J2b2-L283 (proto-illyrian)

[TaktikatEMalet]

The paper states they did not mix with locals .............so from 1000BC to 440 BC they stayed isolated......they then began making their own pots and trading with the samnites next region ( Venosa )
Previous pottery from 1000BC, came from their homeland in Dalmatia .....which is why they found a lot of Dalmatian. Liburnian pots.

"Towards the late Bronze Age (11th-10th centuries BC), Illyrian populations from the eastern Adriatic arrived in Apulia.[4] The Illyrians in Italy, united with the pre-existing people and groups from the Aegean, probably from Crete, created the Iapygian civilization which consisted of three tribes: the Peucetians, Messapians and Daunians.[5] The region was previously inhabited by Italic peoples of Southern Italy; among them are the Ausones/Oscans, Sabines, Lucani, Paeligni, Bruttii, Campanians, Aequi, Samnites and Frentani."

They were mixed with locals and also with people from crete, they had some ancient greek influence based on the mythology on their steles

 

[torzio]

"Towards the late Bronze Age (11th-10th centuries BC), Illyrian populations from the eastern Adriatic arrived in Apulia.[4] The Illyrians in Italy, united with the pre-existing people and groups from the Aegean, probably from Crete, created the Iapygian civilization which consisted of three tribes: the Peucetians, Messapians and Daunians.[5] The region was previously inhabited by Italic peoples of Southern Italy; among them are the Ausones/Oscans, Sabines, Lucani, Paeligni, Bruttii, Campanians, Aequi, Samnites and Frentani."
They were mixed with locals and also with people from crete, they had some ancient greek influence based on the mythology on their steles

their origins and mutual relationships remain. Among the many groups
occupying Italy in the Iron Age, the Daunians, a Iapygian population from northern Apulia, were
first mentioned in the 7th-6th century BCE7,8. Similarly to their neighbouring populations,
Peucetians and Messapians (living in central and southern Apulia, respectively), the name of the
Daunians comes from ancient Greek documents and, given the absence of written Daunian records,
the scant information we have on their social, political and religious life are wholly reliant upon
the material record, such as their one-of-a-kind stelae8. For instance, we know that they were
mainly farmers, animal breeders, horsemen and maritime traders with an established trade network
extending across the sea with Illyrian tribes. A fascinating aspect of this population, as opposed
to their neighbours in Apulia, was their tenacious resistance to external influences. For instance,
they did not acquire either social or cultural Hellenic elements and no Greek alphabet inscriptions
have been found in their settlements. Indeed, they retained a strong cultural identity and political
autonomy until the Roman arrival in the late 4th - early 3rd century BCE.


The only "Greeks " in the adriatic before 700BC where the Myceaneans around Istria and zagreb areas who where there before their demise

 

[torzio]

we await the further release of the other 25 or so ancient samples

We extracted DNA from 34 human skeletal remains (petrous bone = 23 and teeth = 11)
from three necropoleis (Ordona = 19; Salapia = 12; San Giovanni Rotondo = 3; hereafter ORD,
SAL and SGR, respectively) at the Ancient DNA Laboratory of the Institute of Genomics,
University of Tartu in Estonia

 

[TaktikatEMalet]

their origins and mutual relationships remain. Among the many groups
occupying Italy in the Iron Age, the Daunians, a Iapygian population from northern Apulia, were
first mentioned in the 7th-6th century BCE7,8. Similarly to their neighbouring populations,
Peucetians and Messapians (living in central and southern Apulia, respectively), the name of the
Daunians comes from ancient Greek documents and, given the absence of written Daunian records,
the scant information we have on their social, political and religious life are wholly reliant upon
the material record, such as their one-of-a-kind stelae8. For instance, we know that they were
mainly farmers, animal breeders, horsemen and maritime traders with an established trade network
extending across the sea with Illyrian tribes. A fascinating aspect of this population, as opposed
to their neighbours in Apulia, was their tenacious resistance to external influences. For instance,
they did not acquire either social or cultural Hellenic elements and no Greek alphabet inscriptions
have been found in their settlements. Indeed, they retained a strong cultural identity and political
autonomy until the Roman arrival in the late 4th - early 3rd century BCE.
The only "Greeks " in the adriatic before 700BC where the Myceaneans around Istria and zagreb areas who where there before their demise

Their steles showed myceanean/ancient greek cultural influence...

