Origin of the Eastern Romance or Vlach Peoples

[eupator]

Thank you.

What's your R-L23 subclade, mate? What does yseq clade finder give you?

 

[Hawk]

I think that the newly founded South Danubian provinces of Dacia and Moesia superior were the homeland for the Vlachs/Romanians. This would also explain the gene and reciprocal influence of Albanians and Vlachs, since I think that the Albanian homeland was the neighbouring province of Dardania. This would have made the Daco-Romans and Proto-Albanians direct neighbours.

Why Albanians ended up with more E-V13 than the Vlachs is the only remaining mystery and it might be attributed to a strong group of tribal Dacians which were resettled into those provinces and became a socially dominant part of the emerging Proto-Albanians - IMHO.

Such tribal Dacians would have had a much higher proportion of E-V13 than the already mixed Daco-Roman population of the provinces.

You pose yourself good questions and you answer yourself with biased answers from the likes of poreklo and Huban.

You will see for yourself where E-V13 comes from when aDNA comes soon. Don't try to make excuses here and there.

 

[Riverman]

You pose yourself good questions and you answer yourself with biased answers from the likes of poreklo and Huban.

You will see for yourself where E-V13 comes from when aDNA comes soon. Don't try to make excuses here and there.

If you refer to the Proto-Albanians, a combination of a Dardanian-Triballi mix base with resettled Daco-Romans/Dacians is the most likely explanation for different branches of E-V13 which likely reached the Central Balkans in multiple waves before. Then this Dardanian-Dacian-Roman mix moved South from Dardania to create modern Albanian ethnic territories. You don't agree?

We will find E-V13 in Dardanians (which mixed with Triballi and had a Thracian substrate as well as Southern Thracian influx) and Daco-Romans, even more so Dacian tribals (like Costobocci and Carpi) - a bit will be spilled in with Slavs since they assimilated Dacians in the North Carpathians and on the way. That will sum it up, by and large.

What exactly is wrong about that summary? The Daco-Roman/Dacian resettlement into the Danubian and Central Balkan provinces for sure did increase E-V13 in the Balkans overall.

 

[Hawk]

If you refer to the Proto-Albanians, a combination of a Dardanian-Triballi mix base with resettled Daco-Romans/Dacians is the most likely explanation for different branches of E-V13 which likely reached the Central Balkans in multiple waves before. Then this Dardanian-Dacian-Roman mix moved South from Dardania to create modern Albanian ethnic territories. You don't agree?

We will find E-V13 in Dardanians (which mixed with Triballi and had a Thracian substrate as well as Southern Thracian influx) and Daco-Romans, even more so Dacian tribals (like Costobocci and Carpi) - a bit will be spilled in with Slavs since they assimilated Dacians in the North Carpathians and on the way. That will sum it up, by and large.

What exactly is wrong about that summary? The Daco-Roman/Dacian resettlement into the Danubian and Central Balkan provinces for sure did increase E-V13 in the Balkans overall.

Nothing wrong, it's your opinion, feel free to express yourself, but i have the feeling you are biased. Everytime you go on how resettled Dacians and Slavs increased E-V13, then a reality check comes in from the fact Albanians and Greeks have far more E-V13 2-3 times more than the actual areas and actual people you refer as references.

And, to me it looks like Balkan Slavs have created this exclusive E-V13 Dacian-Slavic connection to wrap it up their identity. I can go on and on and say how many of Montenegrins and Serb E-V13 are actually Albanian, or whatsoever, but the reality might be far more complex, i rather don't engulf with this specific subclades, i prefer a more cautious evaluation of the situation.

 

[Riverman]

Nothing wrong, it's your opinion, feel free to express yourself, but i have the feeling you are biased. Everytime you go on how resettled Dacians and Slavs increased E-V13, then a reality check comes in from the fact Albanians and Greeks have far more E-V13 2-3 times more than the actual areas and actual people you refer as references.

And, to me it looks like Balkan Slavs have created this exclusive E-V13 Dacian-Slavic connection to wrap it up their identity. I can go on and on and say how many of Montenegrins and Serb E-V13 are actually Albanian, or whatsoever, but the reality might be far more complex, i rather don't engulf with this specific subclades, i prefer a more cautious evaluation of the situation.

In the end it will be a branch by branch decision, because it is absolutely clear that there is no way to wrap up all the E-V13 branches for the Balkans. Some came earlier, some came later, some came very late - even as late as Central European Medieval settlers in individual cases.

