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

The absences of Northern Italian/Iberian/Southern French- like Romans during Imperial times, not only in Rome but also in the Balkan province, is intriguing. It seems as if the Italic Romans basically disappeared or dissolved in the Eastern Mediterranean population. Therefore, I wonder whether the cremated Romans were the ones that were still Northern Italian/Iberian-like?:unsure: The problem is that among the cremated Romans almost no trace of clothing, shrouds, coffins or grave goods survived the flames, so every scrap of evidence is precious.

 
The absences of Northern Italian/Iberian/Southern French- like Romans during Imperial times, not only in Rome but also in the Balkan province, is intriguing. It seems as if the Italic Romans basically disappeared or dissolved in the Eastern Mediterranean population. Therefore, I wonder whether the cremated Romans were the ones that were still Northern Italian/Iberian-like?:unsure: The problem is that among the cremated Romans almost no trace of clothing, shrouds, coffins or grave goods survived the flames, so every scrap of evidence is precious.


The problem will be similar for Greek Macedonians. They conquered an empire in which the non-Greek people were how many times their own number? They send colonists, but how much came to Greece in return? Needs to be investigated.
 
As far as I know. No E-V13 or J2b was detected in ancient Greek populations. Yet, researches keep insisting that the ancient Greeks were one of the people who spread these haplogroups. Could be, since it is in every historically Greek populated area. But in order for this to occur, at leas one Balkan migration into Greece during the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age must have happened.

The problem with this research is that it used Aegean Bronze Age Greeks as comparative material.
 
The problem will be similar for Greek Macedonians. They conquered an empire in which the non-Greek people were how many times their own number? They send colonists, but how much came to Greece in return? Needs to be investigated.


Actually, since the Greek government has discovered the tomb of Philip II including his human remains, a DNA test would help a lot to answer this question. In addition, skeletal remains of likely Hephaestion were found, too. The involved archeologist Peristeri stated this: "The skeleton is undergoing DNA analysis to deduce if the man was a member of the Macedonian royal family, as well as to learn his age." That was in 2015, and we still haven't seen any published DNA results of Hephaestion or Philip, not even their hp.
 
Not really, because the Goths not just moved through E-V13 heavy Daco-Thracian territory, they also lived among them for long and mixed with local Daco-Thracians and Scythians, so definitely picking it up, not just in the servant class, in which they had even more of it.

But the ultimate source is without a doubt Daco-Thracian. Its just that Daco-Thracians were quite dispersed, absolutely not restricted to just Bulgaria, to sum it up. They were present from Poland to Anatolia, from Austria to the Ukraine. And since they influenced the Eastern Hallstatt culture heavily, indirectly also Western Hallstatt, there was a secondary low level spread with Celts and Northern Italian Hallstatt groups, imho.

I wouldn't label all Late Bronze and Early Iron Age populations in the Danubian basin until Hungary, Austria and southern Germany Daco-Thracian. Illyrians may be in the same broader Balkanic IE group. That's why I also listed the Alpine Celts and Proto-Italics as a potential source of E-V13. If it was only Daco-Thracian and Illyrian there is no way that these people would have spread so successfully E-V13 all over Western Europe.

Paleo-Balkan_languages_in_Eastern_Europe_between_5th_and_1st_century_BC.png


But all of this doesn't change the fact that Goths might have brought more E-V13 to some regions than any other group. But we don't know for sure without a lot of samples with terminal clades. I mean how can you tell whether an E-V13 in Northern Spain is even a Neolithic survivor, an early iron smith from Channelled Ware on the move, a Greek colonist, a Celtic tribe, Roman soldier or Goth? Its impossible to tell without having the terminal clades and proper matches for a reference to compare with. But we do know that especially the Goths carried E-V13 people, they had them in their ranks and its unlikely they all just disappeared.
For areas like Iberia, a Gothic transmission is just as likely as a direct Thracian one. For Bulgaria things are different of course ;)

E-V13 is particularly common in Spain today (except wider Basque country) and as it wasn't found in Iron Age Iberians the best explanation is that the Romans (in this case meaning 'Roman-age Italians', not just those from Rome/Latium) and/or Goths brought E-V13 to the Iberian peninsula.