"The stele of warriors often have processions of chariots or fight scenes, which were interpreted as funeral games in honor of the deceased, or hunting scenes and battles, which sometimes appear warrior with a helmet or mask in the form of bucranium three horns. Often there appear also fantastic animals (pegasi, chimeras and sea serpents, among others)."

And they lived in a region where Oscan was spoken, they clearly mixed with the locals too -

"Two other Iapygian tribes, the Peucetians and the Messapians, inhabited central and southern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke the Messapic language, but had developed separate archaeological cultures by the seventh century BC. However, in Daunian territory Oscan language was spoken as well, as evidenced by the legends of locally-minted coins."

 

[torzio]

Their steles showed myceanean/ancient greek cultural influence...
"The stele of warriors often have processions of chariots or fight scenes, which were interpreted as funeral games in honor of the deceased, or hunting scenes and battles, which sometimes appear warrior with a helmet or mask in the form of bucranium three horns. Often there appear also fantastic animals (pegasi, chimeras and sea serpents, among others)."
And they lived in a region where Oscan was spoken, they clearly mixed with the locals too -
"Two other Iapygian tribes, the Peucetians and the Messapians, inhabited central and southern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke the Messapic language, but had developed separate archaeological cultures by the seventh century BC. However, in Daunian territory Oscan language was spoken as well, as evidenced by the legends of locally-minted coins."

no need to worry that they all spoke messapic, someone just created this linguistic name to cover all 3 tribes...........the Daunians where the biggest of the 3 tribes and there settlement near Foggia was the initial arrival point......the other tribes just starting heading south along the coast absorbing Italic tribes into their society

As for Oscan language group...........it is part of the Umbri linguistic group ................all tribes in Central and South Italy ( NOT including Sicily or North Italy ) spoke either Etruscan or Umbri linguistic group ................samnites where part of the Umbri group along with Sabines, Sabellics, Volsci etc etc

You find far many papers on the Daunian , their society , culture, arms, women etc ....in the internet and do not rely on Wiki

 

[Salento]

“Before the Roman conquest, these lapygian groups (Daunians, Peucetians, Messapians) all shared a common language, Messapic, which was probably related to the Illyrian tongue spoken on the other side of the Adriatic.

It would have been unintelligible to the other people of the Italian peninsula.

The language is best attested in Salento, the home the Messapian subdivision of the lapygian ethnos, where there are several hundred inscriptions in Messapic, written in the Greek alphabet, mainly in the third and second centuries B.C.E.”

… from a book of mine:

 

[Galaxy Overlord]

From what I understand, the "Illyrian" term is used to describe the many tribes that existed within the western Balkan region. However, there have been many ancient samples within the region found with different haplogroups other than J-L283. I believe there were also ancient E-V13 and R1B found. So do we have a general consensus on whether certain haplogroups arrived first, or if they all arrived around the time period and assimilated, or perhaps which individual tribes in the region might have had which specific haplogroups? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrians#/media/File:Illyrian_Tribes_(English).svg
View attachment 13011

 

[Ghurier]

From what I understand, the "Illyrian" term is used to describe the many tribes that existed within the western Balkan region. However, there have been many ancient samples within the region found with different haplogroups other than J-L283. I believe there were also ancient E-V13 and R1B found. So do we have general consensus on whether certain haplogroups arrived first, or if they all arrived around the time period and assimilated, or perhaps which individual tribes in the region might have had which specific haplogroups?