The decisive evidence will always be ancient DNA, but the second best is the phylogeny, diversity and TMRCA. And while some branches could have been in the Balkans as early as the Bronze Age, others are less likely to. Especially if talking about areas further South from the Danube.

Concerning the references, we don't have Dacian and Daco-Roman references. Modern Vlachs and even more so Romanians are not pure Daco-Romans, yet along Dacians, by any stretch of imagination.

And these people will come out not 30 % E-V13 like modern Albanians and some Greek regions, but more likely 60-90 % E-V13. There is no modern population which is remotely close to such numbers. This also means that if a small population (like Proto-Albanians were) would have received a strong RELATIVE input from say a Dacian or Daco-Roman core group, before extensively mixing with locals from the Central Balkans which had lower numbers, it would have drastically increased their frequency.

Similarly, if talking about Slavs, even a small and autosomally rather minor admixture of say 5-10 percent from such a North Dacian source could easily explain the 3 % base frequency of Slavs, even if the majority gene flow was female and they were in no socially dominant position.

With this context in mind, many scenarios are plausible or at least possible. However, one thing is out of question going by the so far published data, that the Illyrian Southern-Central Balkan before the Dardanians-Thracians-Dacians was low in E-V13. Macedonians and Northern Greeks are an unknown, but I doubt they had a very high frequency if it was there, which I deem likely.

 

[mount123]

Concerning the references, we don't have Dacian and Daco-Roman references. Modern Vlachs and even more so Romanians are not pure Daco-Romans, yet along Dacians, by any stretch of imagination.

And these people will come out not 30 % E-V13 like modern Albanians and some Greek regions, but more likely 60-90 % E-V13. There is no modern population which is remotely close to such numbers.

Since you like to throw the word Vlach around in the context of "Daco-Romans" why not look at less slavic representatives of "Vlachs" e. g. Aromanians/Vllehë? The distribution, presence of E1b-V13, R1b-Z2103>CTS1450, J2b-L283 and R1b-PF7562>PF7563 totally refutes something like an unbroken continuity of romanized "Daco-Romans". They certainly did not form in the far Eastern Balkans or let alone Romania.

This also means that if a small population (like Proto-Albanians were) would have received a strong RELATIVE input from say a Dacian or Daco-Roman core group, before extensively mixing with locals from the Central Balkans which had lower numbers, it would have drastically increased their frequency.

"Small population like Proto-Albanians were" A lot of your posts look indeed like quotes out of Poreklo clown forum. Look at the territory we find ancient samples of E1b-V13, R1b-Z2103>CTS7556, J2b-L283 and R1b-PF7562>PF7562 in. Just the Central-/South Western Balkan sphere from modern northern so called "Serbia" to southern "North Macedonia" to southern Albania you have anything but a small merging area for the formation of the Para or Proto-Albanian ethnos.

Find me one other living folks in modern Southeast Europe that trace their descent to these main Paleo-Balkan cultural spheres. Right, there is none and not even remotely at such a frickin' high concentration (uniparentals, auDNA).

 

[Riverman]

There are two critical issue:
First, you need to find a population with E-V13, J-L283 and R-Z2103 combined. So far we haven't found that and its still open whether it existed before the Roman era.
Secondly, many of the E-V13 upstream subclades of the Albanians have higher diversity in the North, having a more Northern positioning. However, since their TMRCA with the Albanians is not particularly close, we don't know when in the Iron Age they split off.

These are two unknowns which need to be answered.

Concerning the small Proto-Albanian population: That's beyond doubt, because if you count the basic Albanian founder lineages, you can't have a big population base, that's out of question. The same applies, by the way, to the Pre- to Proto-Slavs. It just means the Proto-Albanians came from a contracted population, which went through a bottleneck. Due to this the haplogroup frequencies could have drastically changed within a few generations.

And we know from the E-V13 phylogeny, including the Albanian branches, that their contraction was less severe than that of the Albanian R-Z2103 and especially J-L283 branches. This means the E-V13 carriers had likely a diffrent background, a different population history shortly before Proto-Albanian phase.

You can easily prove that by most of the Albanian E-V13 branches having many more surviving parallel branches in non-Albanians vs. the R-Z2103 and J-L283 Albanian branches, which distribution and parallel branches are way more restricted by comparison.

 

[ioas]

Since you like to throw the word Vlach around in the context of "Daco-Romans" why not look at less slavic representatives of "Vlachs" e. g. Aromanians/Vllehë? The distribution, presence of E1b-V13, R1b-Z2103>CTS1450, J2b-L283 and R1b-PF7562>PF7563 totally refutes something like an unbroken continuity of romanized "Daco-Romans". They certainly did not form in the far Eastern Balkans or let alone Romania.