If E-V13 wasn't found among Italic tribes, then the melting-pot of people known as the Goths (who included Germanic, Proto-Slavic, Balkanic and other people) really did have a significant impact on both Italy and Iberia. Almost all the R1a in Italy (4%) and Iberia (2%) can already be attributed to the Goths (as it is the Slavic variety, which couldn't have come from any other migration).

Germanic Y-DNA in Italy came from various sources (Goths, Lombards, Franks, Normans + various Germanic auxiliaries in Late Roman times), but in central Spain (Castille) it is mostly Visigothic and represents about 3~5% of modern Y-DNA lineages.

E-V13 has a frequency of approximately 7% in Castille. So that is potentially 13% of Y-DNA that came with the Visigoths (Balkanic E-V13, Proto-Slavic R1a and Germanic I1, I2a2-L801 and R1b-U106) + surely some G2a and J2b from the Balkans that cannot easily be distinguished from the Roman/Etruscan or Greek ones.

Of course these numbers are only valid if E-V13 was only brought by the Visigoths and not by Roman-age Italians or Hallstatt Celts. But at present no E-V13 has been found among the latter two.
 
The absences of Northern Italian/Iberian/Southern French- like Romans during Imperial times, not only in Rome but also in the Balkan province, is intriguing. It seems as if the Italic Romans basically disappeared or dissolved in the Eastern Mediterranean population. Therefore, I wonder whether the cremated Romans were the ones that were still Northern Italian/Iberian-like?:unsure: The problem is that among the cremated Romans almost no trace of clothing, shrouds, coffins or grave goods survived the flames, so every scrap of evidence is precious.

I had the same thought. The non-cremated skeletons in Imperial Roman times were more likely to have been Christian, Jewish or other Middle-Eastern religions. So it's not surprising to find a disproportionate percentage of Near Eastern DNA among them.

The ideal DNA samples to find "real" Romans would be remains of a battlefield where the Romans were massacred in great number and were not cremated because they were too heavily defeated for survivors to be able to take care of all the dead. There are very few such cases, but examples that spring to mind are the sites of the battles of Noreia (113 BCE | 24,000 Romans killed), Arausio (105 BCE | 120,000 Romans killed), Atuatuca (54 BCE | 9,000 Romans killed), Carrhae (53 BCE | 20,000 Romans killed), the Teutoburg Forest (9 CE | up to 20,000 Romans killed).
 
“What does this mean in the Fellmayer context.”

It looks like another of the many knives in the heart of the Fallmerayer theory.

In terms of ancient Greeks, the only samples (rumored or published) for male haplogroups are G, J2a (Empuries and Mycenaeans) and R1b (I may have missed a few). According to a video presentation, two collection sites were Ambracia (R1b) and Heraklion (G).

We don’t know if the northern ancient Greek world was a “wall” to E-V13, where it was rare, or if the men had this haplogroup to a larger degree. Hopefully we will get a paper soon. It’s a burning question.
 
“What does this mean in the Fellmayer context.”

It looks like another of the many knives in the heart of the Fallmerayer theory.

In terms of ancient Greeks, the only samples (rumored or published) for male haplogroups are G, J2a (Empuries and Mycenaeans) and R1b (I may have missed a few). According to a video presentation, two collection sites were Ambracia (R1b) and Heraklion (G).

We don’t know if the northern ancient Greek world was a “wall” to E-V13, where it was rare, or if the men had this haplogroup to a larger degree. Hopefully we will get a paper soon. It’s a burning question.

There is enough evidence from archeological point of view that groups rich in E-V13 from Danubian basin penetrated Greece in Late Bronze Age.

