How to divide Slavs from Balts, and vice-versa before 6th century?

[RajvoSa]

How to divide Slavs from Balts, and vice-versa before 6th century, i mean in genetical and (archeological) sense?
Their R1a is almost the same mutations. This ones which have Balts usually have the Slavs as well. And opposite.

Discuss.

 

[Milan.M]

I think that in genetic sense we can distinguish the Slavs from Balts because Slavs have I2a din and in Baltic is almost absent.
R1a Z280 is both Baltic and Slavic.
R1a M458 can be find mostly among Slavs but also among Balts.
I2a din spread from the west Ukraine,north Romania,Moldova and areas around but in the Iron age in my opinion.

As for archeology is really hard to answer.

I would say Slavic homeland is this in orange,Chernyakov culture my opinion,the old Getae

Some other maps i found

 

[RajvoSa]

I think that in genetic sense we can distinguish the Slavs from Balts because Slavs have I2a din and in Baltic is almost absent.

R1a Z280 is both Baltic and Slavic.
R1a M458 can be find mostly among Slavs but also among Balts.
I2a din spread from the west Ukraine,north Romania,Moldova and areas around but in the Iron age in my opinion.

Yes, but point is that I2 (maybe) didn't participate even in the Slavic ethnogenesis, at the beginnings.
Some historians and archeologists support a theory that actually Slavs are result of the contact of Baltic and Sarmatian cultures, that's why is it hard to explain by archeology. Me personally don't support this theory, but this is one of possible hypothesis, i can't claim how much accurate it is.
As well, Chernyakov culture is used to have hard Sarmatian influence.

 

[qtr]

How to divide Slavs from Balts, and vice-versa before 6th century, i mean in genetical and (archeological) sense? Their R1a is almost the same mutations. This ones which have Balts usually have the Slavs as well. And opposite. Discuss.

You can't. Ethnicity is very new identification. Also around that time when slavs migrated to Balkans, modern balts(latvian-lithuanians - around 6th BC they were same) finished arrival from Belarus and Russia(while galindians went to settle near Moscow, so migrations happened back and forth), which before emergence of slavs were completely baltic. So you can't really distinguish balts from modern slavic speaking balts. To make matters worse, vikings invaded eastern side of Baltic sea around 6th BC, and assimilated into locals and later mix of locals and vikings established trade colonies in Russia(Rus is viking name), so this also contributed to movements of populations. Even with the influx of so called slavs to Balkans, there was high probability for local population to switch ethnicity many times. Bulgarians were not slavs at that time, but they became slavs, because of local population. This did not happen to Magyars. A lot of greeks became slavs after 6th century up to that point, that before Greece became independent in 19th century, greeks in countryside used slavic language. So, it would be easier to establish answer to a question - what is considered slav and what is not, before dividing anything

 

[RajvoSa]

You can't. Ethnicity is very new identification. Also around that time when slavs migrated to Balkans, modern balts(latvian-lithuanians - around 6th BC they were same) finished arrival from Belarus and Russia(while galindians went to settle near Moscow, so migrations happened back and forth), which before emergence of slavs were completely baltic. So you can't really distinguish balts from modern slavic speaking balts. To make matters worse, vikings invaded eastern side of Baltic sea around 6th BC, and assimilated into locals and later mix of locals and vikings established trade colonies in Russia(Rus is viking name), so this also contributed to movements of populations. Even with the influx of so called slavs to Balkans, there was high probability for local population to switch ethnicity many times. Bulgarians were not slavs at that time, but they became slavs, because of local population. This did not happen to Magyars. A lot of greeks became slavs after 6th century up to that point, that before Greece became independent in 19th century, greeks in countryside used slavic language. So, it would be easier to establish answer to a question - what is considered slav and what is not, before dividing anything

Thanks, but when you are saying "So you can't really distinguish balts from modern slavic speaking balts",i can't understand. Who are Slavic-speaking Balts?

 

[Wonomyro]

Today Slavs is a language family, not a distinct ethnicity nor a genetic profile. However, they could have represented a single ethnicity shortly before the beginning of the Migration Period. By that time Balts were Balts and Slavs were Slavs. It is very likely that large number of Balts early became the part of the Slavic language community.