For J-L283, haplogroup distribution (Y21045 clade, very specific of Albania) seems to indicates an arrival around ~4000BP. Many other clades seems to have been injected in western Balkans around ~2000BP, which could coincide with either Celtic or Roman-empire related events.
My personnal view is that this haplogroup was present among Neolithic farmers in south-estearn europe (even if it has not been found yet in ancient neolithic samples).
The main arguments for that are:
-Existence of Steppe-less admixture samples in Nuragic Sardaigna.
-The spread of child haplogroups (location, time, and speed of diversification)

The opposite view claiming that L283 integrated PIE in Caucasus didn't work well for me, to see an Expansion of L283 clades really matching an IE expansion, we have to wait the Hallstatt (with J-Z631), or at best Urnfield Culture (but that is less obvious, and would only concerns a southern espension of the Urnfield Culture).
In fact, the location of early L283 clades seems to indicates refuges (mountainous places, Islands), which fits better with neolithic peoples retreat in face of the IE expansion.
L283 diffusion during 5000-4000BP is definitely not looking like an haplogroup conquering new territories (like R-M269 for instance) but it looks more like an haplogroupe escaping new comers (very similar to E-V13 and G-L497 neolithic haplogroups).
I would be very surprise if L283 integration to IE populations occurred in the Caucasus.

For E-V13, they probably arrived through various population movements in Europe. There is no clearly "old" western-balkanic clade like Y21045 for J-L283, thus E-V13 looks more like a pile-up of various clades that arrived in Western Balkans from Europe.

R1b-M269 people arrived with the expansion of the steppe herders. Thus you can assume that they arrived in the area also around 4500BP for the first ones. Then, there is a large variety of R1b-M269 descendant, and the date of entry in western balkan is likely different for the different clades.

 

[Riverman]

Going by the new, presumably Pannonian-related samples from the British paper, I think the main reason why we don't have older E-V13 is that the majority of all other lineages which lived together in this group (so far found R-Z2103, J2a, E-V13, I2, G2 and H) being largely replaced or drastically reduced in the course of events. Basically, some main E-V13 lineages ate up all the others and expanded then, from the Upper Tisza area, in all directions, again reducing the numbers of other Copper Age lineages (non-Beaker, non-Corded) in Pannonia.

 

[Fustan]

Can someone elaborate if there's any connection with J2b2-L283 and the ancient Celts? There was some speculation about the both being related a while ago.

 

[Ghurier]

Hi,

Can someone elaborate if there's any connection with J2b2-L283 and the ancient Celts? There was some speculation about the both being related a while ago.

For me they are related, especially the J-Z631 subclade of J-L283 do have a spatial distribution and a timscale of diversification for descendent haplogroups fitting very well with Hallstatt/La Tene dispersion.
Thus, J-Z631 was likely among central-European "Keltoi" peoples.

 

[Hawk]

For J-L283, haplogroup distribution (Y21045 clade, very specific of Albania) seems to indicates an arrival around ~4000BP. Many other clades seems to have been injected in western Balkans around ~2000BP, which could coincide with either Celtic or Roman-empire related events.
My personnal view is that this haplogroup was present among Neolithic farmers in south-estearn europe (even if it has not been found yet in ancient neolithic samples).
The main arguments for that are:
-Existence of Steppe-less admixture samples in Nuragic Sardaigna.
-The spread of child haplogroups (location, time, and speed of diversification)

The opposite view claiming that L283 integrated PIE in Caucasus didn't work well for me, to see an Expansion of L283 clades really matching an IE expansion, we have to wait the Hallstatt (with J-Z631), or at best Urnfield Culture (but that is less obvious, and would only concerns a southern espension of the Urnfield Culture).
In fact, the location of early L283 clades seems to indicates refuges (mountainous places, Islands), which fits better with neolithic peoples retreat in face of the IE expansion.
L283 diffusion during 5000-4000BP is definitely not looking like an haplogroup conquering new territories (like R-M269 for instance) but it looks more like an haplogroupe escaping new comers (very similar to E-V13 and G-L497 neolithic haplogroups).
I would be very surprise if L283 integration to IE populations occurred in the Caucasus.

For E-V13, they probably arrived through various population movements in Europe. There is no clearly "old" western-balkanic clade like Y21045 for J-L283, thus E-V13 looks more like a pile-up of various clades that arrived in Western Balkans from Europe.

R1b-M269 people arrived with the expansion of the steppe herders. Thus you can assume that they arrived in the area also around 4500BP for the first ones. Then, there is a large variety of R1b-M269 descendant, and the date of entry in western balkan is likely different for the different clades.

