How much impact did slavery have on ancient gene pools in Europe ?

@Angel

I've never seen any proposed figure of 60% for the slave population. In fact, the highest percentage I've ever seen is about 35%.

Sure, I was just illustrating that even if the percentage was huge at the time then if they mostly stayed in the lower class segment the percentage may have declined greatly over centuries.

(assuming there was differential TFR by class)
 
@Angel



Sure, I was just illustrating that even if the percentage was huge at the time then if they mostly stayed in the lower class segment the percentage may have declined greatly over centuries.

(assuming there was differential TFR by class)


Oh, ok, got it. Good point.

It's all really complicated, because we have to do so much speculation. I guess my main point is that even with aDna it may be hard to unravel the genetics once you move into the Late Bronze Age or Iron Age and you have the intrusion of populations which are themselves admixtures (in different proportions) of older populations.
 
This is another study with about 500 samples, and again shows about a 30% West Eurasian yDna level.

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetc....1371/journal.pone.0029687&representation=PDF

I think the relationship to autosomal dna is a complicated issue partly because there's a lot of substructure in the African-American community. Much of this traces back to the old "class" distinctions between the minority group of "house slaves" versus the "field slaves" who were the majority of the population. That 20% figure for European autosomal dna is just an average. There are African-Americans with very low levels of European ancestry (Oprah Winfrey is one example) and self-defined African Americans who are much more than 50% European.

This is why I think it's hard to draw parallels between slave societies that are 2000 years apart and in very different cultures. There are even differences between the North American versus South American slave societies. In South America there just weren't all that many European women ever, and low numbers of Europeans in total, so virtually everyone has Amerindian and SSA mtdna.

Agree for the most, but every South-American country has its global and regional historIES; we cannot compare Argentina or Uruguay to Peru or Bolivia.
Concerning the Y haplos of European origin in the USA, we have to keep in mind the weight of the diverse countries of origin of immigrants has dramatically changed over time; the British-Irish-German-Scandinavian Yankee of the first times is loosing weight today; You have only to look at the marines and at the second hand movies series actors and actresses. The wheel is turning on.
 
Additionally there is now ample evidence that the Romans liked to acquire beautiful female slaves (especially exotic blondes and redheads) for the purpose of sex, and that they often had children with them. These children were typically freed once their reached adolescence or adulthood. In fact, most of the freed slaves in ancient Rome could have been the offspring of Roman patricians with their slaves.

there are several roman sources which glorify barbaric women so this thaught is not far away but is there actual evidence for this?
 
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It has been argued that slaves didn't procreate much as they weren't free. But that's nonsense. Slaves were valuable commodities, sold on markets. If you owned slaves, having them breed together created more wealth. So the more children they had the better. Additionally there is now ample evidence that the Romans liked to acquire beautiful female slaves (especially exotic blondes and redheads) for the purpose of sex, and that they often had children with them. These children were typically freed once their reached adolescence or adulthood. In fact, most of the freed slaves in ancient Rome could have been the offspring of Roman patricians with their slaves.

Perhaps this is a reason for my mtdna H6a1b ending up in Italy, and account for some of the northern European autosomal admixture.

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_H_mtDNA.shtml


H6 was absent from Europe before the Bronze Age and has such a wide distribution across the continent nowadays that it would likely have been spread both by R1a and R1b branches of the Indo-Europeans. Indeed, H6 was found in ancient remains from most Indo-European Bronze Age cultures, including Yamna (H6a1b), Corded Ware (H6a1a), Unetice (H6a1b, H6a1b3), Poltavka (H6a2), Okunevo (H6a1b), Srubnaya (H6a1a) and Andronovo (H6). Actually H6 was the only H samples identified so far in the Andronovo culture in Central Asia.
 
Additionally there is now ample evidence that the Romans liked to acquire beautiful female slaves (especially exotic blondes and redheads) for the purpose of sex, and that they often had children with them. These children were typically freed once their reached adolescence or adulthood. In fact, most of the freed slaves in ancient Rome could have been the offspring of Roman patricians with their slaves.

Are you able to provide that evidence? Evidence that acquiring female slaves for sex, especially northern European ones, was popular. And that the children usually were freed?

