Comparing Ancient Greek populations to modern Greeks and Italians

[epirus1000]

Perhaps the comparisons using ancient samples should be done with the Peloponnesian samples used in George Stamatoyannopouloset al, given that...

"Subjects were includedin the study if all four grandparents originated from the same village or fromvillages that were o10 kilometers apart. The ages of most participants rangedbetween 70 and 90 years (the oldest subject was 107 years old); hence theirgrandparents were born between 1860 and 1880. In the 1861 census thepopulation of Peloponnese was 578 598 individuals. At that time the economyof Peloponnese was exclusively agricultural and over 85% of the population wasliving in small villages and hamlets. We sampled all the districts of Peloponnese(Figure 1a and Supplementary Table 1) and also focused on two culturallydistinct subpopulations, the Tsacones and the Maniots."

One can thus be assured that the "modern" samples are not from Athens, and certainly are not from people admixed with refugees arriving in the 20th century.

See: Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks (purdue.edu)

The Peloponnesus is very well-known for a large incoming migration from the Albanian areas in the early medieval ages. A large part of the population spoke arvanites in 1890, as the map from a German geologist shows.
How can you do such a large study in 2016, while completely avoiding these well-known facts? There are many villages that still have Albanian names and hundreds of surnames that have that Albanian wording flavor.
No, Peloponnesus samples are not useful to be compared with the ancient samples, unless you want to have a mixed Albanian-Greek sample from the medieval ages.

 

[bigsnake49]

View attachment 13941
The Peloponnesus is very well-known for a large incoming migration from the Albanian areas in the early medieval ages. A large part of the population spoke arvanites in 1890, as the map from a German geologist shows.
How can you do such a large study in 2016, while completely avoiding these well-known facts? There are many villages that still have Albanian names and hundreds of surnames that have that Albanian wording flavor.
No, Peloponnesus samples are not useful to be compared with the ancient samples, unless you want to have a mixed Albanian-Greek sample from the medieval ages.

The Arvanites villages are well known. Arvanites and Greek speakers did not start mixing until well after the 1940s. The Arvanites maintained their language and customs against assimilation for centuries.

 

[eupator]

The Arvanites villages are well known. Arvanites and Greek speakers did not start mixing until well after the 1940s. The Arvanites maintained their language and customs against assimilation for centuries.

Not true, there was extensive mixing of all Christian Orthodox groups, the haplogroup distribution and variation is evident.

 

[Jovialis]

In my opinion, if we want to compare ancient Greeks with modern Greeks, we should take in to account two considerations: a chronological and a geographical one.
Speaking of the chronological consideration, we have to keep in mind that archaic era and classical Greeks may have been pretty similar to Myceneans, but they also might show some differences. So far we have very few samples from Iron age Greeks and some of them seem a little bit more pulled towards the current east med cline. This could be due to interaction both with the northern regions and with the poleis of the anatolian coast.
This brings us to the geographical consideration: unless I missed them, we still have very few samples from Northern Greece (we have samples from north Macedonia, but if I remember correctly it's contemporary Republic of North Macedonia and not ancient Macedonia) and we should not assume they could have looked the same as bronze age myceneans from Southern Greece. At the same time, we already know that Greek colonies on the anatolian coast experience significant amount of admixture with the autoctonous elements.
I believe all this points should be taken in to account of we want to speculate the degree of continuity between modern and classical Greeks.

This is what my model demonstrates,

Yamna: Minoan 2-way ratio (i.e. Ancient Achaean and similar genetic profile also found in Thrace for example)

But also Slavic (corded ware/boshovy proxy) as well as Isparta (Anatolian BA) augmentation

The Ancient Achaean genetic profile represented by the yellow and blue lives on in Greece, other Balkanites, and Southern Italy.

 

[Jovialis]

This is what my model demonstrates,

Yamna: Minoan 2-way ratio (i.e. Ancient Achaean and similar genetic profile also found in Thrace for example)

But also Slavic (corded ware/boshovy proxy) as well as Isparta (Anatolian BA) augmentation

The Ancient Achaean genetic profile represented by the yellow and blue lives on in Greece, other Balkanites, and Southern Italy.

