Genetics of the Greek Peleponessus

Angela

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See:
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejhg201718a.html

George Stamatoyannopoulos et al:
[h=2]Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks[/h]"Peloponnese has been one of the cradles of the Classical European civilization and an important contributor to the ancient European history. It has also been the subject of a controversy about the ancestry of its population. In a theory hotly debated by scholars for over 170 years, the German historian Jacob Philipp Fallmerayer proposed that the medieval Peloponneseans were totally extinguished by Slavic and Avar invaders and replaced by Slavic settlers during the 6th century CE. Here we use 2.5 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms to investigate the genetic structure of Peloponnesean populations in a sample of 241 individuals originating from all districts of the peninsula and to examine predictions of the theory of replacement of the medieval Peloponneseans by Slavs. We find considerable heterogeneity of Peloponnesean populations exemplified by genetically distinct subpopulations and by gene flow gradients within Peloponnese. By principal component analysis (PCA) and ADMIXTURE analysis the Peloponneseans are clearly distinguishable from the populations of the Slavic homeland and are very similar to Sicilians and Italians. Using a novel method of quantitative analysis of ADMIXTURE output we find that the Slavic ancestry of Peloponnesean subpopulations ranges from 0.2 to 14.4[FONT=&quot]%[/FONT]. Subpopulations considered by Fallmerayer to be Slavic tribes or to have Near Eastern origin, have no significant ancestry of either. This study rejects the theory of extinction of medieval Peloponneseans and illustrates how genetics can clarify important aspects of the history of a human population."

Well, that's always what's made sense to me, so...
 
"Subjects were included in the study if all four grandparents originated from the same village or from villages that were <10 kilometers apart. The ages of most participants ranged between 70 and 90 years (the oldest subject was 107 years old); hence their grandparents were born between 1860 and 1880. " These were also all people from rural villages.

That's the way it should be done.

ADMIXTURE results:
The Peloponnese population is south of Tuscans, and Sicily and the Peloponnese overlap. It's what I have been proposing for years, but I think some anthrofora posters are going to need smelling salts. :)

It would have been nice to see a comparison to someplace like Campania. I wonder if there would be total overlap?

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/fig_tab/ejhg201718f2.html#figure-title

"Sicilians and Italians serve as a bridge between Peloponneseans and other European populations (Basque, Andalusians and French). Slavic populations are placed far away from the Peloponneseans as are the Near Eastern populations. The latter are connected to the Peloponnesus via the islands of Crete and the Dodecanese."

" The ADMIXTURE analysis of Figure 1e shows that the Maniots and Tsakones are clearly separated from each other and from all other Peloponnesean populations."
 
I believe that for Italians they think Southern Italians. No doubts that Peloponnesians have loads of overlap with Sicily and Southern Italy, loads of cities of Magna Grecia and Sikelia were from Messenia or Corinto just to say.
 
Good study, but too bad that they did not have any Proto-Slavic and Early Slavic ancient DNA samples.

Instead they had to rely on comparisons with modern populations. This might change soon, because samples from 900s AD Poland will be published. It would be even better to have Slavic samples from Late Iron Age and from the Migration Period.

The main problem is that cremation was widely practiced by Early Slavs, inhumations were rare at that time.
 
>>Cannot post quote here<< For those unfamiliar, the Maniots, as described here, are those people on the Mani peninsula ('deep Mani') and the population on the west and east sides of the Tayetos mountain. Edit: This is southeast (Mani) or east and northeast (the Tayetos) from the modern town of Kalamata (of the superb olive fame), and birthplace of the Greek independence revolution. FYI The Tsakones are on the east side of the Peloponnesus in apparently a somewhat isolated area.

My maternal line is West Tayetos (classified as 'Maniot' -that is, part of - late in the study), so this is definitely interesting. I have cousins who are in the paternal line.

>>Cannot post quote here<< All this leaves open the composition of Haplogroups between Maniots and any 'ancient DNA' that can be recovered.

Also, it should be noted - regarding 'the ancient Greek religion', there is a decidedly pagan festival each year prior to Greek Orthodox Christian Lent (Triodion) in the village of Nedousa, which is West Tayetos. That town had a 'slavic' name, Megali Anastasova, until the 1920s.

Also, I read elsewhere that the Slavs on the Tayetos were used by the Ottomans to guard certain passes there. I think it might be normal that such a role would isolate them from the mass of the 'regular' inhabitants.

My only regret with the study is it would be greatly useful to compare these areas with the Albanians. The Albanians of FYROM (so-called, 'macedonians') are a huge nuisance with any Greek oriented site. Perhaps someone can take the study and do that comparison.

Thank you Angela for posting this. I presume your interest is the Italian commonalities. I think you should be satisfied, cousin.
 
