Neolithic Refuge and Continuity in Transylvania

[PaleoRevenge]

The new study about ancient Germanic origins has a extremely new cool analysis based on IBD clusters in their supplementary, they did restrict the new method only for Germanics, but created clusters for most of per-existing ancient samples. The results pretty much agree with proper autosomal models I ran in the past two years.

I want to note that the authors seem to have a struggle on how to categorize the Paeonian-Phrygian cluster and stuffed in between the Daco-Thracians one. This is because E-V13 since MBA was expanding towards Vatin(pay attention where most BA Serbia falls) and Vatin-derived groups(Paeonians) and for that long period(500-700 years), it absorbed part of their genepool, that by the Iron Age they seem related, even though they are rival groups since the Bronze Age that started off genetically distinct, despite later mergers.

Also noteworthy, Ohrid samples are clustered with Logkas primarly and Paeonians secondary, these two small clusters can be broadly called Phrygian-Paeonian. Even the only R-PF7562 Illyrian from Cinamak falls under this IBD cluster. LOL Can't say I told you so, because I did.
Pretty much everything is going against team retard/rrenjet, yet they double and triple down. It's becoming clear to me, most people can't model, the concept itself is alien as they want to project their worldview into a model, as a result they can't extract data. Absolute apes.

The clusters are not without error. They include one clear Illyrian R1b from Macedonia as Paeonian because part of his DNA is with the greater Daco-Thracian cluster. The Kenete sample is thrown with the rest of Albanians, probably because it shares some IDB fragmants with the later post-mdv Kukes samples. When more ancient populations get sampled, I am sure some of the assigned samples will chage seats and will be shifted to new discovered clusters.

And what do you know, early Albanian samples are a spinoff of Bassarabi. Bessa just does not go away.

I want to point out, that the cluster between MJ-12 and I18832-E-V13 was questioned, because we don't know who MJ-12 really represents. Well from the Ukrainan pre-print, we know Babadag samples are a E-V13 population.

 

[Hawk]

I am interested to know about the ultimate origin of V13, either Eastern Rhodope or Rhodopes as a whole, or Rhodope-Haemus mountain chain or Southern Carpathians. Somehow i believe it must have been the three mountain chains of Rhodopes-Haemus-Carpathians, somewhere in between. It just fits nicely.

But, i do agree E-V13 probably had more history with Corder-Ware R1a and Bell-Beakers R1b, although they ultimately prevailed over both in Carpathian Basin, they still had relationships with them, particularly with R1a Iranic speakers, i do believe the linguistic progenitors of Thracians were R1a brethren of R1a Iranics.

Now, i am not really sure about Gava and Channeled-Ware, but it's quite suspicious how they co-lived peacefully with Stamped-Ware and a lot of shared ideological-religious and material culture similarities, with Gava/Channeled-Ware having even more archaic Balkan-Carpathian character while Stamped-Ware having the dolmen/small tumuli burials, and megalithic culture which stand as difference between the two.

 

[Riverman]

Psenichevo in particular has so many features from Channelled, so does Basarabi and even Babadag, they can't be mutually exclusive, but rather different stages. If anything, the Rhodopean group, steppe and Aegean-Anatolian influences in the South kind of "flew back" to the Tisza-Danube region to change those groups (Kalakacza, Bosut-Basarabi, Insula Banului, Babadag).

 

[Hawk]

That's a possibility, but not a rule written in stone, the thing is we don't really understand the migrations fully.

But, Channeled-Ware and Stamped-Ware were often lumped under Earlier/Eastern Hallstatt phenomenon. With Channeled-Ware being more North-Western/South-Western and Stamped-Ware being more South-East and North-East.

Unfortunately a lot of these people cremated their death during Bronze Age, hence why it's so hard to get results.

 

[Riverman]

That's a possibility, but not a rule written in stone, the thing is we don't really understand the migrations fully.

But, Channeled-Ware and Stamped-Ware were often lumped under Earlier/Eastern Hallstatt phenomenon. With Channeled-Ware being more North-Western/South-Western and Stamped-Ware being more South-East and North-East.

Unfortunately a lot of these people cremated their death during Bronze Age, hence why it's so hard to get results.

Yes and no, because we have specific groups and time periods for which samples could be taken. E.g. the earlier periods (most covered by the upcoming Transylvanian paper) and later samples from Kalakacza (upcoming), Babadag (nothing), Basarabi (nothing), Mezocsat (only females), Scythian and Celtic period mixed context (upcoming).