It is another question whether the 5-9th century Slavs realy called themselves - Slavs or they were identifying themselves with another ethnonym(s).

 

[RajvoSa]

Today Slavs is a language family, not a distinct ethnicity nor a genetic profile. However, they could have represented a single ethnicity shortly before the beginning of the Migration Period. By that time Balts were Balts and Slavs were Slavs. It is very likely that large number of Balts early became the part of the Slavic language community.

It is another question whether the 5-9th century Slavs realy called themselves - Slavs or they were identifying themselves with another ethnonym(s).

So, you think Actually that Slavs are formed from the early Balts or..?

 

[Ygorcs]

I think that in genetic sense we can distinguish the Slavs from Balts because Slavs have I2a din and in Baltic is almost absent.
R1a Z280 is both Baltic and Slavic.
R1a M458 can be find mostly among Slavs but also among Balts.
I2a din spread from the west Ukraine,north Romania,Moldova and areas around but in the Iron age in my opinion.

As for archeology is really hard to answer.

I would say Slavic homeland is this in orange,Chernyakov culture my opinion,the old Getae

I find it somewhat unlikely that Chernyakov was Proto-Slavic. I'd place Slavic exactly to the east of Chernyakov bordering on it and on the steppes, roughly between southeastern Poland, northern Ukraine and southern Belarus. Chernyakov culture lasted long enough for us to have historic documents about people who lived there, and the references are mostly to peoples who apparently spoke Daco-Thracian and East Germanic, mainly Gepids and Goths. It also fits neatly with the descent of East Germanic tribes from present-day Poland, near the Vistula, to Western Ukraine and then Moldavia (somewhat similar to your 2nd map). There are also apparently more old Slavic toponyms and hydronyms in that area, spanning from northwest Ukraine to westernmost Russia. I'm not sure, but I also believe that in the Chernyakov area you can see find some trees that do not have a native name in Proto-Slavic, but the terminology for trees and animals of Proto-Slavic fits very well the natural environment of the area to the east, near the Pripyat marshes, but still close enough to be influenced by Iranic tribes of the steppe, just to their north. Proto-Slavs having their homeland in Chernyakov area would place them together with East Germans and Daco-Thracians, I'd expect much more Germanic and Daco-Thracian influence or lexical similarity than it really had.

 

[qtr]

I can't post links as I've not posted enough - that means also images, so bear with me

First of all - all the maps(about topic) on eupedia are complete BS, that even wiki are better.



There is a mix up about slavic, that was created by proto-baltic-slavic term. Let me make it clear - there are NO proto-baltic-slavic - at best proto-slavs were balts. How they became slavs - that's an interesting question. Unfortunatelly - no one cares to think and acts like indian people, who still argue, that IE people did not invade India. FFS!

Balts have a lot longer history than slavs - all that area, where slavs originated, is full of baltic hydronyms - not slavic. The main earliest distinction between balts and slavs is that slavs have mix of baltic and iranian linguistical base. That means - they were baltic, before influx of iranians. That all colerates to history of iranian influx and that slavs were mixed people. Let's look at SLAVIC area of origin in map(it is Belarus in center), where all the map of Dnipro river water basin is dominated by baltic toponymy, and there are actually NO SLAVIC toponyms - only few iranian:

s14.postimg.org/esxe8mqcx/hydronyms.jpg



As I see it, the task, that OP wants has to be divided in finding baltic groups first - because balts existed long before slavs. So, if you want to find what really makes slavs differ from balts, you have to find what was before slavs first:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Map_Corded_Ware_culture-en.svg/640px-Map_Corded_Ware_culture-en.svg.png

Corded ware culture is what created Balts - they are same age. It looks like, that it also created or influenced Germanic hybrid culture with I1(and possibly R1b) and slight R1a mix(honestly, this is not the topic, that interested me much), that made germans IE speaking with 1/3 of unknown noIE language base.

This is the baltic toponymy map from the book of Marija Gimbuta book Balts(1963). As you can see, it does not include baltic toponyms in southern Finland and also newest ones in that might be in Germany:
g10.picoodle.com/ltd/img10/5/10/4/atasas/f_3p2w_a06_u7fu6.jpg

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponyms_of_Finland:
"A few notable place names – such as a few major hydronyms Päijänne, Saimaa, Imatra and Keitele which are thought to be among the oldest toponyms – still lack a sound derivation from existing languages despite of different approaches."
Yeah, only Saimaa is baltic name for family. I actually found one more clearly lithuanianish like name in Finnish hydronyms, but Saimaa is quite big lake and southern Finland is known for corded ware, so no bother.

