA data will clarify this likely more than linguistics ever did) theory that doesn't even bring the Albanians in south Albania before late antiquity/medieval times.

And you're certainly not one to talk about "moral obligations" since our previous interactions have shown me that you're occasionally an outright liar (or just "misunderstand" your own sources). So no need for that sort of talk. ;)
Click to expand...

In the early 1360s, Epirus indeed was divided between Albanian clans: the clan of Peter Iiosha held Arta, the clan of Muriki Boua Spata" held Etoloacarnania, with Angelokastron as capital, and their leaders held the Byzantine titles of Despots from Symeon". Only the city of Ioannina WAS still governed by Greeks". In the north and west of this city, the clans of the Malakasaioi and of the Mazarakaioi held a territory which cannot be precisely defined''. Then, the clan of the Zenebisaioi held the north-west of Ioannina, including Dryinopolis, Bela and Vagenctia".

Source:
http://www.cliohworld.net/onlread/5/44.pdf
 
Dibran said:
Conjecture is just that, conjecture. I merely provided a hypothesis given this cluster of I2-Din is not found in SOUTHERN SLAVS, the peoples largely descended from SCLAVENOI. You know, just one branch of the Slavs that moved between the 5th and 7th centuries. Not the Proto-Slavs who could have brought slightly older clusters a century or so earlier under the Goths. Or even as Antes mercenaries to Romans against the Huns some 300 years before the major Slavic migrations....
Click to expand...

That's right. There are no Southern Slavs in A2512 as of yet, or Albanians (though that could change). FTDNA's haplogroup 12a project has lots of participants. Those who haven't taken Big Y tests or SNP tests are placed in groups of confirmed or presumed subclades. I was placed in presumed A2512>A10959 until I tested positive for both clades--one via FTDNA SNP pack and the other through YSEQ.

We need more tests and data for A2512 to ascertain population movements--whether the A2512 Greeks spread out from Epirus/Albania area, northern Greece or somewhere else. Right now there are few confirmed A2512's among Greeks.

But, it seems that it really bothers some that some Greeks may have old origins in the Greek world. Some want Greeks to be descended from Slavs or others and not have any ancient Greek connections. If the Bastarnae brought A2512 to the Greco-Roman world, that means the modern Greeks with A2512 have pagan Greek connections. It's way too early to confirm this, but it might be the case.
 
Last edited:
LATGAL said:
I'm sure you know all about the relevant Balkan subclades much better judging by other posts but something like L283 seems pretty widespread, including in areas that don't necessarily seem particularly plausibly derived from the historical West Balkan area. There's another problem with Ghegs expectedly looking particularly conservative in their Y-DNA, and even autosomally, compared to pretty much every other Balkan group - do we know for sure what the ancient distributions were generally like unless something generally looks like a recent invader like most of the R1a subclades? There seem to e.g. be ancient chance BA-IA findings of G in parts of Eastern Europe where today at least it doesn't seem particularly prevalent. That was sort of my point here.
Click to expand...
L283 isn't really "widespread", it's only really found in high percentages in Albanians. The Proto-Illyrian J2b2-L283 is supposedly CTS3617 (based on raw data) which is the brother cade of Z638 which Albanians belong to. The highest distribution in the Balkans for L283 is the west Balkans and L283 in other places could very well be due to migration from the west Balkans.
 
Ralphie Boy said:
That's right. There are no Southern Slavs in A2512 as of yet, or Albanians (though that could change). FTDNA's haplogroup 12a project has lots of participants. Those who haven't taken Big Y tests or SNP tests are placed in groups of confirmed or presumed subclades. I was placed in presumed A2512>A10959 until I tested positive for both clades--one via FTDNA SNP pack and the other through YSEQ.

We need more tests and data for A2512 to ascertain population movements--whether the A2512 Greeks spread out from Epirus/Albania area, northern Greece or somewhere else. Right now there are few confirmed A2512's among Greeks.

But, it seems that it really bothers some that some Greeks may have old origins in the Greek world. Some want Greeks to be descended from Slavs or others and not have any ancient Greek connections. If the Bastarnae brought A2512 to the Greco-Roman world, that means the modern Greeks with A2512 have pagan Greek connections. It's way too early to confirm this, but it might be the case.
Click to expand...

I think(given what data we have right now) that Bastarnae could be the source of that cluster in Greeks. Unless a large swathe of South Slavs show up in it anytime soon, I don't think it moved with the migration event like the rest. I also have a rare cluster. A Albanian founder effect within L1029 under M458. Only me and an Albanian belong to it. My closest TMRCA with everyone else L1029 is 2000-2300ypb. My cluster seems most common in Germany and Poland and Belarus on the South-West end. It could have been a Germanized Proto-Slav that arrived with Goths, considering I am negative for all downstream branches common in the Balkans. In fact, L1029-B-Western only makes up 20 percent of Bulgarian M458, most of which is M458-B-Eastern(YP417 and its downstream clades). As far as the Balkans it is common in Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, and Greece. My Albanian founder effect happened anywhere between 400-800AD(currently testing novels). There is alot of pseudo science in this field so it requires quite a bit of sifting lol.
 
I'm J2b2-L283. I have no idea how it could end up in Denmark.
 
rove said:
I'm J2b2-L283. I have no idea how it could end up in Denmark.
Click to expand...

My guess is with the Romans to Central Europe(they had many Balkan soldiers). Then from Germany much later to Denmark maybe. In Scotland it could be from Vikings. There is a large expanse of time that passed between your clade and modern history. I could be very wrong though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

This thread has been viewed 697020 times.

Back
Top