I guess the newer Gava/Channeled-Ware equates with Z5017 while Brnjica/ZutoBrdo Garla Mara/Mediana were E-V13 Z5018 mostly.
 
There is enough evidence from archeological point of view that groups rich in E-V13 from Danubian basin penetrated Greece in Late Bronze Age.

I guess the newer Gava/Channeled-Ware equates with Z5017 while Brnjica/ZutoBrdo Garla Mara/Mediana were E-V13 Z5018 mostly.

Evidence is actually pretty scarce. No individual having a haplogroup of either E-V13 or J2b has ever been found in suspected Ancient Greek individuals.

The only evidence is the extent of E-V13 and J2b in modern Greece and former Greek populated areas (from Marseille and South Italy to Asia Minor/Cyprus, Egypt etc.). And then there is the speculated late Bronze Age (Dorian?) migration into Greece. Perhaps E-V13 is related to the Bronze Age collapse. Perhaps.

But let's assume that this late BA migration was true, then I don't see the point of these autosomal comparisons between BA Greeks and medieval post-Slavic Balkan peoples.

Btw. the view that modern Greeks seem to plot mainly in between the Balkan Iron Age population and the Bronze Age Aegean population, rather than Bronze Age Aegean + Slavic admixture does seem easily discarded by this research.
 
They can't have been that much smaller, considering the yDNA distribution.
There must have been a population explosion but it seems that the aDNA influence of slavic population was not driven by men. It seems that war and conquest has a detrimental effect on the male population:embarassed:.
 
Evidence is actually pretty scarce. No individual having a haplogroup of either E-V13 or J2b has ever been found in suspected Ancient Greek individuals.

The only evidence is the extent of E-V13 and J2b in modern Greece and former Greek populated areas (from Marseille and South Italy to Asia Minor/Cyprus, Egypt etc.). And then there is the speculated late Bronze Age (Dorian?) migration into Greece. Perhaps E-V13 is related to the Bronze Age collapse. Perhaps.

But let's assume that this late BA migration was true, then I don't see the point of these autosomal comparisons between BA Greeks and medieval Balkan peoples.

And there is no Classical Greek aDNA so far. One Mycenean J2a who very likely was assimilated Minoan-like population and one Empuries J2a, again coming from Anatolia.

And, i don't want to repeat myself on how Late Bronze Age archeological evidences indicate introduction of cremation burials, mass iron production etc etc etc.
 
I wouldn't label all Late Bronze and Early Iron Age populations in the Danubian basin until Hungary, Austria and southern Germany Daco-Thracian.

Surely not. Bosut-Basarabi was Daco-Thracian and it was a formative element of Eastern Hallstatt. But "the hub" Eastern Hallstatt in itself was not Daco-Thracian, but rather Illyrian-Pannonian, at least much of the common populace. The elite might have been more Thraco-Cimmerian shifted, but this is a speculation which needs to be investigated.
In any case, Eastern Hallstatt is how E-V13 into the Western Hallstatt group and therefore Celts, as well as some early groups into Northern Italy (Golasecca, Este etc. might have been infiltrated).
But the point is, ultimately, it all goes back to Daco-Thracians. Just like I1 in much of Europe is from Germanics, even if some of it later spread with Finns, Russians and others. The main spreader and primarily spreading event was the Germanic expansion. And here too, with a have primary spreader (Daco-Thracian) and many secondary once, since the Daco-Thracian sphere on the one hand influenced many other regions (Eastern Hallstatt, Greece etc.) and at the same time they were broken up and oftentimes assimilated later (Celts, Scythians, Sarmatians, Romans, Slavs etc.).
Illyrians may be in the same broader Balkanic IE group.

Only some branches. Originally E-V13 is supposed to have been restricted to the Channelled Ware cremation horizon, afterwards Basarabi, Psenichevo, Babadag etc. Illyrians of course did themselves later conquer and assimilate Daco-Thracian groups in the Central Balkan and they fused in Hallstatt with them. But Illyrian-Pannonian is therefore already a secondary spreader, no primary. The primary is Daco-Thracian alone.