We have an Early Bronze Age J2b2-L283 sample in North Caucasus, so i highly doubt it's Neolithic, i assume the entrance in Europe happened somewhere in 2000 B.C, whether non-IE or IE that i am not sure of. Some of the J2a were present in Neolithic though.

As for E-V13, my current assumption is that it did arose somewhere in Balkans or nearby and pushed up north in Late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age (while the old/other E-V13 died off) to participate in some or various Middle-Danube Urnfield groups and re-expanded mainly in Late Bronze Age, as for the pile-up and mess, we all know in VI century the Justinian plague changed the course of history, totally destroying the already weakened Paleo-Balkan people and centuries later the surviving Paleo-Balkanites in the name of Albanians re-expanded. Hence why we have some bottlenecks exactly in the same period.

 

[Fustan]

Hi,



For me they are related, especially the J-Z631 subclade of J-L283 do have a spatial distribution and a timscale of diversification for descendent haplogroups fitting very well with Hallstatt/La Tene dispersion.
Thus, J-Z631 was likely among central-European "Keltoi" peoples.

Do you happen to know where in Western Europe it peaks and in which ethnic group of Western Europeans it's most diverse? I have only been focused on J2-L283's relation with the Mediterranean (Balkans, Italy) but I find the theory of some sort of Celtic relationship fascinating.

 

[Archetype0ne]

For J-L283, haplogroup distribution (Y21045 clade, very specific of Albania) seems to indicates an arrival around ~4000BP. Many other clades seems to have been injected in western Balkans around ~2000BP, which could coincide with either Celtic or Roman-empire related events.
My personnal view is that this haplogroup was present among Neolithic farmers in south-estearn europe (even if it has not been found yet in ancient neolithic samples).
The main arguments for that are:
-Existence of Steppe-less admixture samples in Nuragic Sardaigna.
-The spread of child haplogroups (location, time, and speed of diversification)

The opposite view claiming that L283 integrated PIE in Caucasus didn't work well for me, to see an Expansion of L283 clades really matching an IE expansion, we have to wait the Hallstatt (with J-Z631), or at best Urnfield Culture (but that is less obvious, and would only concerns a southern espension of the Urnfield Culture).
In fact, the location of early L283 clades seems to indicates refuges (mountainous places, Islands), which fits better with neolithic peoples retreat in face of the IE expansion.
L283 diffusion during 5000-4000BP is definitely not looking like an haplogroup conquering new territories (like R-M269 for instance) but it looks more like an haplogroupe escaping new comers (very similar to E-V13 and G-L497 neolithic haplogroups).
I would be very surprise if L283 integration to IE populations occurred in the Caucasus.

For E-V13, they probably arrived through various population movements in Europe. There is no clearly "old" western-balkanic clade like Y21045 for J-L283, thus E-V13 looks more like a pile-up of various clades that arrived in Western Balkans from Europe.

R1b-M269 people arrived with the expansion of the steppe herders. Thus you can assume that they arrived in the area also around 4500BP for the first ones. Then, there is a large variety of R1b-M269 descendant, and the date of entry in western balkan is likely different for the different clades.

Very interesting unorthodox theory. A breath of fresh air although I disagree with the conclusions.
Frist I think it would be quite benefitial if you look at the age of the samples we are talking about.
Second it is of importance to understand what is meant with IE introgression for L283, the first step helps given the age of L283 as a clade as well as the older ancient samples located outside of Europe. Of key importance IE / Yamnaya waves.
Finally, up to this point and I suspect for a while to come, Neolithic Europe has been far better sampled than BA Europe. We have yet t o find a sample of L283 from the Neolithic, although per some old (2 year old) rumors there is a J2b2 in Moldova from the Eneolithic, but this one also in a way points towards the steppe.

Meanwhile almost each new paper the last year has L283 popping the in BA/IA, in many seemingly unrelated cultures, Celts/Etruscans/Illyrians-Daunians/Danubian Limes etc. Meanwhile even in Panonnia and Dalmatia/Croatia L283 is not found earlier than the Bronze Age.