From wiki: "The term Pomerania Balts, or rather Western Balts, refers to Baltic people, who as early as the bronze age may have inhabited parts of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, an area now known as Pomerania. According to Marija Gimbutas, the Baltic culture of the Early and Middle Bronze Age covered a territory which, at its maximal extent, included "all of Pomerania almost to the mouth of the Oder, and the whole Vistula basin to Silesia in the south-west" before the spread of the Lusatian culture to the region and was inhabited by the ancestors of the later (Baltic) Old Prussians"
Note: Lusatian culture was not slavic.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Vistula_river_map.png/444px-Vistula_river_map.png

Even though if Marija Gimbutas mentioned, that Vistula basin was Baltic(before Lusatian and gots moved in), it is not represented in her hydronym map.

There were some mentions that some name places in Germany might actually be with Baltic origin, but that's somewhat raises question about rather short inhabitation of those lands by baltic people, but I think, that with what we have it is already enough - with exception of Balkans, most of the lands where Slavic people expanded were baltic before.

 

[qtr]

Thanks, but when you are saying "So you can't really distinguish balts from modern slavic speaking balts",i can't understand. Who are Slavic-speaking Balts?

In 20th century western part of modern Belorussia still had lithuanian speaking people. They now all speak belarussian... oh wait - they, just like rest of belorussian speak russian. Why I am mentioning Belorussia - because latvians and lithuanians were different baltic people who originated from territory of modern Belorussia and Russia - they had blue eyes and blonde hair(ironically also slavic... and scythian steppe people had the same traits, as well as hellenic people who invaded greeks). Earlier baltic people(pre latvian-lithuanian) - that included also prussians came from different stock(they had brown/green eyes and brown hair) and different direction - from Dacia. Before y-dna was thing, it was noticed that there are many cranial and teeth similarities with people from Dacia/Thracia. Also this might be most probable travel path from Black Sea, which gotic people did in opposite direction.

As I mentioned earlier, maps on eupedia are kinda BS, because most of the earliest slavic tribe maps were multi-etnic at best. Everywhere - especially in Balkans. In 9th century modern Belorussia territory and some parts of Russia were mainly lithuanian. They became slavic with the help of church(and then only in 15th century), as religion at that time was main identity of groups. Kievan Rus(Rjuriks said that they were rus, but not slavic) was scandinavian ruler country, but with acception of orthodoxy, that brought church, it became slavic country. Muscovites on other hand is completelly different story - before invading anyone else, they had a very large part of muslim population(there are even some strange orthodox church hats with inscriptions, that says Allah is great) with large turkic influences in language, so nothing is cut in stone.

There are a lot of christian terms in latvian, that came from orthodox church - they started proselytizing there before catholic church. They might have even built church for curonians. There are ideas, that if it was not for german invasion, most probably latvians would speak some slavic church dialect. Anyway, it is the main reason why N1c livonians were assimilated in latvians - because latvians cooperated with germans and latvian(with high influence of finnish) became lingua franca for church.

TL:TR: Eastern slavs with R1a are most probably slavic speaking balts, who became slavs over last 1000 years. I have seen mention where Kievan Rus was called eastern baltic... instead of eastern slavic, because it was populated mainly by baltic people, when Rjurik established it.

 

[Sile]

I think that in genetic sense we can distinguish the Slavs from Balts because Slavs have I2a din and in Baltic is almost absent.
R1a Z280 is both Baltic and Slavic.
R1a M458 can be find mostly among Slavs but also among Balts.
I2a din spread from the west Ukraine,north Romania,Moldova and areas around but in the Iron age in my opinion.
As for archeology is really hard to answer.
I would say Slavic homeland is this in orange,Chernyakov culture my opinion,the old Getae

Some other maps i found

The map is old and wrong , below is the correct one......gottones = Goths..........Veleti = slavs ( became known as wends once they reached Mecklenburg )
Venedi = west balts ..........same as Aestii

.
Veleti where on the upper vistula river.
.
Venedi where not on the Vistula, but on the nogat river and the baltic sea
.
Gotones occupied both sides of the lower Vistula and the baltic sea.