That's why I also listed the Alpine Celts and Proto-Italics as a potential source of E-V13. If it was only Daco-Thracian and Illyrian there is no way that these people would have spread so successfully E-V13 all over Western Europe.

The Channelled Ware Daco-Thracians were the first big scale blacksmiths of Europe. They spread Naue II swords to the Balkans, they made (at least some of) the first iron weapons mass productions in all of Europe, they were among the first in the world. Teleac might serve as a prime example for their technological superiority and importance at that time:
Th e large hillfort of Teleac, commanding the Mureş River valley, the principal East-West connecting axis in
the Carpathian Basin, was likely built in the second half of the 11th century BC and occupied until the end of
the 10th or the early 9th century BC. Th e fortifi cation wall was destroyed around 920 BC, according to recent
investigations. More than 40 iron objects were discovered in the fortifi ed complex. Th ese iron fi nds viewed
together with numerous other iron fi nds from other sites signify that Transylvania was an early centre of
the implementation of iron and presumably iron production. Th ereby, the use of iron for producing weapons
probably stood in the foreground. Th is is indicated by corresponding grave fi nds in Greece that contain a
sword as off ering, but also iron swords found in Slovenia and Romania.

The main branches of E-V13 all split around the transitional period of the LBA-EIA, and here we get:

It is the 11th century BC
that first marks the transition from bronze to iron
technology, with bronze swords replaced by those
made of iron, in Southern Europe and especially
in Greece.

E-V13 carriers came down with Naue II and iron swords, in two waves respectively, and a third with early Hallstatt Bosut-Basarabi. And this influence penetrated down to the Aegean-Anatolian area, as well as to the West, to the Alpine zone all the populations on the way. On the fringes (Austria, Czechia, Northern Italy on the one, Greece and Anatolia on the other hand), it was just an influence, but in the midst of it, it was a full scale paternal replacement event.

The high level Channelled Ware pottery itself, a prestige ware up to Central Germany at that time period, was ideologically loaded, it most likely represented the "black metal", like the blacksmith standing for the new age and the superiority of iron:
Th e technically demanding,
black-polished pottery of the G?va culture
decorated with garland patterns or channels
displays an unmistakable metallic aspect

They had an ideology and probably religion in which iron tools and weapons played an important part.

Changes occurred not only in the production
of pottery and diverse implements, but also in
symbolical and ideological aspects. Th e hoards in
Transylvania, an important medium of communication
with the imaginary supernatural powers,
underwent quite a noticeable change during
this time (Ha A2/Ha B1):21 It is the expression of
changed values in society. Th e characteristic fragment
hoards of the older Urnfi eld culture ceased;
instead hoards containing mostly intact objects
were deposited.22

Once they had conquered and settled down, it became more peaceful:

Yet another
change in hoards came in the 9th century BC, in
which jewellery or elements of dress predominated.

That's when large scale communication and trade within the Hallstatt sphere begins to develop. This included elite migrants from the Basarabi-people, which moved as far as Fr?g in large numbers.

Also in Italy the change from Late Bronze Age
to Iron Age can be dated between 1000 and 950 BC
by radiocarbon dating.46 Th e course of the introduction
of iron in the area of Central Europe was
evidently somewhat delayed. Nevertheless, around
1000 BC a substantial decrease in the number of
swords made of bronze can be observed. One
might then presume that valuable iron weapons
already existed in plenteous number, yet were not
deposited in graves. Th e fact that the fragment
of an iron sword was discovered in Teleac points
once again to the importance of this particular
site

Teleac products, smiths and possibly elites also made it even as far as Czechia.