My analysis is consistent with the academic consensus of geneticists who state that there is indeed genetic continuity from ancient Greeks into modern ones.

 

[Angela]

Not true, there was extensive mixing of all Christian Orthodox groups, the haplogroup distribution and variation is evident.

Well, that might be true even if the admixing took place after 1940, and so the samples from the cited paper would not be affected.

I don't understand this reluctance. If they turn out to be quite far from the ancient samples, fine. If they turn out to be very close to the ancient samples, they and we would know, and wouldn't need all this speculation.

I don't see the problem with the chronology. Compare them to all the ancient samples. If there are differences it will be apparent.

 

[eupator]

Well, that might be true even if the admixing took place after 1940, and so the samples from the cited paper would not be affected.

I don't understand this reluctance. If they turn out to be quite far from the ancient samples, fine. If they turn out to be very close to the ancient samples, they and we would know, and wouldn't need all this speculation.

I don't see the problem with the chronology. Compare them to all the ancient samples. If there are differences it will be apparent.

There's no direct continuation from ancient Greeks to moderns like in the heads of some posters here (not you obviously).

There is no group that jumps over 5000 year of linguistic, military, and imperialist expansion like the Greeks (and then the Romans) and remains as such in 2023.

The uniparentals are proof of this, on top all of the medieval literature and accords that we have. Within 10 generations the autosomals are wiped out, only the original uniparental markers remain and these confirm the literature, with the amount of E-V13 (Dacians) and Ia2-din (Bulgarians/South-Slavs) you see in peninsular Greece (don't take my word for it, just visit the FTDNA project and check for yourself). The reason that 'mainland' Greeks are not absolutely identical to Albanians and Bulgarians/North-Macedonians is because they have received Anatolian and Armenia-BA (loose usage of the term) input that pulls them south, exactly what the historical sources tell us. They were Byzantines/Greeks and subject to such admixture input.

The similarity of a PCA is just that, a similarity that applies to various groups of the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, and for a good reason. If we take the PCA argument to its logical extreme, the Ashkenazi Jewish people are actually equal candidates for ancient Greek ancestral origin, yet no one argues such a point.

As for the Greek people who push for such unbroken continuities and notions of genetic purity, they are sick in the head, they might not be nordicists but they are the Med equivalent.

If anyone wants to read for themselves what transpired in this part of the world in terms of migrations and population dynamics between 330 A.D. (the creation of Constantinople (the point of origin that most scholars consider the birth of the Greco-Roman syncretic ethnos)) till about 1836 (the creation of the Kingdom of Greece and the Romantic revival of the ancient classics as the new identity of the Rumelian Romans/Rhomaioi) then I can PM relevant literature, I feel like a broken record.

 

[Jovialis]

There's no direct continuation from ancient Greeks to moderns like in the heads of some posters here (not you obviously).
There is no group that jumps over 5000 year of linguistic, military, and imperialist expansion like the Greeks (and then the Romans) and remains as such in 2023.
The uniparentals are proof of this, on top all of the medieval literature and accords that we have. Within 10 generations the autosomals are wiped out, only the original uniparental markers remain and these confirm the literature, with the amount of E-V13 (Dacians) and Ia2-din (Bulgarians/South-Slavs) you see in peninsular Greece (don't take my word for it, just visit the FTDNA project and check for yourself). The reason that 'mainland' Greeks are not absolutely identical to Albanians and Bulgarians/North-Macedonians is because they have received Anatolian and Armenia-BA (loose usage of the term) input that pulls them south, exactly what the historical sources tell us. They were Byzantines/Greeks and subject to such admixture input.
The similarity of a PCA is just that, a similarity that applies to various groups of the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, and for a good reason. If we take the PCA argument to its logical extreme, the Ashkenazi Jewish people are actually equal candidates for ancient Greek ancestral origin, yet no one argues such a point.
As for the Greek people who push for such unbroken continuities and notions of genetic purity, they are sick in the head, they might not be nordicists but they are the Med equivalent.
If anyone wants to read for themselves what transpired in this part of the world in terms of migrations and population dynamics between 330 A.D. (the creation of Constantinople (the point of origin that most scholars consider the birth of the Greco-Roman syncretic ethnos)) till about 1836 (the creation of the Kingdom of Greece and the Romantic revival of the ancient classics as the new identity of the Rumelian Romans/Rhomaioi) then I can PM relevant literature, I feel like a broken record.