 

[Wonomyro]

So, you think Actually that Slavs are formed from the early Balts or..?

Do you mean early Slavs? Balts were probably their major component. During the Migration Period and later Slavs asimilated more Balts.

 

[RajvoSa]

I can't post links as I've not posted enough - that means also images, so bear with me

First of all - all the maps(about topic) on eupedia are complete BS, that even wiki are better.



There is a mix up about slavic, that was created by proto-baltic-slavic term. Let me make it clear - there are NO proto-baltic-slavic - at best proto-slavs were balts. How they became slavs - that's an interesting question. Unfortunatelly - no one cares to think and acts like indian people, who still argue, that IE people did not invade India. FFS!

Balts have a lot longer history than slavs - all that area, where slavs originated, is full of baltic hydronyms - not slavic. The main earliest distinction between balts and slavs is that slavs have mix of baltic and iranian linguistical base. That means - they were baltic, before influx of iranians. That all colerates to history of iranian influx and that slavs were mixed people. Let's look at SLAVIC area of origin in map(it is Belarus in center), where all the map of Dnipro river water basin is dominated by baltic toponymy, and there are actually NO SLAVIC toponyms - only few iranian:

s14.postimg.org/esxe8mqcx/hydronyms.jpg



As I see it, the task, that OP wants has to be divided in finding baltic groups first - because balts existed long before slavs. So, if you want to find what really makes slavs differ from balts, you have to find what was before slavs first:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Map_Corded_Ware_culture-en.svg/640px-Map_Corded_Ware_culture-en.svg.png

Corded ware culture is what created Balts - they are same age. It looks like, that it also created or influenced Germanic hybrid culture with I1(and possibly R1b) and slight R1a mix(honestly, this is not the topic, that interested me much), that made germans IE speaking with 1/3 of unknown noIE language base.

This is the baltic toponymy map from the book of Marija Gimbuta book Balts(1963). As you can see, it does not include baltic toponyms in southern Finland and also newest ones in that might be in Germany:
g10.picoodle.com/ltd/img10/5/10/4/atasas/f_3p2w_a06_u7fu6.jpg

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponyms_of_Finland:
"A few notable place names – such as a few major hydronyms Päijänne, Saimaa, Imatra and Keitele which are thought to be among the oldest toponyms – still lack a sound derivation from existing languages despite of different approaches."
Yeah, only Saimaa is baltic name for family. I actually found one more clearly lithuanianish like name in Finnish hydronyms, but Saimaa is quite big lake and southern Finland is known for corded ware, so no bother.

From wiki: "The term Pomerania Balts, or rather Western Balts, refers to Baltic people, who as early as the bronze age may have inhabited parts of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, an area now known as Pomerania. According to Marija Gimbutas, the Baltic culture of the Early and Middle Bronze Age covered a territory which, at its maximal extent, included "all of Pomerania almost to the mouth of the Oder, and the whole Vistula basin to Silesia in the south-west" before the spread of the Lusatian culture to the region and was inhabited by the ancestors of the later (Baltic) Old Prussians"
Note: Lusatian culture was not slavic.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Vistula_river_map.png/444px-Vistula_river_map.png

Even though if Marija Gimbutas mentioned, that Vistula basin was Baltic(before Lusatian and gots moved in), it is not represented in her hydronym map.

There were some mentions that some name places in Germany might actually be with Baltic origin, but that's somewhat raises question about rather short inhabitation of those lands by baltic people, but I think, that with what we have it is already enough - with exception of Balkans, most of the lands where Slavic people expanded were baltic before.