The Thraco-Cimmerian horizon is also noticeable:
Th e scabbard terminal of the sword from Brno-
Obřany (Fig. 12) leads to the Caucasus, where comparable
?fi n-shaped chapes? (Flossenortb?nder) are
common.56 Although their dating through 14C must
still be determined, their placement in the 10th
century BC seems nonetheless plausible.57

https://www.researchgate.net/public...t_of_Teleac_and_Early_Iron_in_Southern_Europe

When Teleac was finally destroyed, it was by an huge, well-organised army for its time, which is also quite telling for the importance of the region and the military importance it had.

The best way to trace early E-V13 is to follow iron swords and Channelled Ware pottery. Where both is around 1.100, you surely have them. Illyrians will only have carried E-V13 after having either mixed with Daco-Thracians and/or being incorporated into the Eastern Hallstatt sphere, not before. So if early Illyrian groups moved e.g. to Southern Italy, those are unlikely to harbour any significant amount of E-V13, contrary to those in Hungary-Austria-Czechia and once they were part of Eastern Hallstatt.

E-V13 is particularly common in Spain today (except wider Basque country) and as it wasn't found in Iron Age Iberians the best explanation is that the Romans (in this case meaning 'Roman-age Italians', not just those from Rome/Latium) and/or Goths brought E-V13 to the Iberian peninsula.

We need to know which role Greek and Thracian settlers, colonists, migrants and slaves played in Southern Italy to know how it increased in frequency there.

If E-V13 wasn't found among Italic tribes,

The Italics are unlikely to have any E-V13 in larger numbers, because they come from more Western Tumulus and Urnfield groups, which were low in V13 or had none at all. If Italy got it in earlier times, it will be in the North, around the Eastern Hallstatt groups and later Celts.

E-V13 has a frequency of approximately 7% in Castille. So that is potentially 13% of Y-DNA that came with the Visigoths (Balkanic E-V13, Proto-Slavic R1a and Germanic I1, I2a2-L801 and R1b-U106) + surely some G2a and J2b from the Balkans that cannot easily be distinguished from the Roman/Etruscan or Greek ones.

Of course these numbers are only valid if E-V13 was only brought by the Visigoths and not by Roman-age Italians or Hallstatt Celts. But at present no E-V13 has been found among the latter two.

We have almost no Hallstatt samples, but when more come in, there will be E-V13 as a minority element I guess. Otherwise agreed.
 
Evidence is actually pretty scarce. No individual having a haplogroup of either E-V13 or J2b has ever been found in suspected Ancient Greek individuals.

The only evidence is the extent of E-V13 and J2b in modern Greece and former Greek populated areas (from Marseille and South Italy to Asia Minor/Cyprus, Egypt etc.). And then there is the speculated late Bronze Age (Dorian?) migration into Greece. Perhaps E-V13 is related to the Bronze Age collapse. Perhaps.

But let's assume that this late BA migration was true, then I don't see the point of these autosomal comparisons between BA Greeks and medieval Balkan peoples.


Probably more Greek E-V13 survived in Southern Italy than some parts of Northern Greec, where a lot will be from more recent migrations. But I tried to check this by comparing Cypriotic and Anatolian E-V13, which form, according to an older Cypriot study, a common cluster and branches too, to some degree. These could be "old Greek" E-V13 also. But unfortunately, the sample size for high resolution yDNA is like most of the time much to small to really assess that and trying to compare "old Greek" vs. "new Greek" v13.
 
Well yes... obviously using populations like Poles and Ukrainians harboring additional admixture (celtic+germanic and possibly others too ? ) that can also be found in varying proportions in the Balkans that's currently not represented by the models used will definitely inflate the percentage.
In addition to the Slavs, Celtic, Germanic and other tribes would have bigger impact the further north you go thus using these (modern) populations the Slavic component in Albanians and Greek Macedonians (basically the same ancestral proportions in the published 2-way model) will shot up even more, not only quintatively but also proportionally* . You can see it for yourself using the G25 coords for the respective populations.

* 6% increase in Peloponnesians using Polish instead of Ingria_IA , around 8% increase in Albanians+Greek Macedonians.