I find it to be bizarre that you take that position considering it is not only a sentiment shared by me, but also Lazaridis, and others like Razib khan. They are explicitly saying so.

As for decorum, let's avoid name calling.

If you have an issue with what the consensus is, fine. But calling people sick in the head for reiterating what is said by peer-reviewed studies isn't appropriate for civilized discourse. Mainland southern Greeks from the Peloponnese are the closest to Ancient Achaeans. Others from Anatolia, and the Islands have a large Anatolian-related component. That's a fact.

So what is your problem?

The origins of the Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean cultures have puzzled archaeologists for more than a century. We have assembled genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals, including Minoans from Crete, Mycenaeans from mainland Greece, and their eastern neighbours from southwestern Anatolia. Here we show that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, having at least three-quarters of their ancestry from the first Neolithic farmers of western Anatolia and the Aegean1,2, and most of the remainder from ancient populations related to those of the Caucasus3 and Iran4,5. However, the Mycenaeans differed from Minoans in deriving additional ancestry from an ultimate source related to the hunter–gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia6,7,8, introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe1,6,9 or Armenia4,9. Modern Greeks resemble the Mycenaeans, but with some additional dilution of the Early Neolithic ancestry. Our results support the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean, before and after the time of its earliest civilizations

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23310

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I862ksIkEtE

Look at ^6:06, he says you base it on the fact that you can in fact model them as ancient Greeks, and see augmentation from there.

That's how it is done appropriately.

What I am seeing from some posters is a re-packaging of this bullshit Syrian hypothesis from the 19th century, via Anatolian/Syrian admixed proxies.

So if anyone is sick in the head it is these people.

Btw, Angela agrees with my sentiment, and I see that really only some biased posters are upvoting yours, such as some more Anti-Greek Albanian members.

@Euptor, you are saying there was discontinuity with Ancient Greeks from modern ones? What is the basis for this argument?

Are you following a similar trajectory as the other poster arguing for whole sale population replacement?

 

[Jovialis]

What is truly extraordinary is that saying someone is the equivalent to a Nordicist for arguing that there was continuity since the Late Bronze Age, but some augmentation from Slavic and Anatolian admixture in modern Greeks. That some areas retained the original profile more than others. Not everyone is mixed the same, or must start with a baseline that is completely unorthodox.

I swear to god, I will ban you from this website forever if you insult me like that again.

 

[Jovialis]

The similarity of a PCA is just that, a similarity that applies to various groups of the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, and for a good reason. If we take the PCA argument to its logical extreme, the Ashkenazi Jewish people are actually equal candidates for ancient Greek ancestral origin, yet no one argues such a point.

What are these lies you are saying today?

I have actually modeled Western Jews with a similar model, and it shows they look like a mix between Ancient Greeks and Near easterners. Which is something I have always said was a strong possibility.

 

[eupator]

What are these lies you are saying today?

That post wasn't directed at you nor at Angela, not sure why you take such offense.

I think I was quite explanatory in my post, and I don't think any of the studies argues for unbroken continuities, that's an anthro-forum past-time, they merely present similarity on the basis of projection on a PCA standard, which, like I said can include the whole of the region, on a gradient.

As for Moreans, sorry, Peloponnesians, I am very interested to learn about how that massive amount of E-V13 (and I2a-din) they carry is heritage from the ancient Spartans, not even getting on the matter of toponyms and last names.

You are an outsider and don't understand the "politics of history" inside Greece, but we don't live in the 1950s dictatorship in this country anymore and we are free to speak about our real culture and our real ancestry that our grand-parents were forced to 'forget', thankfully not successfully, and, yes, that includes Anatolian Rums, also.

Peace.

 

[Jovialis]

Ashkenazi and other Western Jews have a connection to Ancient Greeks, as well as their Levantine ancestors. Thus they share both those ancestries and are closer to Ancient Acheans in the model than Kos, Dodecanese, and Cypriots who it gives a bad fit for.