"Baltic" is term invented in 19th century to describe Letto-Lithuanians. I think it's not accurate to say "There was no Balto-Slavic community, since Slavs were Balts before they "become" Slavs. Slavic linguistical structure is definitly different from the Baltic one, in morphology and many other things. One more thing is also important, that in proto-Slavic, there are words who are directly inherited from the proto-Indo-European but not from the Balto-Slavic, or, in your interpretation proto-Baltic. Linguistis are still arguing about the situation about Balto-Slavic community, and did it exist. In reallity, most linguists are agree that there was 3 dialects in Baltic cultures, and those are: West Baltic (Old Prussian) - dead language, East Baltic (Letto-Lithuanians) and Slavic, or according to Toporov, proto-Slavic is peripheral Baltic dialect. But to claim "Slavs were Balts before they become Slavs" is not accurate, becouse ethnicity surely didn't exist in this time and, the thing that should be discovered by linguist is: "Who influenced the modern Slavic language, if it was before in the "borders" of Baltic cultures. Iranians didn't, since there are just 30 loanwords from Iranic languages in proto-Slavic, and they're mostly about religion things, such as proto-Slavic "bog" which cognate with Persian "baga" and similar things. The Slovenian linguist F. Bezlaj gave a statement that people mentioned in history as "Veleti" influenced the peripheral Baltic dialect and the proto-Slavic starting to have inovations, and that proto-Slavic is the "Veletized" peripheral Baltic. And this agree with the "Veleti" invasion on the culture present-day called "Zarubintsy culture", often described as proto-Slavic.

 

[RajvoSa]

TL:TR: Eastern slavs with R1a are most probably slavic speaking balts, who became slavs over last 1000 years. I have seen mention where Kievan Rus was called eastern baltic... instead of eastern slavic, because it was populated mainly by baltic people, when Rjurik established it.

With what R1a, Z280 or M458? Almost all Eastern Slavs are R1a? Even almost all Slavic population is R1a, West Slavs R1a-M458, and eastern ones Z280. There are only exception about South Slavs who are mainly I2a-Din. Actually Slavs does't have other haplogroup than R1a. That formed Slavs, i didn't get your point indeed.

 

[RajvoSa]

Do you mean early Slavs? Balts were probably their major component. During the Migration Period and later Slavs asimilated more Balts.

Something made them clearly different from the Balts. The question is what? "Veneti" people?

 

[RajvoSa]

In 20th century western part of modern Belorussia still had lithuanian speaking people. They now all speak belarussian... oh wait - they, just like rest of belorussian speak russian. Why I am mentioning Belorussia - because latvians and lithuanians were different baltic people who originated from territory of modern Belorussia and Russia - they had blue eyes and blonde hair(ironically also slavic... and scythian steppe people had the same traits, as well as hellenic people who invaded greeks). Earlier baltic people(pre latvian-lithuanian) - that included also prussians came from different stock(they had brown/green eyes and brown hair) and different direction - from Dacia. Before y-dna was thing, it was noticed that there are many cranial and teeth similarities with people from Dacia/Thracia. Also this might be most probable travel path from Black Sea, which gotic people did in opposite direction.

As I mentioned earlier, maps on eupedia are kinda BS, because most of the earliest slavic tribe maps were multi-etnic at best. Everywhere - especially in Balkans. In 9th century modern Belorussia territory and some parts of Russia were mainly lithuanian. They became slavic with the help of church(and then only in 15th century), as religion at that time was main identity of groups. Kievan Rus(Rjuriks said that they were rus, but not slavic) was scandinavian ruler country, but with acception of orthodoxy, that brought church, it became slavic country. Muscovites on other hand is completelly different story - before invading anyone else, they had a very large part of muslim population(there are even some strange orthodox church hats with inscriptions, that says Allah is great) with large turkic influences in language, so nothing is cut in stone.

There are a lot of christian terms in latvian, that came from orthodox church - they started proselytizing there before catholic church. They might have even built church for curonians. There are ideas, that if it was not for german invasion, most probably latvians would speak some slavic church dialect. Anyway, it is the main reason why N1c livonians were assimilated in latvians - because latvians cooperated with germans and latvian(with high influence of finnish) became lingua franca for church.

TL:TR: Eastern slavs with R1a are most probably slavic speaking balts, who became slavs over last 1000 years. I have seen mention where Kievan Rus was called eastern baltic... instead of eastern slavic, because it was populated mainly by baltic people, when Rjurik established it.

The Lithuanian linguist, in this work gave a hypothesis that Baltic and Slavic languages were always separated: http://www.lituanus.org/1973/73_1_02.htm

 

[Sile]

Something made them clearly different from the Balts. The question is what? "Veneti" people?