I'm particularly annoyed by the fact that they don't have sampled any Basarabi regular burials. That's really a shame, since there are enough around.

 

[Hawk]

IMO this might be a missing link: Questions of the Necropolis at the Village of Orsoya,near the Town of Lom

Now we arrive at the problem related to thehistorical fate of the tribes bearers of the InlaidPottery Culture by the end of the Late BronzeAge, when as a result of the gradual developmentof the production of iron and the followingchanges in the relations of production it comes tothe considerable ethnical migrations in theEastern Mediterranean region, known to us as thegreat Aegean migration of population, inconsequence of which the Mycenaean towns andthe Hittite empire are abolished. Probably thetribes, bearers of the Inlaid Pottery Culture areinvolved in this process. The archaeological datashows that they migrate in southeastern direction.As a proof of this we can find elements of theInlaid Pottery Culture ornamental system in theceramics of some burial complexes in RhodopiMountains17.

The necropolis of Orsoya is known for its cremation burials in urns.

afaik ornamented is another name for stamped or preceeding for stamped. Although Iron Age Stamped-Pottery people used burial pits it is not a secret in archaeological circle burial or ritual pits acted as secondary burials among Urnfield complex. Likely they underwent some economic pressure after LBA-EIA collapse and resorted to simple burials since cremation is too complex and expensive.

Last but not the least is the question of the connection between the motives, represented inthe ornamental system of the Inlaid Pottery Culture and the ornamental motives of the Vulchitrun Golden Treasure. It is most probable that the treasure have been made by local craftmasters of the same tribes bearers of the Inlaid Pottery Culture. The ornamental system isexceptionally complicated. It shows the strong Aegean influence, and it has not a prototype in the preceding local cultures.

The Inlaid Pottery Culture sort of acts like an intermediate between the Tisza Cultures like Suciu de Sus and Channeled-Ware and more latter known Stamped-Ware, this might also connect Insula Banului and Saharna Solonceni.

During Late Bronze Age we also see first radiocarbon dated sites of Stamped-Ware like the more ritual Gluhite Kamani and Europe's first gold mining Ada Tepe

It's a good guess, from Southern Romania they moved east forming Babadag, moved north forming Saharna Solonceni and moved South-East forming Psenicevo and other related Stamped-Ware complexes.

 

[Riverman]

When talking about Encrusted Pottery, it is important to distinguish the decorative element from the Encrusted Pottery culture.

Like the Transdanubian Encrusted Pottery people fled towards North Western Bulgaria, where they, in part, replaced and/or fused with elements of Vatin and Verbicoara.
But I consider these Encrusted Pottery people different and not closely related. Yet they did influence the neighbouring groups in different periods and some elements of EP decoration made it into Stamped Pottery.

Also worth to note, that incisions and stamps appeared, to some degree, in Wietenberg and Verbicoara.

In the area of North Western/Northern Bulgaria, the Encrusted Pottery communities were being pushed back, successively, especially when the remains of Verbicoara being overtaken by Channelled Ware. Then Channelled Ware expanded on top of EP. There was a transitional grouping first, as can be observed at sites like Baley. There you can find a transition first towards EP dominance, and then towards Gáva-related Channelled Ware, with the end result, Vartop, being clearly a Channelled Ware group.

he beginning of the Bistreţ pottery style is placed within the
Encrusted Pottery Culture milieu in the 14th century BC. It is accepted that the style gradually develops in what is generally
known as Vârtop pottery style. The end of this process is dated to the mid-11th century BC when the large cremation necropolises
(Urnenfelder) in the region seized to exist.

An interesting question is what happene with the EP/Garla Mare people?

Did they migrate South? Were they just soaked up or even annihilated?

On the other hand, as shown above, the ‘Bistreţ pottery style’ appeared
in the last phase of Encrusted Pottery Culture (known as
‘Orsoya’). This style gradually developed into what is gener-
ally labeled as Vârtop pottery. It is therefore reasonable to
accept that this process ended in the mid-11th century BC,
contemporary with the end of the use of large cremation
necropolises (Urnenfelder) in the region.

Encrusted Pottery did influence later Stamped Pottery groups stylistically, but where is their genetic legacy?