How do you know? And why the increase is higher in Northern Greeks and Albanians (8%) versus Pelopennesians (6%)? You are using only 2 groups, the percentage should be the same. Peloponnesians are shifted in the same direction of Macedonians.
You can get slightly different percentages only if you use Anatolians as a third party.
 
As far as I know. No E-V13 or J2b was detected in ancient Greek populations. Yet, researches keep insisting that the ancient Greeks were one of the people who spread these haplogroups. Could be, since it is in every historically Greek populated area. But in order for this to occur, at leas one Balkan migration into Greece during the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age must have happened.

The problem with this research is that it used Aegean Bronze Age Greeks as comparative material.

Yes but it does help though. Saying mainland Greeks are 30% (Peloponnese) to 40% (Thracians and Macedonians) shifted towards Poles or Ukranians compared to Classical Age Ionians is now backed up by the paper.
If the Slavs were Polish-like than the exact Slavic admixture should be around 20% to 25% in Peloponnese, and around 30% in Macedonia and Thrace. Again excluding other northern components that came before and after the Slavic inclusions of course.

Peloponesans compared to late antiquity Serb-Thracians seem to be 14% shifted towards Russians, thus around 16%-20% towards Poles.
 
Probably more Greek E-V13 survived in Southern Italy than some parts of Northern Greec, where a lot will be from more recent migrations. But I tried to check this by comparing Cypriotic and Anatolian E-V13, which form, according to an older Cypriot study, a common cluster and branches too, to some degree. These could be "old Greek" E-V13 also. But unfortunately, the sample size for high resolution yDNA is like most of the time much to small to really assess that and trying to compare "old Greek" vs. "new Greek" v13.

Bear in mind that Cyprus had different migrations than Greece, even in Ancient times. So "old" Greek may in theory be very old Greek. Meaning, Achaean BA Greek or something of the sort. Then there could be "old"Greek E-V13 which came during the Iron Age and is not so prevalent in Cyprus. Finally there could be more recent medieval E-V13 in Greece as well. But that said, Slavs mostly deluded E-V13 as is noticable in South Slavs.
 
Evidence is actually pretty scarce. No individual having a haplogroup of either E-V13 or J2b has ever been found in suspected Ancient Greek individuals.

The only evidence is the extent of E-V13 and J2b in modern Greece and former Greek populated areas (from Marseille and South Italy to Asia Minor/Cyprus, Egypt etc.). And then there is the speculated late Bronze Age (Dorian?) migration into Greece. Perhaps E-V13 is related to the Bronze Age collapse. Perhaps.

But let's assume that this late BA migration was true, then I don't see the point of these autosomal comparisons between BA Greeks and medieval post-Slavic Balkan peoples.

Btw. the view that modern Greeks seem to plot mainly in between the Balkan Iron Age population and the Bronze Age Aegean population, rather than Bronze Age Aegean + Slavic admixture does seem easily discarded by this research.

I am glad that now you are perhapsing about events that we have said years ago. That is a good baby step forward. Congratulation.


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Yes but it does help though. Saying mainland Greeks are 30% (Peloponnese) to 40% (Thracians and Macedonians) shifted towards Poles or Ukranians compared to Classical Age Ionians is now backed up by the paper.
If the Slavs were Polish-like than the exact Slavic admixture should be around 20% to 25% in Peloponnese, and around 30% in Macedonia and Thrace. Again excluding other northern components that came before and after the Slavic inclusions of course.

Peloponesans compared to late antiquity Serb-Thracians seem to be 14% shifted towards Russians, thus around 16%-20% towards Poles.

Every piece of the puzzle helps and is always welcome. But we should be cautious with our conclusions. I for one notice that mainland Greeks are between Iron Age Balkanians and Aegean Bronze Age Greeks. At face value, not considering the chronological factor, Iron Age Balkanians, compared to Aegean Bronze Age Greeks are shifted towards modern Slavs. Suffice to say that Iron Age Balkanians were not Greeks with some Slav admixture.
 

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