Comparing Ancient Greek populations to modern Greeks and Italians

I am going to try to break down my original thought about Thracian E-V13 because my wording might have been too abstract.

If E-V13 is a Thracian, and thus Dacian, marker then its great presence in modern Greek demographics has to do with the fact that the former have had great success in expanding over peninsular Greece, Vlachs being named as Dacians explicitly in historical accords, and also providing a good explanation for the big chunk of what is referred as "Paleo-Balkanic" admixture.

Modern Greeks look to be as much Balkanic (Thracian or related), or at least in the ballpark, as the qpadm models suggested by poster idontknowhatiamdoing.

I think Slavs brought in Peloponnese and to a lesser extend Arvanites. I cannot rule some ancient assimilated Ancient Thracians.

Goths in Iberia showed high E-V13 (25% to 30%) that they picked in the Balkans. Maybe the same will turn true in Peloponnese.
 
Ydna is irrelevant to ethnicities, even in Albania as in most places you have a diversity of lineages. Balkan populations were always both structured genetically and interacted with each other, to claim that "Y chromosome=ethnicity" even betrays an ignorance of what the Y chromosome is or does. Of course, there were movements from southern Albania to parts of Greece in the 1300s and abouts, however Greece just like Albania (to use simplistic terms so you can understand it) always have assimilated people from other regions of the Balkans, and also to some extent Anatolia. Many Arvanites fought for the Greek cause in 1821, so it's clear they identified as a certain ethnicity.
By your logic, any clade Mycenean samples have or will turn to have in the future automatically makes anyone north of Greece who has it Greek. It's obviously quite ridiculous.

Furthermore, do consider that most E1b diversity in the ancient (IA at least) was in modern-day Bulgaria, not Albania yet E-V13 is a very common haplogroup among Albanians today, clearly distinct from your R1b so at what point does X haplogroup belong to one ethnicity or the other?


On another note, about Illyrians and Macedonians and Thracians, if anyone reads ancient history we can quite clearly see Illyrians and Thracians being assimilated into ancient Greek culture, so did Anatolian peoples like Carians in Anatolia, in fact even the mother of the Athenian statesman Themistocles was likely of Thracian descent. Kimon is also supposed to descent from a Thracian king. The new paper even showed Myceneans as varying in Steppe ancestry so it's clear that cultural affiliation did not always closely follow genetics, even though most ancient Greeks likely had a Mycenean baseline of low Steppe, which would have been higher up north.

You still don’t get it, I am not sure why?
I never said this: to claim that "Y chromosome=ethnicity"

I said this:

The questions of identity and ethnicity depends on "which Y-DNA branch?" and "when?". In my case, if when = now, I'd say an Albanian in naturalization process to become US citizen. If when = 1800 on my paternal line, I'd say an Albanian Highlander from Laberia. If when = 1000 then a highlander from Malesia e Madhe. In the Roman era, somewhere in the western Balkans. If 6,000 years ago somewhere in Ukraine. And if when = 70,000 years ago or before, then my ancestors were African hunter-gatherers, like all of us.

So basically, my line has been part of the Yamnaya Culture, part of Paleo Balkans Culture, than Albanian, and now American. “When” defines at what time my ancestors have been part of each culture based on their y- DNA.A different y-DNA will have a different path through cultures and History.

Now sub-branches of My Dna might show up in Greece and now they are part of the Greek Culture and/or Ethnicity. But when the spilt from our common ancestor 500 years ago they were part of the Albanian culture and Ethnicity.

This is my last post for this. I am surprised that you don’t understand it, if you had searched for your ancestors, this is the first thing you will realize.


Sent from my iPhone using Eupedia Forum
 
I am going to try to break down my original thought about Thracian E-V13 because my wording might have been too abstract.

If E-V13 is a Thracian, and thus Dacian, marker then its great presence in modern Greek demographics has to do with the fact that the former have had great success in expanding over peninsular Greece, Vlachs being named as Dacians explicitly in historical accords, and also providing a good explanation for the big chunk of what is referred as "Paleo-Balkanic" admixture.