These Venedi/Veneti on the baltic sea belong to west-baltic cairns culture and also through recent russian papers as part of flat-bed culture.
they where absorbed into gothic society by 200AD and the remainder eventually became known as the warmians ( old prussians - baltic people , not german and not slav). Warmians and venedi have been in the same spot since 350BC

 

[qtr]

"Baltic" is term invented in 19th century to describe Letto-Lithuanians. I think it's not accurate to say "There was no Balto-Slavic community, since Slavs were Balts before they "become" Slavs. Slavic linguistical structure is definitly different from the Baltic one, in morphology and many other things. One more thing is also important, that in proto-Slavic, there are words who are directly inherited from the proto-Indo-European but not from the Balto-Slavic, or, in your interpretation proto-Baltic. Linguistis are still arguing about the situation about Balto-Slavic community, and did it exist. In reallity, most linguists are agree that there was 3 dialects in Baltic cultures, and those are: West Baltic (Old Prussian) - dead language, East Baltic (Letto-Lithuanians) and Slavic, or according to Toporov, proto-Slavic is peripheral Baltic dialect. But to claim "Slavs were Balts before they become Slavs" is not accurate, becouse ethnicity surely didn't exist in this time and, the thing that should be discovered by linguist is: "Who influenced the modern Slavic language, if it was before in the "borders" of Baltic cultures. Iranians didn't, since there are just 30 loanwords from Iranic languages in proto-Slavic, and they're mostly about religion things, such as proto-Slavic "bog" which cognate with Persian "baga" and similar things. The Slovenian linguist F. Bezlaj gave a statement that people mentioned in history as "Veleti" influenced the peripheral Baltic dialect and the proto-Slavic starting to have inovations, and that proto-Slavic is the "Veletized" peripheral Baltic. And this agree with the "Veleti" invasion on the culture present-day called "Zarubintsy culture", often described as proto-Slavic.

1. I am aware of history about term balts. If we don't name balts as balts and slavs as slavs, there might be completelly different picture - not this chauvinistical idea, that slavic evolved in empty place out of nowhere. People and history are connected and so are slavs. I feel we are having off-topic, because you wanted to distinguish baltic R1a from slavic, right? And let's leave out other haplogroups out of this. No Ia2 or other halpogroups, as R1a is already enough.

2. Morphology means little when different cultures collide. French morphology has nothing to do with german, even if french people were franks, who were germanic. What is the point of comparing morphology, if morphology is one of the weakest structural points of language - it is vocabulary that persist, even when the structure of original language dies out. Are you claiming that all slavic languages have the same morphological structure of language? Are you claiming that swedes uses articles for words, just like germans do? I have studied german, but hell no - no way german has the same morphology as english!!! Not to mention, that there are some distinct ways of pronounciation of sounds.
It is not like there are no excellent examples of how things happened to other people, like Twa pygmies in Kongo basin who uses bantu morphology, but they have distinct vocabulary for all things hunting and gathering related. That and bigger presence of B y-dna distinguishes them from bantu, even if they look alike now. Can we agree on this logic, that morphology of language matter less than vocabulary?

3. " In reallity, most linguists are agree..."
Science is not democracy that solves everything by voting - either someone is right and rest - are not. This is how science works.
What I have read is that there is actually wide variety of ideas and one of them is that prussian was dialectual continuity between slavic and eastern baltic. I do not want to touch this topic, as that requires further discussion what prussians had common with slavic from their early beginnings and what was later additions, but yes - prussians looks like documented link, that is most closest to slavic lingustics.
To be fair - there is no prussian language, but prussian languages. Only few of them had vocabulary written down. Actually, prussians were also very distinct culturally with distinct religious beliefs - they even practised urnfield culture, so it might be possible, that some groups assimilated into prussian. Assimilation works both ways.
I can only comment about living baltic languages and it is complicated already, as they became east baltic around 15th century, when so called non east baltic languages died out. Besides - naming someone east baltic, does not mean that there were no other dialects of baltic people to the east of them - we just do not know about them, as we have no language examples from pomeranian balts or other balts who are lost without name or mentions in history. The whole magic about baltic, is that it is not that much researched and I had a lot of reads from russian scientists in 90ties, that makes obsolete almost everything what is still published as norm and honestly - I am waiting when Putin will die(all for the love of read!) and russians will become normal people who will not be afraid to look at their history as it is. So should you.