Zimnicea is interesting as it shows relations both to Wietenberg-Verbicoara-Tei and Susani (Gáva-related):

Single-handle cups decorated with fine grooves. The
closest parallels come from the necropolis of Hinova and
Bistreţ-“La nea Vasile Feraru”41
. Without getting into much
detail, we shall draw the attention to a couple of parallels
only: the already mentioned inhumation necropolis of the
“premier âge du fer” at Zimnicea to the east42
, and Ticvanul Mare and Susani to the west43. The latter yielded parallels
to the two-handled cup from feature 24 as well44.

Getting samples from the latest Zimnicea burials (inhumations) would be interesting.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324169160_The_necropolis_of_Baley_in_Northwest_Bulgaria_and_its_significance_for_the_end_of_the_Bronze_Age_and_the_beginning_of_the_Iron_Age_in_the_Lower_Danube_region

 

[Riverman]

About the origin of Verbicoara, this is absolutely crucial, as this is the first time an author declares itself on the matter and makes clear that we deal with a combination of influences from Nyírség (!):

The paucity of concrete data, their dubious nature, the lack of well-supported stratigraphic observations as well as relevant material analyzes prompt me to consider this phenomenon more as a problem than as a well-defined archaeological culture. At the current stage of documentation, we can affirm that there was the practice of incineration, with the custom of depositing the calcined remains in urns, but also in pits then covered with shards. The custom of burning the dead, well known in the Middle Danube area for the traditional early bronze - Makó or Nyirség groups - combined with the presence of striated ceramics, indicates a component of western origin, as actually pointed out. But the decorative repertoire also shows affinities with the Vatina group, a group that was no stranger to incineration 49 , in this sense the possibility cannot be excluded that the Verbicioara group represents a "synthesis" of the two elements - late Zók and Vatina - from the point of view of mortuary practices. Although uncertain, the discoveries at Teţcoi and Runcuri 50 , allow us to see a penetration of cremation, very likely from beyond the Carpathians, where such funerary customs are attested, quite likely in late Zók environments, as is the case of the small cemetery at Bratei 51 . The few safe Verbicioara mortuary discoveries, only in a few cases found grouped together, seem to indicate that the burial space had other organizational criteria, at least in the case of the cremation graves from the eponymous resort, it also included the settlement, as it is still known, much more clear, from the Wietenberg environment

From a translation of this site:

Revista EA

Since I think that Nyírség is the central EBA group for E-V13, influencing both Wietenberg and Verbicoara, this is a great confirmation for putting Verbicoara in the same network. The other relationship is with Vatin, which exact position is less clear to me, even though they are part of the Carpathian cremation block as well.

Balta Sǎratǎ is yet another designation/group which shows the same pattern, basically of Vatin with Nyirseg-Wietenberg:

The Balta Sărătă cultural group occupies the northeast of Banat and was defined by the late researcher Marian Gumă as the synthesis of some elements Vatina, Mureş, Wietenberg, Gârla Mare, Otmani and Verbicioara, having at base horizon Besenstrich and Textilmuster3 , establishing its evolution at the same time in the middle and late bronze.

Balta Sărată is a Bronze Age cultural group from Banat region, defined as a sintesis of Vatina, Mureş, Wietenberg, Gârla Mare, Otomani and Verbicioara cultural elements on a Besenstrich and Textilmuster base. Researchers like Sorin Petrescu, Zoia Maxim (Kalmar) and Hristache Tatu discovered in Haţeg country (SW Transilvania) archaeologic materials that belong to this cultural group and this region became important as it was seen as a boundary between Balta Sarată group and Wietenberg culture.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297828468_Grupul_Balta_Sarata_in_Tara_Hategului

The area of the Suciu Culture (early phase) is one of exclusive cremation, both in flat graves and under barrows. The (poor) data available for the Balta Sarata ̆ ̆ and the Verbicioara areas indicate the practice of urned cremations (the latter area also yielded one wholly inhumed body), which give it increased similarity to Transylvania, but the data are too scarce for a reliable comparison. In the Tei area, excepting some cases of inhumation, bodies were disposed of in ways that are not traceable archaeologically

Body and Social Order in Middle Bronze Age Transylvania (central Romania, c. 1900-1450 BC)

The aim of this paper is to investigate body-related beliefs and practices in relation to society in Middle Bronze Age Transylvania (central Romania between c. 1900 and 1450 BC), known as the area of the Wietenberg Culture. The low number of human

www.academia.edu

Basically all these related groups, which have a link to the Tisza area/Nyirseg culture of the EBA, have in common that they don't use inhumations (all inhumations are irregular or foreigners) an, but cremations either in urns or with scattered ashes, whcih left no traces. That's true for Suciu de Sus, Wietenberg, Verbicoara, Tei and Balta Sarata.