Modern Greeks look to be as much Balkanic (Thracian or related), or at least in the ballpark, as the qpadm models suggested by poster idontknowhatiamdoing.

I think we've seen enough from ancient dna to know that drawing big conclusions about the relationship between yDna and autosomal composition is extremely problematic.

The carriers of that y line might have provided some important service which spread their yDna but not necessarily all that much autosomal dna.
 
1)

3) If E-V13 is primarly connected to Daco-Thracians, it makes sense that it would have expanded into Asia Minor also as early as antiquity, however that doesn't make it ancient Greek.

It is fair to say that the Greek ethnos is ever evolving. I think you fail to see that by your standards many Ancient Greeks would not qualify as Greek. This perspective does not do historical justice. In that case we would have to speak of Homer being Achaean+Carrian, and Phillip of Macedon being Achaean+paleo-Balkan. Just to cherry pick some hypothetical examples.
 
We still don't have enough samples for different eras from Greece proper to definitely say anything except the Mycenaean era and the Mycenaean area and the Kastrouli area. The rest of eras and areas will be shrouded in darkness.

Completely agree. Like what accounts for E-V13 in places where Vlachs and Albanians didn’t migrate to, or did in small numbers perhaps? Hopefully new studies will start coming out (but not counting on it). Biomuse has ancient and medieval Greek samples.
 
All ethnicities are constantly evolving. Look at France and even Sweden. Look at the U.S. It's a rather banal view of Greek history.

It doesn't change the fact that much as some of you would like to deny it, people on the outskirts of Mycenaean and Classical Era Greek civilization may have absorbed the culture, but their genetics were different, and the people of the Greek mainland and perhaps particularly the Greek islands, carry more of their ancestry than the people of those peripheral regions. It's just fact, imo.
 
I am going to try to break down my original thought about Thracian E-V13 because my wording might have been too abstract.

If E-V13 is a Thracian, and thus Dacian, marker then its great presence in modern Greek demographics has to do with the fact that the former have had great success in expanding over peninsular Greece, Vlachs being named as Dacians explicitly in historical accords, and also providing a good explanation for the big chunk of what is referred as "Paleo-Balkanic" admixture.

Modern Greeks look to be as much Balkanic (Thracian or related), or at least in the ballpark, as the qpadm models suggested by poster idontknowhatiamdoing.


I fully understand what you mean, just as I fully understand the association between Illyrians and J2b-L283. Undoubtedly, especially between the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, there will be markers more frequent than others in the various ethnic groups, but for me it is still wrong to attribute an ethnic identity to uniparental markers that were formed long before the Iron Age ethnic groups.
 
Completely agree. Like what accounts for E-V13 in places where Vlachs and Albanians didn’t migrate to, or did in small numbers perhaps? Hopefully new studies will start coming out (but not counting on it). Biomuse has ancient and medieval Greek samples.
We have relarively recent archaeological findings of some big sites that have helped historians shed some light to the time around the end of “Greek dark age” (750BCE). We are talking about Doric settlements. Here is a particularly interesting Cretan one.
https://mae.uoc.gr/el/
https://www.thetoc.gr/politismos/ar...eleutherna-ekei-pou-ksanazoun-ta-omirika-epi/

I hope there is dna that can be salvaged from those burials.
 
I fully understand what you mean, just as I fully understand the association between Illyrians and J2b-L283. Undoubtedly, especially between the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, there will be markers more frequent than others in the various ethnic groups, but for me it is still wrong to attribute an ethnic identity to uniparental markers that were formed long before the Iron Age ethnic groups.

Sorry, out of juice, but completely agree.
 
Completely agree. Like what accounts for E-V13 in places where Vlachs and Albanians didn’t migrate to, or did in small numbers perhaps? Hopefully new studies will start coming out (but not counting on it). Biomuse has ancient and medieval Greek samples.

