Genetic study A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations

[Omino]

We all know that Proto-Greek speakers, carried high Steppe related ancestry which was diluted by mixing with locals.

If you don't mind I would like more info about these BA samples

We literally have several dozens of samples from BA through skourtanioti and other studies within tonnes of information about them.

Stop embarrassing yourself dude

 

[bigsnake49]

Many historians mention Slavic settlements in Crete. Even if it is not true there is some, indirectly over the centuries, through mainland Greece.

Why is it such a big issue?

Only one medieval author mentioned a "raid" on Crete. The population movements by the Byzantines to repopulate Crete are not well documented as to their providence. The study on Cretan population genetics had a curious disagreement between IBD, PCA and ADMIXTURE. The disagreement was not satisfactorily explained.

 

[xri34]

We literally have several dozens of samples from BA through skourtanioti and other studies.

Stop embarrassing yourself dude

Proto-Greek speakers carried high Steppe ancestry.

Studies (and common sense) indicate that the Steppe minority mixed with locals and the Steppe percentage dropped a lot.

 

[Vitruvius]

We all know that Proto-Greek speakers, carried high Steppe related ancestry which was diluted by mixing with locals.

If you don't mind I would like more info about these BA samples

Except that none of these are Proto-Greek speakers. Your assumption here is false. They were proper Mycenaean Greeks who were living at the end of the bronze age during the Trojan war, or just one or two hundred years before it in some cases. What we are looking at is the natural variation that already existed in just the southern part Mycenaean Greece, not chalcolithic steppe arrivals from 1500 years prior. Once we actually start getting sample sets of this quantity from northern Greece, ideas about what is "Greek like" will change drastically and this Slavic input nonsense will be put to rest.

All samples are from Skourtanioti et al 2023: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01952-3

As for why people continue to have these absurd debates without even looking at the single largest collection of Myceneans we have is beyond me. It seems apparent that most people in the aDNA community needs to get used to mentally redefining what "Mycenean-like" actually means because these are not the same as the samples Lazaraidis unearthed in 2017.

 

[bigsnake49]

Proto-Greek speakers carried high Steppe ancestry.

Studies (and common sense) indicate that the Steppe minority mixed with locals and the Steppe percentage dropped a lot.

Northern Greek samples did carry high steppe, Mycenaean samples did not.

 

[Vitruvius]

Posting the G25 coordinates of Mycenaeans for Skourtanioti et al 2023 for any of those interested

 

[Archetype0ne]

Northern Greek samples did carry high steppe, Mycenaean samples did not.

@Jovialis and @eupator
Since I have changed systems a couple of times I have lost the documentation I created for merging different geno datasets and dependencies needed for it. Is there any chance you have a running setup needed for merging:
Genotypes of modern individuals analyzed in Olalde et al. Cell 2023 from https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/datasets
with
Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR): Downloadable genotypes of present-day and ancient DNA data from https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/allen...le-genotypes-present-day-and-ancient-dna-data
?

 

[Vitruvius]

Northern Greek samples did carry high steppe, Mycenaean samples did not.

I agree that northern Greek samples probably did carry higher steppe but a notable amount of Myceneans have already been shown to have modern Peloponnesian profiles. This shouldn't be understated or ignored. The Myceneans were not exclusively or homogenously Modern Cretan-like, although many certainly do fit that profile.

 

[ihype02]

Are you really asking me why i can't take seriously a sample that we only know about through a screenshot?

Well if it showed old Greeks plotting very close to modern Greeks instead, I doubt you'd be skeptical about it.

 

[norbert]

I made the same mistake before, but you are missusing, what's proto for you?

Because for me, it means if classic Illyrians are J2b2-L283 mostly and classic Thracians are E-V13 predominantly, then how we arrive at protos is through reverse engineering. Language shifts happened all the time, and probably in very very dynamic way.

