How did I2a-Din get to the Balkans?

[Ike]

Most of the Balkans are mountains. Actually if you look more careful you will see that I2a-Din settled on what can be considered the best land. Dalmatian and Herzegovian fields, plains in Macedonia etc...

I don't quite consider it 'the best land'. Maybe the best land to hide, or the best land where invaders will never go. Winters are cold as hell, and there are last remainings of primeval forests in Europe, which looks like this:

Why did Fourth and Fifth enemy offensives ended up with partisans surrounded in that exact area?

 

[mihaitzateo]

I don't quite consider it 'the best land'. Maybe the best land to hide, or the best land where invaders will never go. Winters are cold as hell, and there are last remainings of primeval forests in Europe, which looks like this:

Why did Fourth and Fifth enemy offensives ended up with partisans surrounded in that exact area?

Lol,winters are so cold in Balkans?
What about winters in Russia than?
As for those massive forests ,are quite nice to live near ,you have wood to build houses,places to raise animals and so on.

 

[doku]

Yes you're right other people must know. This is also good link that explains the present population of Sarajevo .
*ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo

Male population of Sarajevo has over 50% I2a din

 

[Shetop]

Yes you're right other people must know. This is also good link that explains the present population of Sarajevo .
*ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo

Male population of Sarajevo has over 50% I2a din

I think that when you said that the most of Sarajevo inhabitants originate from Herzegovina was much more valuable for the discussion.

 

[Shetop]

I don't quite consider it 'the best land'. Maybe the best land to hide, or the best land where invaders will never go. Winters are cold as hell, and there are last remainings of primeval forests in Europe, which looks like this:

I don't see any people living there.

 

[mihaitzateo]

I don't see any people living there.

You think steppes were a much better place to live?
This was indeed one of the best places to live in Europe,together with high mountains from Sardinia,Austria,Switzerland and other mountainous places.
In this places you were protected by the invaders ,you were protected by floods and other extreme weather.
Besides,food was very easy to get,just go and hunt something or go and fish something in the rivers,mushrooms in the forest and so on.

 

[FrankN]

Question to the Bosnians, Croatians, Serbians and Montenegrins here on the Forum: Could you provide us with some more detail about the Old Vlachs (Stari Vlah), Black Vlachs, and Morlachs ? Who were they, where did they settle, and how long did they preserve their vulgar Latin (Vlach) language? The English Wikipedia article just starts with the 14th century, and focuses on the 18th/19th century. The German article mentions that the Morlachs preserved their Romanic language into the medieval period, without providing further detail. The only half-way decent discussion that I have found so far is http://web.archive.org/web/20071227185752/http://www.geocities.com/serban_marin/brezeanu2000.html

 

[Ike]

I don't see any people living there.

Agree, but that is where the peak of I2a-Din is. The more hostile terrain, more I2 as I see it.

Lol,winters are so cold in Balkans?
What about winters in Russia than?
As for those massive forests ,are quite nice to live near ,you have wood to build houses,places to raise animals and so on.

You're comparing Russia? But why? Sarajevo is the same latitude like Toulouse, and it has climate of Kiev.

 

[Shetop]

As far as I investigated I could not put together a comprehensive story about the origin of the Vlachs. The way I see it, is that it is covered by the darkness of the Middle Ages. So maybe someone else could try...

 

[mihaitzateo]

Romanian ,that is spoken by Vlachs,is not Vulgar Latin,who told you that,lol?
It is having at least 20% of the words cognates to Slavic and have resemblances in grammar,plenty,to Macedonian language besides Latin.

 

[FrankN]

Romanian ,that is spoken by Vlachs,is not Vulgar Latin,who told you that,lol?
It is having at least 20% of the words cognates to Slavic and have resemblances in grammar,plenty,to Macedonian language besides Latin.

I wasn't talking about Romanian. I looked for more information about the Old Vlachs and Black Vlachs (Morlachs), living in Stari Vlah (eastern Bosnia, west-central Serbia, Western Montenegro), and somewhere in the hinterland of the Dalmatian coast, respectively. Apparently, slavisation of these areas took only place during the late Medieval, which might imply substantial population continuity and only limited Slavic population inflow during the 6th-10th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stari_Vlah

Stari Vlah (Стари Влах, pronounced [stâːriː vlâx]) is part of Priboj, Nova Varoš, Prijepolje, Užice, Čajetina, and Arilje, which is part of the Zlatibor District, and Ivanjica, which is part of Moravica District

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatia

The inhabitants of Dalmatia are culturally subdivided into two or three groups. The urban families of the coastal cities, sometimes known as Fetivi,^[13] are culturally akin to the inhabitants of the Dalmatian islands (known derogatorily as Boduli). The two are together distinct, in the Mediterranean aspects of their culture, from the more numerous inhabitants of the Zagora, the hinterland, referred to (sometimes derogatorily) as the Vlaji.^[13] The latter are historically more influenced by Ottoman culture, merging almost seamlessly at the border with the Herzegovinian Croats and southern Bosnia and Herzegovina in general.