These groups like Verbicoara and Balta Sarata are highly important, as they are crucial for the expansion of the Carpathian cremation rite and specific pottery styles, metallurgy, mining, animal husbandry etc. into the North and centre, down to the East Rhodopes, in Bulgaria during the MBA-LBA, before the Gáva-related Channelled Ware.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Some quotes about Thracian-Hallstat in western Ukraine.

Iron Age [залізна доба; zalizna doba]. A cultural-technological era in the development of humankind following the Bronze Age in the 1st millennium BC that was characterized by the diffusion of iron and steel implements and weapons. In western and central Europe it consisted of the Hallstatt culture (800–500 BC) and La Tàene culture (500–1 BC) phases. This periodization is applicable only in western Ukraine, which was penetrated by the Thracian Hallstatt culture and Celtic La Tàene culture. The Iron Age in the rest of Ukraine is divided into three periods: the Cimmerian or Pre-Scythian (8th and 7th centuries BC), the Scythian (7th to 3rd centuries BC), and the Sarmatian (3rd century BC to 4th century AD).

From the 11th to the 6th centuries BC the upper Buh River Basin was populated by the tribes of the Vysotske culture—descendants of both the Lusatian and Chornyi Lis tribes—while western Podilia, Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia were influenced by tribes of the Thracian Hallstatt culture created by the Getae and Dacians.

In Transcarpathia, descendants of the Thracian Hallstatt culture constituted the Kushtanovytsia culture in the 6th to 3rd centuries BC. In the course of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC the indigenous Thracian and proto-Slavic population of Transcarpathia, western Podilia, Bukovyna, Galicia, and Volhynia intermingled with the Celtic tribes of the La Tàene culture that spread there from central Europe.

Iron Age

www.encyclopediaofukraine.com

In the Bronze Age (ca 1800 BC) Transcarpathia maintained continuity in its painted pottery style of the Stanove culture but gained metalworking skills (swords, knives, sickles, axes) as a result of the arrival of Thracian tribes from Transylvania. Subsequently Transcarpathia came under the control of the Celts, who arrived from the west and brought with them iron-smelting (ca 400–200 bc); the first local coins were minted in the 3rd century BC.

Transcarpathia

www.encyclopediaofukraine.com

In Ukranian archeology, Thracian-Hallstat is recognized to have penetrated Podolia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia during LBA collapse as a migration/invasion from Transylvania. These northern Thracians lasted until Roman period.

 

[Riverman]

Indeed, and the tradition is old and deeply rooted, presumably since Nyírség, surely since Suciu de Sus-Lapus.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Since the Reich lab finally updated their database, one of my first thing to test were the Himera's E-V13. Are they Illyrian profiles, the magical Dardani that is somehow the answer to everything? Or are they Dacian or a unknown mysterious E-V13 from Ukraine? Let's find out.

First I ran the tests on a one on one basis, to see which population had the closest proximity.

What sticks out right away, is that Illyrians are BIG fail. Those values are irredeemable. My first test was to compare I10946 to I10950, because on G25 they are bit different, but as you can see, on QPDAM, they are very much the same.
The other thing you will notice, they always share similarity, a passing P-value with other E-V13 samples, which proves E-V13 were not some randoms belonging to unrelated nations, but a people of their own, so much so that even deep in a Celto-Illyrian zone, it's profile can still pass with another E-V13.

The Vekerzug sample was the best match for the Himera sample which would support a Dacian origin, but I still suspect they come from Ukraine, so I ran another test.

Based on their Slavic drift in G25, and the Ukrainian pre-print PCA, there clearly was a E-V13 population that mixed with a Slavic like population, so I decided to model south Thracian with Slavic mdv(the new Polish samples). And the model works quite well. It comes close to working with other E-V13 samples, even a late antiquity samples from Serbia but a similar model based on Illyrians utterly fails.
I even switched the Himera target to I10946 to see if the relationship would hold, and it did. My last run was to use the Baltic BA(slavic drift) since Slavic mdv is only a proxy and not a realistic component of this ghost Iron Age population, the model works even better.