Neither of the haplogroups is proto-Illyrian or proto-Thracian. I2a isn't proto-Slavic, N1c isn't proto-Baltic and I1 isn't proto-Germanic. All those haplogroups were absorbed by the respective groups at some point during their ethnogenesis, often very early on. There are too many obstacles in the study of the Illyrians. The first problem arises with their illiteracy. Unlike the Illyrians, the Thracians at least made some use of Greek writing. It is also difficult to reify what Illyrian means. The Greek used it as an umbrella term for various peoples and tribes in their northern neighbourhood, peoples they considered related in language and customs. What they did is pick the name of a tribe and extend it to others. But it is really thanks to the Romans that the Illyrian name became synonymous for the Western Balkans and their province. Contemporary scholarship seems to agree that the Illyrians proper lived on a territory encompassing Dalmatia south of the city of Split, most of Herzegovina, Montenegro, southwestern Serbia and northern Albania. Were the peoples and tribes to the north of this area also Illyrians proper or just inhabiting a territory the Romans called Illyria in accordance with their administrative needs? How do we get to the conclusion that the Illyrians were predominantly J-L283, when all we have are just a few samples, mostly along the coast? What if those people are close family members? What is their social background? How did they self-identify? Certainly they might have been Illyrians, culturally and linguistically. The problem is, we don't have any living samples for comparison, but it does make sense to view these samples as Illyrian. However, interpreting this haplogroup as proto-Illyrian is too far-fetched and even ridiculous. We need a lot more samples, spanning the entire Western Balkans, especially the deep Dalmatian hinterland. Cremation burials are the other obstacle in the study of this area but I'm sure we'll see a lot of surprises in the future. Until then, a good common sense is required as a prerequisite for a sound scientific theory. Raw data without a good scientific theory is useless and that's why a bunch of internet amateurs are fooling around with data as if it's Kabbalah for which they employ various "tools", expecting software to do the thinking for them or to confirm their wishful thinking and ideological bias by projecting their own genetic make-up to ancient populations.

 

[Omino]

Well if it showed old Greeks plotting very close to modern Greeks instead, I doubt you'd be skeptical about it.

Your constant assumptions screaming bias my dear

 

[xri34]

Except that none of these are Proto-Greek speakers. Your assumption here is false. They were proper Mycenaean Greeks who were living at the end of the bronze age during the Trojan war, or just one or two hundred years before it in some cases. What we are looking at is the natural variation that already existed in just the southern part Mycenaean Greece, not chalcolithic steppe arrivals from 1500 years prior. Once we actually start getting sample sets of this quantity from northern Greece, ideas about what is "Greek like" will change drastically and this Slavic input nonsense will be put to rest.

All samples are from Skourtanioti et al 2023: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01952-3

As for why people continue to have these absurd debates without even looking at the single largest collection of Myceneans we have is beyond me. It seems apparent that most people in the aDNA community needs to get used to mentally redefining what "Mycenean-like" actually means because these are not the same as the samples Lazaraidis unearthed in 2017.

I am not home now so I will check it thoroughly later.

Even if you are right I have some objections.

1)We have the other samples as well (from different studies). What is the dominant profile? Should we make an average? Most of the profiles you posted are Aegean-like, so we still need more for mainland.

2) What about their haplogroups? Are there any E-V13, J2b-L283, I2 or R1a-Z283 like in modern mainland Greeks?

 

[Friesday]

G25?

 

[Vitruvius]

I am not home now so I will check it thoroughly later.

Even if you are right I have some objections.

1)We have the other samples as well (from different studies). What is the dominant profile? Should we make an average? Most of the profiles you posted are Aegean-like, so we still need more for mainland.

2) What about their haplogroups? Are there any E-V13, J2b-L283, I2 or R1a-Z283 like in modern mainland Greeks?

Feel free to check it over when you please. I'm just providing you the information. As for your objections:

1: We have almost no other samples from the Iron age and Hellenistic era in Greece. I recall maybe 2 or 3 from a variety of different studies but that's it. The sample size for these eras are extremely low and almost exclusive to southern regions.

What's more is that the sample size for the profiles from Skourtanioiti 2023 is 89 individuals if I recall correctly. It's a much more robust dataset and what it shows is a continual shift of ancestry between EBA and LBA Myceneans towards the modern positioning of Greeks as time progressed. By the LBA it would appear that ~50% of the sample set looked the same as moderns. Based off what is known about the Greek Iron age, it's colonizations and expansions into western anatolia and places like Epirus and Thrace, I'd be highly surprised to not see this trend of increasing steppe and caucasian ancestry continue.

This mind you is all based solely off of what we know about the southern edge of the LBA greek world and ignores everything in central and northern Greece. I can only assume that if Skourtanioti had access to LBA Macedonian profiles in the same time frame we would see still even more high steppe individuals, similar to what we find in neighboring parts of the bronze age balkans.

2: I haven't checked haplogroups so you'll have to check them yourself. I'm honestly not terribly interested in them. Autosomal is much more important in determining a person's ancestral background in my opinion.