 

[Jovialis]

I think the papers are pretty clear, as well as the video I posted. Believe what you would like, but these papers are not made by "sick in the head" ethno-nationalists. In fact what I see in anthrophora is more your position, of discontinued legacy. But rest assure academics and the general public know there is continually genetic legacy in Greece. Odd bedfellows you have for a "Greek", btw.

 

[bigsnake49]

Not true, there was extensive mixing of all Christian Orthodox groups, the haplogroup distribution and variation is evident.

I grew up in an Arvanitan village that was 90% Arvanites and 10% Greek speakers. In 1937 my uncle was the first that crossed the line and married my Arvanitan aunt to the disapproval of both communities. There were plenty of old people that spoke only Arvanitika up into the 1960. In the late 1950 and 1960's because of migration to the cities and emigration to Europe there was a lot more intermarriage between the two communities. After that Arvanitika started to die out. The fact that Arvanitika was still getting spoken into the 1960s will tell you that the community was insulated.

 

[bigsnake49]

There's no direct continuation from ancient Greeks to moderns like in the heads of some posters here (not you obviously).

There is no group that jumps over 5000 year of linguistic, military, and imperialist expansion like the Greeks (and then the Romans) and remains as such in 2023.

The uniparentals are proof of this, on top all of the medieval literature and accords that we have. Within 10 generations the autosomals are wiped out, only the original uniparental markers remain and these confirm the literature, with the amount of E-V13 (Dacians) and Ia2-din (Bulgarians/South-Slavs) you see in peninsular Greece (don't take my word for it, just visit the FTDNA project and check for yourself). The reason that 'mainland' Greeks are not absolutely identical to Albanians and Bulgarians/North-Macedonians is because they have received Anatolian and Armenia-BA (loose usage of the term) input that pulls them south, exactly what the historical sources tell us. They were Byzantines/Greeks and subject to such admixture input.

The similarity of a PCA is just that, a similarity that applies to various groups of the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, and for a good reason. If we take the PCA argument to its logical extreme, the Ashkenazi Jewish people are actually equal candidates for ancient Greek ancestral origin, yet no one argues such a point.

As for the Greek people who push for such unbroken continuities and notions of genetic purity, they are sick in the head, they might not be nordicists but they are the Med equivalent.

If anyone wants to read for themselves what transpired in this part of the world in terms of migrations and population dynamics between 330 A.D. (the creation of Constantinople (the point of origin that most scholars consider the birth of the Greco-Roman syncretic ethnos)) till about 1836 (the creation of the Kingdom of Greece and the Romantic revival of the ancient classics as the new identity of the Rumelian Romans/Rhomaioi) then I can PM relevant literature, I feel like a broken record.

Here are the percentages of different Y-DNA Haplogroups by country:

https://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml

Region/Haplogroup I1 I2*/I2a I2b R1a R1b G J2 J*/J1 E1b1b T Q N Sample size ▾ Greece 3.5 9.5 1.5 11.5 15.5 6.5 23 3 21 4.5 0 0 North Greece 5.5 16 1 18 13 4.5 15 2.5 20.5 4 0 0 Central Greece 3.5 7 3.5 11 11.5 6 19 3.5 29.5 5 0 0 South Greece 1.5 9 1 10.5 20.5 3.5 19.5 1 27 4.5 0 0 Crete 4 7 1 9 15 9.5 34 5 11 4 0.5 0 Aegean Islands 3 3 2.5 10 19 8.5 20 3 22 6 0 0

There is no objections to the slavic input we all acknowledge that. EV-13 on the other hand there is a lot of discussion as to its provenance. Let's wait until we have a lot more samples throughout the balkans and throughout history before we jump to conclusions.

 

[Dorian9]

You will never have published samples from ancient South Macedonia and ancient South Epirus. All that pileus (plis in Albanian) in those coins that is still used in Albania shows a little bit of what the DNA could hold. Too risky

It's a shame that the albanian government prevents their testing ,these J1bs are obsessed with proving that we albanians are dacians but they can't hide the truth from us Pelazgi-Ilir-Aftoktonus Pil=Goat Eus=Sun =Bright goat hat

 

[ihype02]

E-V13, IMO, in Peloponnese seems to be related with the Slavic inclusions. All those Byzantine writings and toponyms did not pop out of nowhere with so little actual Slavic Y-DNA, high autosomal input and mysteriously high E-V13.