It is looking like the Bulgaria EIA is closest to the original E-V13 profile, even if Bulgaria EIA is slightly ME shifted, and they acquired more Yamnaya as they expanded on IE groups. In the northern and north-eastern territories, they mixed with Slavic-like peoples.

Can't wait to see the profiles from the Ukrainian paper.

 

[Hawk]

I didn't get the ME shifted, u mean the Kapitan Andreevo samples were slightly Middle Eastern shifted?

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Yes that's I meant, the Kapitan Andreevo are little Middle Eastern shifted and the original E-V13 LBA population did not have this admixture. That's my opinion.

 

[Hawk]

I think it matches that they were one of the groups responsible for the demise of Hittite Empire.

During Iron Age you see a coalition between Cimmerians and a Thracian tribe called Treres attacking Lydia and Assyrian Empire until Assyrians called out Scythians to push them away.

 

[Riverman]

I didn't get the ME shifted, u mean the Kapitan Andreevo samples were slightly Middle Eastern shifted?

I think they picked some Iranian up from the Aegean-Anatolian contacts. If we consider their migrations towards Greece and Troy, plus the later Thracian tribes in North Western Anatolia, there was likely a lot of backflow from these people, including Mycenaean Greeks.

 

[Hawk]

It doesn't get clearer than Balkan-Carpathian complex, the question is exactly which Bronze Age culture, and which LBA-EIA cultural spheres.

I don't think Stamped-Ware was formed in Eastern Rhodopes from Chalcolithic. I think it was more north than that, in the vicinity buffer zone between Balkans and Carpathians. I think these were descendands of the Chalcolithic metal workers from Balkans: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-021-09155-7

who in turn were probably the first people to melt copper and likely first metal workers. Just a guesstimate of course. We shall see, we might get surprised. But, not really.

The dynamics between Noua-Sabatinovska-Coslogeni and the Earlier Hallstatt is interesting and hard to pinpoint. But, it is somewhere here in MLBA-LBA-EIA dynamics where E-V13 mystery is.

btw Gava-Holigrady is lumped into Earlier Hallstatt/Thracian-Hallstatt as well, it is the northern variant.

 

[Riverman]

I made a new map which illustrates the EBA-MBA-LBA development of the crucial groups of the Carpatho-Balkan region, which all had roots in Cotofeni, Vucedol and ultimately Nyirseg in common. This time I concentrated on the development before Gáva-related Channelled Ware - its a rough sketch, don't get down to the exact line drawn:

If assuming Nyirseg (red) as the primary source, which I do, you get the following groups which descend from it in the MBA-LBA:
1. Eastern Otomani develops on a Nyirseg substrate, which came under influence from the Kostany groups. Now the Kostany clans were R-Z283 and had higher steppe, but we only have Western Füzesabony-Otomani samples so far, no Eastern ones, from the area in which Nyirseg persisted far longer and developed more fluently into distinct Otomani groups, which more often cremated. Its from the latter, with additional Wietenberg input, Suciu de Sus emerges.
Suciu de Sus develops into Lapus I - fromt there to Lapus II-Gáva, one of the Channelled Ware core groups.
2. Wietenberg, which being later overrun by Sabatinovka raiders, resulting in the regional Noua culture, which might or might not have been mixed with Wietenberg locals.
3. Balta Sarata, which was a group in Banat and South Western Transylvania. I just mention it because it shows some differences to Wietenberg and Verbicoara, and some authors claimed to see its influence in various groups.
4. Verbicoara (and Tei) - which did to some degree got close and closer to Tei, until they formed the Fundeni-Govora horizon in the LBA, which was side by side with the Encrusted Pottery newcomers. From Fundeni-Govora two elements developed, first the Vartop group of Channelled Ware with Encrusted Pottery influence, in the East Verbicoara-Tei had its influences on Coslogeni, the Sabatinovka variant of Bulgaria, similar to Noua in Eastern Transylvania and presumably from Fundeni-Govora the main Bulgarian LBA group Zimnicea-Plovdiv-Cerkovna emerged.
Therefore Verbicoara influences could be seen directly and indirectly in later groups of importance like Vartop/Danubian Channelled Ware, Babadag and Psenichevo. Verbicoara was kind of the gateway of the Carpathian cremation groups with Nyirseg roots into the Eastern Balkans, first by itself, then with Channelled Ware.