Greek Thracians and Macedonians seem to have higher I2a and R1a than E-V13.

E-V13 is around 25% in Peloponnese. But in other parts of Greece we don't have much data.
I doubt this line is dominant as it seems.

J2a's decrease seem to be a production of multiply migrations not just E-V13.
 
Most of the Macedonian IA samples are from the North (Lake Ohrid) so how would they connect to Classical era Macedonians in the South (Pella,Pydna, Methoni). Don't know much about Macedon prior to 600 BC. I realize Macedon (during Classical pd) extended up to Illyrian border but Lake Ohrid would have been within the vicinity of Classical era Thracian Kingdom which extended pretty far West but what about prior to that during the Iron Age?

I don't know why people expected otherwise. Look at Alexander the Great. His mother was Epirote, his grandmother was Illyrian or from Lynkestis (these people here). 75% of his DNA came near or from the territory of modern Albania. So why is it a surprise that his countrymen clustered with Iron Age Albania?

No one denies that Macedonians, at least Upper (western) Macedonians, absorbed or converted Illyrians within it. Even in Greek history, the legendary ethos of Macedonians is 3 brothers travelled from Greece through Illyria.
 
I love thought.co's little historical summaries about the Balkans. They're always succinct and to the point.

"The Illyrians carried on commerce and warfare with their neighbors. The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics"

This is a view shared by many historians.
 
Completely agree. Like what accounts for E-V13 in places where Vlachs and Albanians didn’t migrate to, or did in small numbers perhaps? Hopefully new studies will start coming out (but not counting on it). Biomuse has ancient and medieval Greek samples.

After Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age there is archaeological record of Eastern Urnfielders reaching Greece, especially Eastern Greece. Kapitan Andreevo E-V13 samples archaeologically are considered Eastern Hallstattian. And isn't it a surprise those remains in pits are not even regular burials, but irregular, because the common people cremated their deaths. These are the same people who archaeologists classified them as Balkan-Carpathian cultural complex and participated in the so called Aegean migrations during Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age. They were one of the earliest massive iron producers. The Naue II sword of the type Reutlingen was their invention and weapon of choice.

The admixture of Barbarian-Ware/Knobbed-Ware was discussed for decades, Eastern Urnfielders/Eastern Hallstattians. https://www.jstor.org/stable/501689

There is a problem though, these people preferred cremation during Early Iron Age, we need some Classical Greek samples, more of it to make sense, if E-V13 appears then that will be totally clarified. If not, then it is what it is.

One E-L618/E-V13 already appears in one Ancient Macedonian site:

Isar Marvinci, V. Marvinci-Valandovo, Southwest Necropolis
Excavations were carried out from 2008 to 2012 under the auspices of the Cultural Heritage
Protection Office and the Museum of Macedonia. Due to its long-term use stretching over
several periods this necropolis comprised both inhumation and cremation graves of which 3500
were investigated. They were of different manufacture such as stone cist tombs, simple
rectangular pits, burials under small tumuli, burials in rock chambers, in urns, and free cremation
burials (Fig. S 19).

During Mycenean times cremation burials were almost non-existent.

At the end, i wouldn't be surprised if E-V13 is solely Thracian Y-DNA, ancient authors considered them to be the most numerous people in ancient Europe along with Gallo-Celtic people.

At the end, we need to ask ourselves, the Urnfield Culture affected the South/East Balkans heavily, and there must have been a mediator to do so. If not E-V13, then it must have been some other lineage. But, to my knowledge no other Y-DNA or subclade of it fulfills better than E-V13 that requirement. As for Arvanites and Vlachs, that argument is not so convincing to me, how come people that barely reach 15-20% of E-V13 contribute to 20-30% of E-V13 country-wise?! Peloponessus has even more of it.

If, this theory holds water, then the initial Barbarian-Ware/Eastern Urnfielder invaders, during classical age were Hellenized and incorporated into the Hellenic Culture by the recovering Mycenaean descendants. More Classical Age samples will settle this down once and forever.
 
