Genetic study Ancient DNA of Roman Danubian Frontier and Slavic Migrations (Olalde 2021)

[Ralphie Boy]

I see we have our first sample from pre-Slavic Roman Greece (sorry if someone already mentioned it and I missed it). This sample is used to model Greek islanders and has a lot of “Near Eastern” ancestry, but I don’t think is in the PC maps. This sample should plot with modern Dodecanese and Cyprus in this study. If this is what many Greeks were like just before the Slavs it would reinforce what some previously thought and seemed like common sense, that they would plot with Aegean islanders.

 

[Dianatomia]

This BOTH way between Albanian and Greeks sells you short, it is clearly obvious that from Iron Age the migrations in the Balkans has been one way only.


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Not true really. The Via Egnatia brought many people in the region of Albania. During the Byzantine era the harbor cities in Albania were inhabited by Greeks (and Romans), while there were virtually no cities in the rest of Albania. Very scarcely populated. So small migrations can have an impact. In ancient times there were classical Greek colonies on the coast of Albania. Under the Romans, Albania became part of the Macedonian province for centuries.
And also many Slavs settled there. Not in the 6th century, but also more recently. Similar to the Macedonian region.

On top of that, Albania did not have a litterary tradition. So we do not know what really happened in detail. All information about the region of Albania comes from outsiders. And frankly there was not a lot of interest in a scarcely populated area. It is only through genetics with Mycenaeans, IA Balkanians, Illyrians, Slavs etc. that we can develop some imagine regarding Albanians.

 

[blevins13]

Even after all the steppe migrations that were supposed to change everything, they didn't move very far from Mycenaeans, did they?

Nothing changed, language, culture and y-Dna are minors without any importance.


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[Angela]

Nothing changed, language, culture and y-Dna are minors without any importance.


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There was some change with the steppe migrations, although nothing like even in Central Europe.

There was certainly change in ALL the Balkans and Greece with the advent of the Slavs. There's no denying that reality.

 

[Dianatomia]

I see we have our first sample from pre-Slavic Roman Greece (sorry if someone already mentioned it and I missed it). This sample is used to model Greek islanders and has a lot of “Near Eastern” ancestry, but I don’t think is in the PC maps. This sample should plot with modern Dodecanese and Cyprus in this study. If this is what many Greeks were like just before the Slavs it would reinforce what some previously thought and seemed like common sense, that they would plot with Aegean islanders.

Interesting. Sorry if I missed it, but where is this sample from?

 

[Dianatomia]

There was some change with the steppe migrations, although nothing like even in Central Europe.

There was certainly change in ALL the Balkans and Greece with the advent of the Slavs. There's no denying that reality.

No one ever denied that really. The only question is whether the Classical Greeks were something in between Mycenaeans and Modern Greeks, or whether they were overlapping with Mycenaeans.

 

[Angela]

All this reminds me of the map of Cavalli Sforza which was made in the late 80s. He noticed a cline of genes around Greece. Now we know that IA Balkanians were similar to them.

View attachment 12898

It seems that the people around Greece were genetically similar to Greeks. And you can still see the biological traces of that.

All these people were genetically similar at one point. As the Greek speaking wanderers expanded, they linguistically absorbed the people around the Aegean. The ones who didn't speak Greek were not part of this Greek ethnogenesis. But they weren't necessarily different biologically. I believe Dienekes argued this once as well. Seems he was right.

I remember it well; posted it often, as well as his other maps. Amazing what just blood groupings could tell you at least on a general level.

Dienekes did indeed point that out, and I agree he was right about that.

This is as good a place as any to admit that I was narrow in my thinking about one thing. Sikelliot once told me that there was a big influx of Cypriots into Italy. I told him there was no evidence of any such movement. If Cypriots are indeed pretty close to what Classical Era Greeks once were, that was, in a way, close to the truth. I just didn't translate that, all those years ago, to Greek, although nor did anyone.

See, I can give even the devil his due.

So nice that we can finally put on the shelf once and for all all that stupidity about the Nordicism of the Ancient Greeks once this new paper comes out.

 

[Angela]

No one ever denied that really. The only question is whether the Classical Greeks were something in between Mycenaeans and Modern Greeks, or whether they were overlapping with Mycenaeans.

Tell that to Blevins; it was he to whom I was responding.

 

[blevins13]

Not true really. The Via Egnatia brought many people in the region of Albania. During the Byzantine era the harbor cities in Albania were inhabited by Greeks (and Romans), while there were virtually no cities in the rest of Albania. Very scarcely populated. So small migrations can have an impact. In ancient times there were classical Greek colonies on the coast of Albania. Under the Romans, Albania became part of the Macedonian province for centuries.
And also many Slavs settled there. Not in the 6th century, but also more recently. Similar to the Macedonian region.

On top of that, Albania did not have a litterary tradition. So we do not know what really happened in detail. All information about the region of Albania comes from outsiders. And frankly there was not a lot of interest in a scarcely populated area. It is only through genetics with Mycenaeans, IA Balkanians, Illyrians, Slavs etc. that we can develop some imagine regarding Albanians.