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There was I think in 1923 a huge population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Greeks took about 1.5 million Anatolian Greeks and resettled them in mainland, including Populousness. That was 40% of population of Greece of that time. So no genetic study of Greeks tells the truth about genetic composition of Greeks of Middle ages when Fallmerayer visited Greece. To say now that Peloponnese's was not touched by resettlement of populations from Anatolia is not the truth. When Fallmerayer visited Greece he landed by ship on port of Pireus close to present day Athens. The first thing he realized was that local population spoke no Greek. He was greeted by hordes of Arvanites who spoke no Greek. Also the Vlah population of of Greece was significant. They might have composed 10% of total Greek population. He famously said something like: I guess I have to visit cemeteries. There is where the real Greeks lay. Unless the Anatolian Greeks have the same genes like the one Peloponesses have I don't see how this study could be true? I come to believe the expression: Don't believe everything you read!
 
Totally irrelevant point. The genetics of these samples is dated to 1860.

People should read papers before commenting on them, or at least read the summaries provided by other posters. They should also engage whatever brains they possess.

"Subjects were included in the study if all four grandparents originated from the same village or from villages that were <10 kilometers apart. The ages of most participants ranged between 70 and 90 years (the oldest subject was 107 years old); hence their grandparents were born between 1860 and 1880."


 
See:
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejhg201718a.html

George Stamatoyannopoulos et al:
Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks

"Peloponnese has been one of the cradles of the Classical European civilization and an important contributor to the ancient European history. It has also been the subject of a controversy about the ancestry of its population. In a theory hotly debated by scholars for over 170 years, the German historian Jacob Philipp Fallmerayer proposed that the medieval Peloponneseans were totally extinguished by Slavic and Avar invaders and replaced by Slavic settlers during the 6th century CE. Here we use 2.5 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms to investigate the genetic structure of Peloponnesean populations in a sample of 241 individuals originating from all districts of the peninsula and to examine predictions of the theory of replacement of the medieval Peloponneseans by Slavs. We find considerable heterogeneity of Peloponnesean populations exemplified by genetically distinct subpopulations and by gene flow gradients within Peloponnese. By principal component analysis (PCA) and ADMIXTURE analysis the Peloponneseans are clearly distinguishable from the populations of the Slavic homeland and are very similar to Sicilians and Italians. Using a novel method of quantitative analysis of ADMIXTURE output we find that the Slavic ancestry of Peloponnesean subpopulations ranges from 0.2 to 14.4%. Subpopulations considered by Fallmerayer to be Slavic tribes or to have Near Eastern origin, have no significant ancestry of either. This study rejects the theory of extinction of medieval Peloponneseans and illustrates how genetics can clarify important aspects of the history of a human population."

Well, that's always what's made sense to me, so...

Well 0.2 to 14.4% is a pretty massive range. Unless the upper range is an outlier, I wouldn't say Slavic ancestry is non-existant by any stretch. Some groups in England are likely barely even 14.4% Anglo-Saxon, so let's keep this in perspective.
 
Well 0.2 to 14.4% is a pretty massive range. Unless the upper range is an outlier, I wouldn't say Slavic ancestry is non-existant by any stretch. Some groups in England are likely barely even 14.4% Anglo-Saxon, so let's keep this in perspective.

Who said it's non-existent? I neither read that nor claimed it.

Did you read the paper? Did you skip over the context? They're responding to nonsense claims by German "scholars" of the past.

The fact is that the Greeks have some Slavic admixture, just like the Sicilians have admixture from Central Europe and northwestern Europe.

No one is claiming they're a totally unchanged population. You missed the point.

In case everyone missed it, there's a lot of substructure in Greece, as there is in Italy, which is why a few samples from someplace in Thessaly was not ever going to give a complete picture. It would be like judging all Italian genetics on the basis of the Valle D'Aosta.

This should also be an object lesson for the fact that results posted by various internet people, even if not cherry-picked, can be very misleading. Stick to scientifically, randomly selected samples from a broad range of areas, and hopefully a good number of them.
 
>>Cannot post quote here<< For those unfamiliar, the Maniots, as described here, are those people on the Mani peninsular ('deep Mani') and the population on the west and east sides of the Tayetos mountain. This is east (Mani) or northeast (the Tayetos) from the modern town of Kalamata (of the superb olive fame), and birthplace of the Greek independence revolution. FYI The Tsakones are on the east side of the Peloponnesus in apparently a somewhat isolated area.

My maternal line is West Tayetos (classified as 'Maniot' -that is, part of - late in the study), so this is definitely interesting. I have cousins who are in the paternal line.

>>Cannot post quote here<< All this leaves open the composition of Haplogroups between Maniots and any 'ancient DNA' that can be recovered.

Also, it should be noted - regarding 'the ancient Greek religion', there is a decidedly pagan festival each year prior to Greek Orthodox Christian Lent in the village of Nedusa, which is West Tayetos. That town had a 'slavic' name, Megali Anastasova, until the 1920s.

Also, I read elsewhere that the Slavs on the Tayetos were used by the Ottomans to guard certain passes there. I think it might be normal that such a role would isolate them from the mass of the 'regular' inhabitants.

My only regret with the study is it would be greatly useful to compare these areas with the Albanians. The Albanians of FYROM (so-called, 'macedonians') are a huge nuisance with any Greek oriented site. Perhaps someone can take the study and do that comparison.

Thank you Angela for posting this. I presume your interest is the Italian commonalities. I think you should be satisfied, cousin.