 

[FrankN]

Wikimedia has this extract from a map that displays the Herzegovina before the Turkish invasions. Source: Historijska Karta Bosna (1935) author: Sastavio prof. Marko Vego.
The various Vlachs (Vlasi) inhabiting the area are indicated in red script.

http://researchomnia.blogspot.de/2013_12_01_archive.html has a longer article on the issue. It cites nobody less than Sir Arthur Evans:

Politically the country outside the limits of the still Roman coast-towns was by Constantine (Porphyrogenitus)'s time in the hands of Slavonic Zupans, but side by side with the dominant race the older inhabitants of the land continued to inhabit the Dinaric glens and Alpine pastures. The relics of the Roman provincials who survived the Slavonic conquest of Illyricum were divided, in Dalmatia at all events, into two distinct classes, the citizens of the coast-towns, who retained their municipal and ecclesiastical institutions and something of Roman civilization under the aegis of Byzantium, and the Alpine population of the interior, the descendants for the most part of Romanized Illyrian clansmen recruited by the expropriated coloni of the municipia, or at least that part of them who had been forced to give up fixed agricultural pursuits for a semi-nomad pastoral life. Both classes spoke the Latin language, approaching, in various stages of degradation, the Romance variety still spoken by the Rouman population of parts of Macedonia and the Danubian provinces; and both were indiscriminately spoken of by their Slavonic neighbours as Vlachs, or Mavrovlachs: Romans, or Black Romans (Morlachs)

From the same article, a reproduced Hungarian map that shows Stari Vlah and the adjacent "Romanina Planina" in Western Serbia / Eastern Bosnia.

 

[Ike]

They can be anything. Everyone that did not feel Slavic and refused to learn the new language were probably considered Vlach. I guess a major mix of all Hgs.

 

[motzart]

There is a study done on Vlach Y Dna and mtDNA you can find here

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-1809.2005.00251.x/full

They did sampling for 5 different Vlach populations in the Balkans, I calculated the averages for these 5 populations, here is the "Vlach Average" for the sampled populations. I won't post the whole table you can find it in the study.

Y-chromosome (N) Vlach Average I-M170 23.36% J2-M172 23.28% R1b-PN25 22.84% E3b1-M78 15.58% R1a1-M17 7.62% G-M201 3.46% K(xP)-M9 1.90% C-RPS4Y711 0.96% J(x2)-12f2 0.52% E3b2-M81 0.46% E1-M33 0.00% E3b3-M123 0.00% H-M69 0.00% R1*-M173×(R1a,R1b) 0.00%

 

[FrankN]

There is a study done on Vlach Y Dna and mtDNA you can find here

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-1809.2005.00251.x/full

They did sampling for 5 different Vlach populations in the Balkans, I calculated the averages for these 5 populations, here is the "Vlach Average" for the sampled populations. I won't post the whole table you can find it in the study.

Y-chromosome (N) Vlach Average I-M170 23.36% J2-M172 23.28% R1b-PN25 22.84% E3b1-M78 15.58% R1a1-M17 7.62% G-M201 3.46% K(xP)-M9 1.90% C-RPS4Y711 0.96% J(x2)-12f2 0.52% E3b2-M81 0.46%

I had already been aware of the study. Unfortunately, it only covers the still romanophone Vlach communities on the Eastern Balkans, not the Dinaric Alps where Romanic dialects ceased to exist between the 15th and 18th century. Since the study has discovered signs of genetical drift in several of the analysed Vlach populations, I am not sure if those frequencies are really helpful to establish the origin of I2a-Din. It only confirms I2a-Din is also found in substantial amounts in non-slavophone communities, but we knew that already from Romania and Moldova.

What I am more interested in is whether there is historical evidence of massive early medieval Slavic immigration into Herzegovina that would have brought I2a-Din there in large amounts. At the moment, all I find is signs of substantial "native" (Roman & pre-Roman) population, which only gradually was slavicised over many centuries.

 

[motzart]

What I am more interested in is whether there is historical evidence of massive early medieval Slavic immigration into Herzegovina that would have brought I2a-Din there in large amounts. At the moment, all I find is signs of substantial "native" (Roman & pre-Roman) population, which only gradually was slavicised over many centuries.