I created a thread some time ago especially for these discussions
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/41455-Current-J2b2-L283-Evidence-A-speculative-Theory

I am sure you will not agree with most of my conclusions. But it helps to at least look at the first 2-3 posts to see where my opinion comes from, since its too large of a topic for me to repeat here.

Alas, it would be very interesting to find samples from Neolithic Europe in an EEF context. But I think neither the current samples, nor the timeline in any way support that.

As for the Nuragics, they are from 1300BC. Meanwhile we have ~2000BC Maros as well as Dalmatia samples, with 30-50% Steppe.
It helps to keep in mind that Sardinia was insulated to most movements, at least to a higher degree than Pannonia/Balkans, and if these L283 Nuragics were part of a male dominated movement, their autosomal signature would be close to zero within 5-6 generations(1/2^n formula IIRC).

What does not help with the Nuragic samples is the low coverage. Having spoken to two L283 admins, from across different platforms, they have informed me that it might be a misslabel to place some of the samples that basaly, as the coverage/quality is lacking. They even contacted Yfull but not sure what came of it. Last I checked Yfull could not justify the basal L283.

 

[Trojet]

Can someone elaborate if there's any connection with J2b2-L283 and the ancient Celts? There was some speculation about the both being related a while ago.

In short, currently there is no evidence any J2b-L283 was among the Celts or Proto-Celts. At this point, it's all a speculation based on modern distribution of some younger subclades (many of which could be the result of Roman mediated migration. Ex: the two most ancient J-Z631s are precisely found in a Roman context or period, one from Italy and the other from the Balkans).

Furthermore, there have been zero J2b-L283 from any cultures that's connected to the Celts (they have been predominantly R1b-L51) and Central/Western Europe is far better sampled than the Balkans.

Sure, it's quite possible some J2b-L283 lineages could've been incorporated by the Celtic expansions to the west out of northern Balkans (which at best should've been in the minority), but we really need aDNA evidence for this, which at the moment doesn't even exist.

 

[Hawk]

For instance Autariates fell down to Gaulish invasions.

Some of them seeked refugee in Macedonia, others in Dacia and the third group joined the Gauls/Celts on further raids until they were pushed away. I suppose the third group who joined them on raids could be the subclade we are talking?

 

[Ghurier]

hi,

We have an Early Bronze Age J2b2-L283 sample in North Caucasus, so i highly doubt it's Neolithic, i assume the entrance in Europe happened somewhere in 2000 B.C, whether non-IE or IE that i am not sure of. Some of the J2a were present in Neolithic though.

That is what is tricky with this haplogroup, there is very contradictory infos about it.
The easiest explaination for me is to put L283 bottle-neck exit on the coast of the black sea inside a population without steppe admixture.
Admixture-washing is not a very common process.

We have yet t o find a sample of L283 from the Neolithic, although per some old (2 year old) rumors there is a J2b2 in Moldova from the Eneolithic, but this one also in a way points towards the steppe.

Moldova is in a "in-between" situation as you said. Also "eneolithic" is quite vague, Moldova during eneolithic, could relate to early steppe migrants or to south-eastern european farmers. Basically, without more information the "eneolithic moldovan" spoiler is not really helping. In fact, if I have to put J-L283 somewhere when it starts to diffuse again in 5500BP, I would put it on the black-sea cost in south-eastern Europe.

I am sure you will not agree with most of my conclusions.

Who knows ? I'm open to be proven wrong, and always open to accept that what I consider the "most-likely" today might be invalidated in the future .
I will read that later today (tonight for me).

As for the Nuragics, they are from 1300BC. Meanwhile we have ~2000BC Maros as well as Dalmatia samples, with 30-50% Steppe.
It helps to keep in mind that Sardinia was insulated to most movements, at least to a higher degree than Pannonia/Balkans, and if these L283 Nuragics were part of a male dominated movement, their autosomal signature would be close to zero within 5-6 generations(1/2^n formula IIRC).