G25 Heatmaps

Calculator Source:
Code:
1.Ancient_Greek(Mycenaean+Emporion):GRC_Mycenaean:Average,0.107847,0.1563915,-0.008108,-0.0646808,0.0216962,-0.0271222,-0.0005288,-0.0021345,0.00542,0.047336,0.005521,0.0169352,-0.012785,-0.0006195,-0.0163882,-0.0098118,0.0210245,0.0036108,0.0123188,-0.0039705,-0.0058648,0.0001858,-0.0065935,0.0011448,-0.0007185
1.Ancient_Greek(Mycenaean+Emporion):Iberia_Northeast_Empuries2,0.118376,0.158423,-0.009051,-0.0670225,0.0252355,-0.027889,0.001645,-0.005077,0.0049085,0.042552,0.002842,0.01124,-0.016873,0.003578,-0.018526,-0.0157785,0.0035855,0.0003805,0.004588,-0.0126935,-0.008298,0.001546,0.001664,0.0071095,-0.008502

2.Levant_Sidon_1900BC:Levant_Sidon_MBA,0.0812696,0.1468454,-0.0613196,-0.0979336,-0.0105248,-0.0389334,-0.0047942,-0.0065998,0.0114534,0.0101686,0.0104904,-0.0097712,0.0215854,0.005505,-0.0075734,0.0065234,-0.0001562,-0.0011906,0.0015086,0.004252,0.0042674,0.007543,-0.0012572,0.0015906,-0.0005028

3.Anatolia/Caucasus(Pre_Turkic):Armenian,0.1034341,0.13861054,-0.056434355,-0.062990873,-0.027627409,-0.016951482,0.0038348,-0.0061151,-0.028213127,-0.0019019,0.0034337909,0.0020599545,-0.0026677727,0.0023908727,-0.0062209091,-0.00058341818,0.0025223182,0.0013912818,0.0017540818,-0.0018327,0.0017730455,0.0017749727,-0.0010857182,-0.0008993,0.0010700727

4.Paleo-Balkan+Slavic(Serbian),0.1273334,0.137229,0.040024,0.0148299,0.0314974,0.0045957,0.0048738,0.006672,-0.0011737,-7.9e-06,-0.0022946,-0.001251,0.0034128,0.012434,-0.0128875,-0.0008358,0.0040476,0.0005894,0.0043011,-0.0024468,-0.0083168,-0.0017151,0.0048925,0.000372,-0.0020097

Heatmaps illustrating relative distances to modern populations:







 
For Italy these maps are a bit worthless, because the modern Italian G25 samples are incomplete, especially for northern Italy. There are no samples from the Po Valley, which is the most densely populated area in northern Italy.
 
For Italy these maps are a bit worthless, because the modern Italian G25 samples are incomplete, especially for northern Italy. There are no samples from the Po Valley, which is the most densely populated area in northern Italy.

Always with the damn G25. When are people going to get that it's deeply flawed? So far as I know there is no sample for Emilia, but yeah, it's accurate.
 
I figured this is the right thread in which to ask the question.

Of all the Southern Arc samples, according to K12b I'm "reasonably" close to MK "ancient", which is not so ancient, as it seems to be first millennium BC, and MN (Montenegro area) which is about 2-4 hundred years earlier.
 
Always with the damn G25. When are people going to get that it's deeply flawed? So far as I know there is no sample for Emilia, but yeah, it's accurate.

These are the coordinates for Emilia:

Code:
emilia-romagna,0.112685,0.146236,0.02753,-0.012597,0.020927,-0.004183,-0.002115,-0.000462,0.009817,0.019499,-0.001461,0.004496,-0.011744,-0.009909,0.001764,0.010209,0.018906,-0.003421,0.014958,-0.004752,-0.008111,0.004204,0.003944,-0.003494,0.006826
 

This thread has been viewed 124912 times.

Back
Top