4. Ok. Let's not touch languages, ethincities, if that is so confusing. To say what is accurate, we have to establish if so called baltic-slavic community(or whatever is meant by that) existed as long as baltic. I don't see YES to that question as answer. Because different cultures that are identifiable as baltic already existed and one of them later became proto slavic.

Let me also reply to Milan.M map Nr.2. His map at 300BC pictured proto-slavs around where was Milograd culture long after proto-balts went out and settled as different tribes. Actually it was not only dating that was wrong.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baltic_cultures_600-200_BC_SVG.svg
YES - they all are baltic.

5. Look, I see the confusion there already. We are actually talking about DIFFERENT THINGS. Can we for the sake of argument STAY AWAY from southern slavs? I do understand, that you are insterested in this topic, but 6th century AD was just start of slavic appearance in balkans and slavs had not yet assimilated Balkan people into their own, so they had no Ia2 or other haplogroups, that were strictly Balkan.

6. There are more influences of iranian languages(and by iranians I do mean - steppe nomads of iranian descent, not the ones, that dwelve in Persia) - don't let wiki page fool you, as it has mash of statements from various times. Iranian inluences on slavic has virtually not researched and you should look into future, that there will be new findings, because osetians(as last remnants of scythians) still exist and despite living among so many differently speaking people they still have many exciting similarities with slavic.

7. Zarubnitsy culture is waaaaay before linguistical proto-slavic - it would take them some centuries to even become proto-slavic.
If you are mentioning Veleti invasion - that's fine by me(although that might be a very large time offset, but whatever), that you agree that someone invaded baltic people who lived in proto-slavic area, as that solves question why you can't distinguish R1a of baltic and slavic.

 

[qtr]

The Lithuanian linguist, in this work gave a hypothesis that Baltic and Slavic languages were always separated: link was deleted, because still no 10 posts

Hypothesis is interesting thing, but let's agree that if hypothesis is hypothesis for last 45 years it is still not proof.

I don't know if that is something that has to do with your native language, but in English your statement that Baltic and Slavic were always separated logically makes no sense, because neither Slavic nor Baltic *always* existed

 

[Ygorcs]

There is a mix up about slavic, that was created by proto-baltic-slavic term. Let me make it clear - there are NO proto-baltic-slavic - at best proto-slavs were balts. How they became slavs - that's an interesting question. Unfortunatelly - no one cares to think and acts like indian people, who still argue, that IE people did not invade India. FFS!

I agree with much of what you say, but there seem to be some personal preferences or opinions interfering in your reasoning. I mean, logically if you say that there were just Balts, not Proto-Balto-Slavic (PBS by the way is just a hypothetical language, not one ethnicity), and that Proto-Slavs were Balts and eventually became Slavs... well, then Slavs are just as ancient as Balts, aren't they?

You just said that Slavs are just an offshoot of Balts, so they come from the same culture and were just much more innovative in language and mixed in genetics (due to their own very rapid and huge expansion) than their forefathers, whereas the other Balts remained more or less stuck in their core homelands. Slavs wouldn't suddenly become an entirely new thing just because they expanded and also changed their phonetics more than other Balts, or because they were under more direct influence from Iranic steppe languages.

But what you say is nothing but confirming the Proto-Balto-Slavic hypothesis, just replacing the word "Balto-Slavic" with "Baltic". It's well accepted nowadays that Slavic was probably the descendant of a southern, more phonologically and gramatically innovative dialect of a Baltic language. That probably explains why most ancient hydronyms in the very places that look like they were the Urheimat of Proto-Slavs look Baltic.

The Slavic language was probably a very divergent "new" dialect (think of something like African-American Vernacular dialect in relation to British English) that eventually gained much prestige and made people shift to its innovative changes, but the "Para-Slavic" languages (Balto-Slavic languages most closely related to Proto-Slavic) were still more "Baltic-like" and simply converged with Proto-Slavic, much like Aragonese and Leonese have been converging into Castillian for many centuries in a gradual and even natural process made easier due to their similarities. It is even possible, as some linguists believe, that one totally unified Proto-Slavic never existed, and that dialectal Slavic forms always existed because they were adopted en masse by people who spoke originally other similar languages, each with their own substrate influences.