One could claim that 50% steppe just need one generation to be generated, and if you find a Steppe-like mt-DNA ... the complement needs to be something not from the steppe.
In fact, both samples can be explained with the right "story" created around.
I consider ancient DNA usefull, but ancient DNA mainly helps for dominant haplogroups, for rare ones it is less helpfull.
Mainly, one single line of from M241 to L283 that propagated between 9500 and 5500BP survived until today, thus these lines cannot have reach a "high" level of dispersion. Therefore, it is unlikely to find it in ancient sample between these two dates. In fact finding a neolithic sample would be crazy lucky.
In fact, when we look at haplogroups with ~several millenia bottle neck, most of the time no ancient samples are found.

I would rather believe dynamics of haplogroup (time of spread, location, speed of diffusion), when a male population is conquering new territories, the related haplogroups are spreading very fast. We are not seing that for J-L283 during the main steppe expansion. That's what make's the "steppe" hypothesis suspicious to me.

Anyway, hofully new ancient-samples/modern-lines will be found and help to find which model is the good one .
G.

 

[Riverman]

Can someone elaborate if there's any connection with J2b2-L283 and the ancient Celts? There was some speculation about the both being related a while ago.

There were different gene flows between Celts and Illyrians. First, both Celts and Ilyrians might have been from the Tumulus culture horizon, even from a centre in Southern Germany. Secondly, in the Urnfield period, again, they were part of the same Urnfield horizon and the Pannonian-Illyrian Middle Danubian Urnfielders were conneted to the Alpine-Rhenish region, more so than the Daco-Thracian South Eastern Urnfielders, which being connected with Lusatians rather, by trade and culture at least.
Next, with Hallstatt, Daco-Thracian and Pannonian-Illyrian elements mixed and influenced more Western groups, presumably also the ancestors of Celts.
And last but not least, "real Celts" of Western Hallstatt and later La Tene did mix and push into Pannonia-Balkans, presumably with some backflow, since the La Tene Celts formed wide ranging networks, through which elites, warriors, artisans, traders and priests moved. So if on one end a lot of E-V13 and J-L283 was assimilated, as it was, in Pannonia and the Balkans, then some of it probably appeared at least in the Central and a little bit even at the Western end too.

 

[Ghurier]

At this point, it's all a speculation based on modern distribution of some younger subclades

On top of the modern distribution, there is the moment at which the concerned descendents started to diverge.
To experience an intense diversification sequence, an haplogroup needs to be carried by an expanding population, nearly ~20 branches expanded from Z631 around 800BC, that's a lot.

A later diffusion, for entropic consideration, cannot separate haplogroups (beyond founder-effects). Thus, if the dispersion happens later than the diversication, diversified haplogroups should be observed in all locations where the later diffusion happened.

This is basically what is seen for R-L51, descendants are geographically separated because diversification happened at the same time than the expansion.

Thus, for these reasons a dispersion of J-Z631 with the Hallstatt/La Tène populations seems fairly likely.
A diffusion by the roman empire didn't makes much sense in terms of spatial distribution and moment when the haplogroup started to spread.
For sure, Romans induced a lot a movement inside the empire and affected the haplogroup distribution, but it seems unsufficient to me to explain the modern distribution.

 

[Fustan]

In short, currently there is no evidence any J2b-L283 was among the Celts or Proto-Celts. At this point, it's all a speculation based on modern distribution of some younger subclades (many of which could be the result of Roman mediated migration. Ex: the two most ancient J-Z631s are precisely found in a Roman context or period, one from Italy and the other from the Balkans).
Furthermore, there have been zero J2b-L283 from any cultures that's connected to the Celts (they have been predominantly R1b-L51) and Central/Western Europe is far better sampled than the Balkans.
Sure, it's quite possible some J2b-L283 lineages could've been incorporated by the Celtic expansions to the west out of northern Balkans (which at best should've been in the minority), but we really need aDNA evidence for this, which at the moment doesn't even exist.

Oh that was what prompted me to asking, I could've sworn I saw someone say there was a Celtic-related J2-L283 sample, I guess not. Is there a place where I can easily as a layman view all of the ancient J2-L283 samples? I wish there was a Google Spreadsheet or something which listed every single ancient J2-L283 sample, location, date and culture. It would've been really nice to have.

Thanks for clearing everything up though, your post makes total sense and I agree with it. Much more likely that the younger clades were spread with the Romans rather than it being Celtic.