So migrations are equal to immigration and or colonies. Now makes more sense, you make a great point here.
Albanians are simple, a small group of people had a demographic explosion after Roman collapse. We have to thank the Goths and Slavs for saving us from complete romanization.
And believe me, when Albanians started to expand from the mountains, cities have been reduced to ruins or had turn to ashes.


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[bigsnake49]

If the conclusions of this paper for the Slavic influence stand the discussion is logically open. The Byzantine era authors were right for most of the Balkans. If Greece is an exemption, that is probably due to Byzantine Empire that did not lose its hold completely and was able to re-establish its authority later.



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it's not just the Byzantine authors. I think Plutarch & Strabo wrote that Epirus was totally devastated & depopulated by the Romans in 198 BC for refusing to surrender. Later authors also supported that notion. I am beginning to doubt them. Of course they could have been repopulated because you know when people are dead, they don't pay taxes but we have no evidence of repopulation.

"“The oracles have ceased,” says Plutarch, “because the sites where they spoke are destroyed ; scarcely would you find three thousand men of war in Greece today.”“I shall not describe,” says Strabo, “Epirus and its surroundings, because these regions are entirely deserted. This depopulation, which began long ago, continues daily, so Roman soldiers camp in abandoned houses.” [2]He finds the cause for this in Polybius, who says that Paulus Æmelius, after his victory, destroyed seventy cities in Epirus, and left with fifty thousand slaves."

 

[blevins13]

it's not just the Byzantine authors. I think Plutarch wrote that Epirus was totally devastated & depopulated by the Romans in 198 BC for refusing to surrender. Later authors also supported that notion. I am beginning to doubt them. Of course they could have been repopulated because you know when people are dead, they don't pay taxes but we have no evidence of repopulation.

Not all Epirus, only Molloses, Kaonian sided with Romans. Do not compare Romans with migration of barbarians (probably I come from this group as well), devastation in Ballkans by Goth, Avars, Huns, Bulgare, and Slavs have no comparison.


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[bigsnake49]

Not all Epirus, only Molloses, Kaonian sided with Romans. Do not compare Romans with migration of barbarians (probably I come from this group as well), devastation in Ballkans by Goth, Avars, Huns, Bulgare, and Slavs have no comparison.


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Are you sayin more destructive than the Romans?

 

[ihype02]

Not all Epirus, only Molloses, Kaonian sided with Romans. Do not compare Romans with migration of barbarians (probably I come from this group as well), devastation in Ballkans by Goth, Avars, Huns, Bulgare, and Slavs have no comparison.


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Roman sold 150,000 people of Epirus to slavery. The accuracy of the number is of course questioned.

 

[bigsnake49]

This is my opinion but I think that the classical Greeks were not identical to the Myceneans. The Achaians were the first tribe to invade Greece. Other Greek tribes came later. They were also native settlements (pelasgians) that were admixed into classical Greeks. I hope the samples are not from Athens of the classical age because just like Rome and then Constaninople it attracted people from all over.

 

[blevins13]

There was some change with the steppe migrations, although nothing like even in Central Europe.

There was certainly change in ALL the Balkans and Greece with the advent of the Slavs. There's no denying that reality.

Probably someone has to make the difference between continuity and survival here. I will start with Albanian, they survive the dark ages, the bottleneck of their y-Dna around 500 Ad shows that. For mainland Greece i will assume the same since we are literally in the same boat.


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[bigsnake49]

Roman sold 150,000 people of Epirus to slavery. The accuracy of the number is of course questioned.

Just like the army of Demetrios Poliorketes was supposed to be over 100,000 by ancient authors but modern scholars doubt that it was over 10,000. The Persian army at Thermopylae was supposed to be over a million strong. I totally doubt that number because of the extreme difficulty in feeding an army that large.

 

[Ralphie Boy]

Interesting. Sorry if I missed it, but where is this sample from?

From mainland Greece: Vranas Marathon.

 

[Dianatomia]

This is my opinion but I think that the classical Greeks were not identical to the Myceneans. The Achaians were the first tribe to invade Greece. Other Greek tribes came later. They were also native settlements (pelasgians) that were admixed into classical Greeks. I hope the samples are not from Athens of the classical age because just like Rome and then Constaninople it attracted people from all over.

Indeed, Athens would not be a good indication of the make up of the classical Greeks. Just like Rome, it says little about the Italic population during that time as a whole. Even though Athens was not as multi cultural as Rome. Most slaves were Greeks or Thracians. Otherwise there were migrants from the islands as well. Constantinople on the other hand is a different story.

 

[blevins13]

Roman sold 150,000 people of Epirus to slavery. The accuracy of the number is of course questioned.

Only Mollosian that sided with the Macedonians, Kaonian and Thesprotians sided with Rome.


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[blevins13]

Are you sayin more destructive than the Romans?

The opposite, Roman punishment was well measured.


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