If you look at those 4 groups and their regions: Transtisza-Transcarpathia, Transylvania, Banat, Oltenia: These groups and regions being all united under the Gáva-related Channelled Ware horizon in the LBA-EIA transition. They formed the core of Gáva itself and subsequent daughter groups, like Belegis II-Gáva, Vartop, Danubian Fluted Ware, Babadag I etc.

Looking at what was "regional" in Bulgaria, the main "regional" groups of the LBA, even before Gáva, can all be deduced to come from these groups. There was no EBA-MBA tradition of significance in Bulgaria, which survived and influenced the EIA significantly.

It is also noteworthy, that the groups to the East of the Carpathians (like Costisa and Monteoru) were different. Monteoru and EBA-MBA Bulgaria even look like being closer to Encrusted Pottery, than to this Nyirseg derived block.

Wietenberg, Verbicoara and Balta Sarata are clearly closely related. The latter two share influences come from both Nyirseg and Vatin. The highly important Suciu de Sus group, from which Gáva evolved primarily, is so important because due to its and relative regional groups proximity to the Piliny culture and Tumulus culture groups, the Pre-Gáva groups with Suciu de Sus became more innovative and technologically advanced. Channelled Ware is therefore the result of a cultural exchange of Tumulus culture groups with the Eastern Carpathian Nyirseg derived groups. After this new innovative, advanced culture with the new Tumulus culture inputs had evolved, it resulted in the Urnfield phenomenon in the West, and Gáva and Gáva-related Channelled Ware in the East.

In areas like Moldova, the new phenomenon was clearly more intrusive than say in areas like Körös and Oltenia, in my opinion. Channelled Ware was also more intrusive in the Morava-Vardar area, than in the Rhodopes, at least if going by detectable destruction horizons. The question therefore is whether Northern Gáva groups had more of a replacement in areas like Eastern Serbia, than in areas like Oltenia and the Rhodopes, where they met related people. That's hard to answer without ancient DNA, but culturally and presumably genetically, all these groups should have been related.

 

[Hawk]

IMO the direction was not Gava to South, rather from South to Gava, and that South was not Aegean rather Balkan-Carpathian buffer zone. Nearby Danube. To East in Lower Danube, South toward Aegean/Anatolia and North toward Dniestr, Tisza and Ukrainian forest steppe.

 

[Riverman]

The main, potential, South to North influence was going from Belegis I to Suciu de Sus-Lapus. I don't see much else.

The big unknowns in this network are in my opinion Vatin-Belegis I and Tei. The former had some influence, obviously, reaching as far as the Middle-Upper Tisza, before Gáva influences came back the other direction.

Suciu de Sus itself is a rather "Southern culture", going by its character and material, but that's deeply rooted in the earlier Nyirseg, Wietenberg and Eastern Otomani influences. Eastern Otomani itself is yet another unknown, since we don't know for sure how the ratio of local vs. foreigners (from Kostany-Füzesabony) was.

The first Transtisza Otomani samples being promixed by the very same paper, which claims general continuity up to the Noua invasion, which would include, unless they were the big exception, those Eastern Otomani samples.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

I am not sure what ralf is smoking, there are no samples fromThracian-Hallstat in western Ukraine, sometimes called Holihrady group. This version of Thracian-Hallstat is a different group from Babadag. Ukranian archeologists see it as migration from Transylvania vs Wallachia as is the case for Babadag.

Yes Babadag should be a product of BGR EIA kindred population mixing with Noua-Sabatinovka locals, plus a little Cimmerian.

Only two of the models pass, the last one has a good p=value score. I am of the opinion that only p value of 0.45 and above indicates a strong relationship.

From the Bulgarian leaks, Andreenevo profile did not exists in Bulgaria before Iron Age. Such high EEF profile residing in Bulgaria during MBA-LBA is out of the question and the origin must be sought elsewhere. One can't complain of sample size anymore, because even if not all corners of Bulgaria have not been sequenced, you would be arguing that an unsampled region of Bulgaria represent 1/4 of the territory had bottled up a super dense E-V13 population that set loose in Bronze Age collapse. This is just plain stupid.