Probably a founder effect among the Slavic tribes, so instead of bringing high R1a and I2a (which are only slightly above 15% together) they brought higher E-V13 instead, like Goths in Spain. A large proportion of Goths in Spain had E-V13 lines and on other hand most Goths in Italy had Germanic Y-Dna so we might see a similar contrast with the Slavs in Balkans

Using Poles vs Bosnians as source for the Slavic admixture in Peloponnese deviates by 10% at most. So it's not like a drastic change is going to happen if the Slavs that came to Greece had some Balkanic admixture. (35% -> 45% in Mainstream Peloponnesians).

This is, however, just my opinion. Those papers are taking years. Might even take more than 10 years until a legitimate paper comes and solves the E-V13 question in Peloponnese.

As for Arvanites, I cannot rule them out for contributing into the E-V13 numbers however the genetic ethnogenesis of Peloponnese was finished before the Arvanite migration started so I tend to put most of E-V13 'establishment' earlier.

 

[eupator]

3 things:

Here are the percentages of different Y-DNA Haplogroups by country:

No need to beat about the bush. Calculate the total %s of E-V13s and I2a-dins in the Greek FTDNA project, I dare you.


https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Greece?iframe=yresults

E-V13, IMO, in Peloponnese seems to be related with the Slavic inclusions. All those Byzantine writings and toponyms did not pop out of nowhere with so little actual Slavic Y-DNA, high autosomal input and mysteriously high E-V13.

I am also leaning on this position, considering that in the medieval sources the Dacians and the Bulgarians are one body in the eye of the Byzantines.


Thirdly:

Lazaridis for all his scientific brilliance, has shown signs of emotional investment and compromise, so he's not immune to criticism.

More specifically, he systematically avoids discussing haplogroup representation in relation to current modern reality in Greece, I remember one particular really embarrassing tweet of his, not sure if he deleted it or still has it, where some Greek poster furiously argues that all the I2a-dins are local "Greek" Hunter Gatherer survivors and have nothing to do with the medieval Slavs, and Lazaridis agrees "yes, of course, that could may well be the case!", like I said, extremely embarrassing for a publisher of his caliber.

 

[Jovialis]

Ancient Greeks, Italians, and Albanians along with modern versions.

 

[Hawk]

3 things:





No need to beat about the bush. Calculate the total %s of E-V13s and I2a-dins in the Greek FTDNA project, I dare you.


https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Greece?iframe=yresults




I am also leaning on this position, considering that in the medieval sources the Dacians and the Bulgarians are one body in the eye of the Byzantines.


Thirdly:

Lazaridis for all his scientific brilliance, has shown signs of emotional investment and compromise, so he's not immune to criticism.

More specifically, he systematically avoids discussing haplogroup representation in relation to current modern reality in Greece, I remember one particular really embarrassing tweet of his, not sure if he deleted it or still has it, where some Greek poster furiously argues that all the I2a-dins are local "Greek" Hunter Gatherer survivors and have nothing to do with the medieval Slavs, and Lazaridis agrees "yes, of course, that could may well be the case!", like I said, extremely embarrassing for a publisher of his caliber.

I would take with grain of salt the posts of ihype considering he seems to have a bias toward E-V13 Albanians.

Thing is, from what i can tell E-V13 in Peloponessus seems to be bigger than Bulgarians, and subclades tend to lean moreso toward S2979 than Z5017 in Bulgarians. Thessaloniki and surrounding have far more Slavic admixture yet far less V13 than Southern Greece.

So, if anything i am leaning toward Byzantine populations of Thracian origin which were Grecophone. But, Northern Greeks of antuiquty like Ancient Macedonians should harbour E-V13 as well, it's interesting how some Uzbeks from around Bukhara are popping out as E-V13. Seleucid branch kingdoms were there, if not for Thracian mercenaries i bet on Seleucids. So, let's wait for more results.