Of course we need lots of ancient DNA from Italy to know for sure, but if the north Euro-like ancestry in Italy is all recent(Celtic, German, Slaves) then that would probably mean Romans and early Iron age Italians were an intermediate between Sicilians and Sardinians. And if most north Euro-like ancestry in Balkans is recent(Slavs) that would mean ancient Greeks and Ilyrrians were like Greek Islanders. I'm just throwing that at out there.
 
The presence of Africans in Britain has been recorded since Roman times, but has left no apparent genetic trace among modern inhabitants. Y chromosomes belonging to the deepest-rooting clade of the Y phylogeny, haplogroup (hg) A, are regarded as African-specific, and no examples have been reported from Britain or elsewhere in Western Europe. We describe the presence of an hgA1 chromosome in an indigenous British male; comparison with African examples suggests a Western African origin. Seven out of 18 men carrying the same rare east-Yorkshire surname as the original male also carry hgA1 chromosomes, and documentary research resolves them into two genealogies with most-recent-common-ancestors living in Yorkshire in the late 18th century. Analysis using 77 Y-short tandem repeats (STRs) is consistent with coalescence a few generations earlier. Our findings represent the first genetic evidence of Africans among 'indigenous' British, and emphasize the complexity of human migration history as well as the pitfalls of assigning geographical origin from Y-chromosomal haplotypes.
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v15/n3/abs/5201771a.html

This 2007 study identified British men who carry Y-DNA haplogroup A1 that closely matches the one identified in men presently living in West Africa, which suggests that their black ancestor arrived in Britain within the past few thousand years. A1 possibly entered the gene pool in northern England 1800 years ago when Africans were brought into the region by the Roman Empire. These men have the Yorkshire surname and a typical European appearance, indicating that Africans were fully integrated in ancient British society.
 
This 2007 study identified British men who carry Y-DNA haplogroup A1 that closely matches the one identified in men presently living in West Africa, which suggests that their black ancestor arrived in Britain within the past few thousand years. A1 possibly entered the gene pool in northern England 1800 years ago when Africans were brought into the region by the Roman Empire. These men have the Yorkshire surname and a typical European appearance, indicating that Africans were fully integrated in ancient British society.

the same goes for a British male with an African subclade of R1b-V88.
his British line goes back to the 17th century
 
I think Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome were different regarding the slaves. Greece was a microcosmos, where slaves usually were fellow Greeks or people from adjecent areas who ended up being slaves for any particular reason. Usually war booty. Slaves were part of Ancient Greek society, except for politics. In Athens for example, if you were a slave from Thebes, you were not an Athenian and not an equal citizen. But you were able to hold important positions. Even political advisers, artisans, etc. The Parthenon has been build by hands of slaves as well as free men. Though usually slaves were used for agriculture. Taking everything into account though, it is kind of a on oxymoron to argue what percentage of the Greek gene pool was from slaves. Since the gene pool might have been similar. One has to prove that slaves were different from free men to begin with. There is no evidence I have seen for this. Someone argued that there must be a difference between Mycenean Greeks and Classical Greeks (since Mycenean Greeks had slaves), but all evidence so far points to the fact that Mycenean Greeks are similar to classical Greeks. There is some evidence that there have been some changes between Bronze Age Greece and Mycenean Greece though. This is probably due to the arrival of the proto-hellenes. Lastly, there were certainly non-Greek slaves in Hellenistic Greece. But there is no evidence that these slaves were imported to Greece in serious numbers. I.e. a Greek from Alexandria, Egypt could hold a slave of any origin, but this hardly has any impact on the gene pool of the people of Greece.

Ironically, many Greeks were Roman slaves during the Roman empire. The Roman empire was somewhat different compared to Ancient Greece. Many slaves were imported from other parts of 'mostly' Europe. Yet, by far the largest percentage of slaves was from local Italian peoples. However, due to Rome's imperial nature, it is undeniable that a larger variety of people were imported into Italy than in Greece for example.
 
And if most north Euro-like ancestry in Balkans is recent(Slavs) that would mean ancient Greeks and Ilyrrians were like Greek Islanders. I'm just throwing that at out there.

I don't buy that. Logically Indo-Eurpeans settled in mainland Greece, mixed with locals, then also migrated to islands, then to Asia Minor. The rule is that the North Euro like ancestry is deluded in every step. So the Ancient Greek islanders would have had less north Euro ancestry than the Ancient Greek mainlanders to begin with.
 

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