 

[Hawk]

Neither of the haplogroups is proto-Illyrian or proto-Thracian. I2a isn't proto-Slavic, N1c isn't proto-Baltic and I1 isn't proto-Germanic. All those haplogroups were absorbed by the respective groups at some point during their ethnogenesis, often very early on. There are too many obstacles in the study of the Illyrians. The first problem arises with their illiteracy. Unlike the Illyrians, the Thracians at least made some use of Greek writing. It is also difficult to reify what Illyrian means. The Greek used it as an umbrella term for various peoples and tribes in their northern neighbourhood, peoples they considered related in language and customs. What they did is pick the name of a tribe and extend it to others. But it is really thanks to the Romans that the Illyrian name became synonymous for the Western Balkans and their province. Contemporary scholarship seems to agree that the Illyrians proper lived on a territory encompassing Dalmatia south of the city of Split, most of Herzegovina, Montenegro, southwestern Serbia and northern Albania. Were the peoples and tribes to the north of this area also Illyrians proper or just inhabiting a territory the Romans called Illyria in accordance with their administrative needs? How do we get to the conclusion that the Illyrians were predominantly J-L283, when all we have are just a few samples, mostly along the coast? What if those people are close family members? What is their social background? How did they self-identify? Certainly they might have been Illyrians, culturally and linguistically. The problem is, we don't have any living samples for comparison, but it does make sense to view these samples as Illyrian. However, interpreting this haplogroup as proto-Illyrian is too far-fetched and even ridiculous. We need a lot more samples, spanning the entire Western Balkans, especially the deep Dalmatian hinterland. Cremation burials are the other obstacle in the study of this area but I'm sure we'll see a lot of surprises in the future. Until then, a good common sense is required as a prerequisite for a sound scientific theory. Raw data without a good scientific theory is useless and that's why a bunch of internet amateurs are fooling around with data as if it's Kabbalah for which they employ various "tools", expecting software to do the thinking for them or to confirm their wishful thinking and ideological bias by projecting their own genetic make-up to ancient populations.

It was already done, the Cetina Culture from Bronze was almost all J2b2-L283, almost half century ago it was classified that Bronze Age Cetina tumuli are ancestral to classic Illyrian, if that's not proof enough for you IDK.

Also same for Thracians and E-V13, no doubt they got their speech from a Steppe population, but the actual development of Thracian ethnos is tied to E-V13, further speech/dialectal developments, cultural developments etc, etc, etc.

 

[eupator]

All of you, Slavic input deniers, just have a look at the prevalence of i2a-din and Baltic r1a clades in northern Greece, ffs.

The ftdna project is open to the public or you can look at the Cyprus paper, stop embarrassing yourselves with your denial and copium, this dead horse has been flogged to oblivion.

 

[Omino]

All of you, Slavic input deniers, just have a look at the prevalence of i2a-din and Baltic r1a clades in northern Greece, ffs.

The ftdna project is open to the public or you can look at the Cyprus paper, stop embarrassing yourselves with your denial and copium, this dead horse has been flogged to oblivion.

There is literally no-one in the thread denying Slavic input, we're debating it's size.
Wth are you even talking about?

 

[Vitruvius]

All of you, Slavic input deniers, just have a look at the prevalence of i2a-din and Baltic r1a clades in northern Greece, ffs.

The ftdna project is open to the public or you can look at the Cyprus paper, stop embarrassing yourselves with your denial and copium, this dead horse has been flogged to oblivion.

Ancestral origin is not quantified or defined by the haplogroup one happens to carry and it's already known that R haplogroups are broadly overrepresented due to male offspring bias over time. This is an incredibly weak argument if I've ever seen it. Simultaneously you seem to totally ignore the fact that we already have modern Peloponnesian profiles in the peloponnesian peninsula 2000 years before any slavs would arrive in the balkans.

 

[eupator]

There is literally no-one in the thread denying Slavic input, we're debating it's size.
Wth are you even talking about?

35 to 40 for haplos.

 

[eupator]

Ancestral origin is not quantified or defined by the haplogroup one happens to carry and it's already known that R haplogroups are broadly overrepresented due to male offspring bias over time. This is an incredibly weak argument if I've ever seen it. Simultaneously you seem to totally ignore the fact that we already have modern Peloponnesians profiles in the peloponessian peninsula 2000 years before any slavs would arrive in the balkans.

Autosomals count 600K to 1.2mil SNPs, haplos are the only actual proof of historical migrations and population distribution, 2000 year old profiles rofl.