Now, when Greeks tell me upon hearing my last name, as they always do, "Una faccia, una razza", I can say, yes, indeed, and the genetics proves it. :)

My husband was always very interested in the commonalities between the Greeks and the southern Italians as some of his family were speaking Griko into the 19th century, and his paternal grandfather was born within sight of Greek ruins. He also was a Classics minor at university, Latin and Greek studies. So, very interested indeed.

To be completely honest, though, I also like being right. :)
 
My understanding is that Mussolini closed the Greek language schools in Italy in the 1920s. I also read that even today, Griko has not been entirely eradicated.
 
Fallmerayer visited Greece in 1830, not the Middle Ages. The study population was born after this but before the transfer. The transfer occurred in the 1920s. Your comment has no meaning with respect to the study. Plus how a port looks can be quite different than the interior.
 
Fallmerayer visited Greece in 1830, not the Middle Ages. The study population was born after this but before the transfer. The transfer occurred in the 1920s. Your comment has no meaning with respect to the study. Plus how a port looks can be quite different than the interior.

Greek history says that at the time of Fallmerayer there were 100 000 Turkish settlers in Peloponnese. 40 000 of them were killed . Would you deny that? Today's Peloponnese population is 1 000 000. At that time there were maybe 500 000 people living in Peloponnese. So 20% of population was ethnic Turks were not they? Did they live no genetic footprint after 300 years of common life with Greeks. No intermarriages happened.? How about arvanite villages that could have been over 60 of them? Vlahs! Known Slavic settlements! How could you believe this study?
 
Turkish were mostly converted locals.
 
Well 0.2 to 14.4% is a pretty massive range. Unless the upper range is an outlier, I wouldn't say Slavic ancestry is non-existant by any stretch. Some groups in England are likely barely even 14.4% Anglo-Saxon, so let's keep this in perspective.
I think 14.4 is the maximum individual (I didn't find the average).
 
Now, when Greeks tell me upon hearing my last name, as they always do, "Una faccia, una razza", I can say, yes, indeed, and the genetics proves it. :)

My husband was always very interested in the commonalities between the Greeks and the southern Italians as some of his family were speaking Griko into the 19th century, and his paternal grandfather was born within sight of Greek ruins. He also was a Classics minor at university, Latin and Greek studies. So, very interested indeed.

To be completely honest, though, I also like being right. :)
Me too, una faccia una razza is real, Greek ancestry in South Italy but we don't forget Roman/Italic settlements to Greek world. The Eastern Roman Empire survived until 1453 ;)
 
Fallmerayer visited Greece in 1830, not the Middle Ages. The study population was born after this but before the transfer. The transfer occurred in the 1920s. Your comment has no meaning with respect to the study. Plus how a port looks can be quite different than the interior.
[h=4]In Europe the German historian Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer disputed the “Kingdom of Greece” national propaganda, not to mention that he is neither the first nor the last to consider the inhabitants of that small state non descending from the ancient Greeks. The desultory reaction of the theorists intellectual fathers of that artificial hellenization, e.g. S. Zambelios and C. Paparrigopoulos, would had collapsed with only one phrase of Fallmerayer, who wrote that False-Greeks “are people with Slavic arched eyebrows and tough lineaments of Albanian shepherds”. It did not happen. Mass hellenization of Slavic, Albanian and Vlach place names throughout Greece, during the last half of the 20th century, was only the summit of the iceberg.[/h] [h=2]FEARFUL HISTORY[/h]Demetrios Horologas
 
I cannot post a link, but Google (search) for 'Greek War of Independence and its Toll on Turks' You should find an article prepared by the Turkish American Coalition. It says that that there 'was nearly 30 thousands (sic) Muslims living in the Peloponnese in March 1821' (the start of the war). "A month later, ...there was hardly any.' Further down a British author counts '20,000 (Muslim) souls'. This is a TURKISH article. The transfer largely had to do with Muslims in territory Greece gained since Independence - Greece's territory expanded a lot - also documented in that article. The Greek war of independence continued until 1829, the year before the German visited.

If you need to make a point, try to not lie so blatantly. I feel good that Greeks are hated. It makes them and me feel special. DuPidh, say something positive about YOUR people. Try that for a change.
 
In Europe the German historian Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer disputed the “Kingdom of Greece” national propaganda, not to mention that he is neither the first nor the last to consider the inhabitants of that small state non descending from the ancient Greeks. The desultory reaction of the theorists intellectual fathers of that artificial hellenization, e.g. S. Zambelios and C. Paparrigopoulos, would had collapsed with only one phrase of Fallmerayer, who wrote that False-Greeks “are people with Slavic arched eyebrows and tough lineaments of Albanian shepherds”. It did not happen. Mass hellenization of Slavic, Albanian and Vlach place names throughout Greece, during the last half of the 20th century, was only the summit of the iceberg.

FEARFUL HISTORY

Demetrios Horologas

If I'm understanding you correctly, I'm surprised and disappointed both. Genetics is genetics, for goodness sakes. It's time to let go of all this noxious politics.

@Hauteville,

I agree. There was definitely Italian gene flow into the islands ruled by Venezia and Genova and during the days of Byzantium as well.
 
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