The fact that R1a is found much less in Vlachs than in the Balkans in General and that I2a Din is found in the same frequency is all the evidence you need that I2a Din was NOT brought to the Balkans by the Slavs.

 

[kamani]

The fact that R1a is found much less in Vlachs than in the Balkans in General and that I2a Din is found in the same frequency is all the evidence you need that I2a Din was NOT brought to the Balkans by the Slavs.

You're saying that I2a-din came in the Balkans sometime before the slavs and that the slavic migrations were mostly R1a. And somehow I2a-Din changed their language and geo-political alliances while they were being culturally slavicized.

I don't know if you're right, but your reasoning does go along with a couple of other things. One being why slavic-speaking Balkan people are closer genetically to Romanians, Italians and Albanians than to Russians or Poles. Another being why Albanians have almost no East-European admixture on 23AndMe, even-though their I2a-din can go up to 15%.
However, assuming I2a-din came before the slavs, it must have been only slightly before, because this haplogroup is very rare in Italy, and that is a dead give-away that it is young in the west-Balkans.

 

[gyms]

Y chromosome variation in 457 Croatian samples was studied using 16 SNPs/indel and eight STR loci. High frequency of haplogroup I in Croatian populations and the phylogeographic pattern in its background STR diversity over Europe make Adriatic coast one likely source of the recolonization of Europe following the Last Glacial Maximum. The higher frequency of I in the southern island populations is contrasted with higher frequency of group R1a chromosomes in the northern island of Krk and in the mainland. R1a frequency, while low in Greeks and Albanians, is highest in Polish, Ukrainian and Russian populations and could be a sign of the Slavic impact in the Balkan region. Haplogroups J, G and E that can be related to the spread of farming characterize the minor part (12.5%) of the Croatian paternal lineages. In one of the southern island (Hvar) populations, we found a relatively high frequency (14%) of lineages belonging to P^*(xM173) cluster, which is unusual for European populations. Interestingly, the same population also harbored mitochondrial haplogroup F that is virtually absent in European populations – indicating a connection with Central Asian populations, possibly the Avars.


http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v11/n7/full/5200992a.html

 

[Shetop]

The fact that R1a is found much less in Vlachs than in the Balkans in General and that I2a Din is found in the same frequency is all the evidence you need that I2a Din was NOT brought to the Balkans by the Slavs.

That can't be an evidence only an argument.
It is also very week argument for what you are saying.

It can only be a solid argument for claiming that not all I2a-Din is brought by Slavs, but some of I2a-Din could possibly originate from old Dacians. And it very much depends on that if all Vlachs in the Balkans show increased I2a-Din, and if they eventually do, did they come from what is today Romania, slightly before or after the Slavs, or maybe even at the same time. And at the end, even then it is not clear what percentage of I2a-Din would be Slavic and what percentage would be Vlachs.

The best thing that could happen to you is to forget about R1a=Slavs . Then you would see things much better.

 

[gyms]

The origin of the Romanians has been for centuries subject to scholarly debate, often driven by political bias. Two basic theories can be differentiated; one theory posits Daco-Romanian continuity and the other is an immigrationist theory, but interim views also exist. Scholars of the first school argue that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people emerging through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Latin-speaking Roman colonists in the Roman province of Dacia north of the river Danube. Accordingly, they suggest that a significant part of the territory of modern Romania has continuously been inhabited by the Romanians' ancestors. Followers of the opposite view argue that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in Moesia and other provinces south of the Danube. Consequently, they propose a northward migration of the Romanians across the river.

Gottfried Schramm,^[25] Herbert J. Izzo^[26] and other scholars who support the immigrationist theory propose that the Romanians descended from the Romanized inhabitants of the provinces to the south of the Danube, which were under Roman rule for more than 500 years.^[27] Following the collapse of the empire's frontiers around 620, some of this population moved south to regions where Latin had not been widely spoken.^[28] Others took refuge in the Balkan Mountains where they adopted an itinerant form of sheep- and goat-breeding.^[25] Their mobile lifestyle contributed to their spread in the mountainous zones.^[25][29]
The Romanians' ancestors came into close contact with sedentary Slavic-speaking communities in the 10th century at the latest.^[30] They adopted Old Church Slavonic liturgy in the First Bulgarian Empire, and preserved it along with their Orthodox Christian faith even after their northward migration across the Danube began.^[31] They were first employed as border guards along the southeastern frontiers of the Kingdom of Hungary and later settled in other sparsely inhabited regions as well.^[32] Although sheep-breeding remained their principal economic activity for centuries,^[33] their permanent settlements are also documented from the 1330s.^[34]