"Small population like Proto-Albanians were" A lot of your posts look indeed like quotes out of Poreklo clown forum. Look at the territory we find ancient samples of E1b-V13, R1b-Z2103>CTS7556, J2b-L283 and R1b-PF7562>PF7562 in. Just the Central-/South Western Balkan sphere from modern northern so called "Serbia" to southern "North Macedonia" to southern Albania you have anything but a small merging area for the formation of the Para or Proto-Albanian ethnos.

Find me one other living folks in modern Southeast Europe that trace their descent to these main Paleo-Balkan cultural spheres. Right, there is none and not even remotely at such a frickin' high concentration (uniparentals, auDNA).

Wait how much slavic do aromanians have? For most southern Romanians it's 41 percent slavic

 

[Nicu]

Befor i thought as many others that romance speakers in the South Balkan, timok vlach and Romanians were not the same, and even argued for it, but this year after not trying to be bias and a bit of logic, i have come to the same conclussion what you wrote here, more or less that we are the same, but just diffred apart from each other during the years, and mixed with others, so autosomali we may not be identical today, but we came from the same ancestors

Yeah I've spoken to both Romanians and Aromanians about this issue over time (it helps that I have some background from both sides) and although many resisted the idea at first, they gradually kind of came around to it.

Unlike some other people, I'm not gung-ho about any one idea or agenda, and I realize the issue is inconclusive and open to interpretation. I honestly wish we would someday get more evidence to fill in the gaps of the picture, but I see that as doubtful since these people largely didn't leave written records or much concrete evidence of their habitation.

 

[Nicu]

I know this old but things I disagree with is that north Romianians plot with eastern slavs that wrong all romanians plot with Balkanites( serbs, Bulgarians, Croats, and Bosnians) also on k13, g25 Romianians get little to no Germanic. They are just a mix of Balkan and Slavic just like all Balkanites check this dorkymon from athorgenica (rip) collected all this samples edit for the link ihad to make a different post I don't know why tho

Ok maybe I overstated that initially (and it's a bit of a stereotype or generalization that northern Romanians are all gonna be more Slavic), but there is a little something to it. I know for a fact there were several hundred Ukrainian families that moved into the Maramures region several centuries ago as well, and have assimilated over time. Not even talking about Romanians in Bukovina, which probably have the highest amounts of any Romanian speakers.

I will say that on most genetic charts I've seen, Moldovans (from the Republic of Moldova at least) tend to have some degree of genetic separation from Romanians proper, likely due to more Slavic admixture. But again, maybe it's overstated sometimes, I don't know.

Also, I don't think every region of Romania has equal amounts of Vlach (original East Romance speakers) input. I think places like Oltenia and southern Transylvania have a lot compared to other areas. There are parts of southern Romania where people look more "southern" than many Bulgarians even, but there are also parts where this is not the case. And in western Romania you get much more of a Central European vibe, or more Western Balkan leaning (Dinarid and such), while in southeastern, like Muntenia and Dobrogea, you get more Pontids. How exactly this corresponds to whatever the original Vlachs were, I'm not sure, because we don't know exactly what they were (assuming that all modern Vlachs diverged to some extent from that by mixing with other people). Sometimes linguistic overlays can occur on top of more ancient and established population patterns, and geography matters more. But with the advent of modern transportation, people are moving around everywhere and that doesn't hold true as much anymore.

Wait how much slavic do aromanians have? For most southern Romanians it's 41 percent slavic

I believe it varies based on where the Aromanians are to some extent, but it's less than that. Also, 41% sounds a tad high for southern Romanians, but I guess it depends on the study. Is that based on autosomal?

 

[Nicu]

I think we have to distinguish between different Vlachs and Vlachs and Romanians, also Romanians of different regions.

Like the most likely origin of the Vlachs are the resettled Daco-Romans from the province of Dacia which were put into Moesia. There those Daco-Romans mixed with other Roman/Romanised people, including Thracians and Illyrians.

The only remaining question is, whether some Daco-Roman elements survived North of the Danube, in Southern Romania, probably some splinters even in more Northern parts of the country.

When the Southern Vlachs from South of the Danube expanded North again, they encountered probably other Daco-Roman remains as well as, and that was the majority, Slavs, with which they mixed and which they soaked up. That way, the more North one goes, the more Northern and Slavic-like Romance speakers become.

Those Vlachs and Romance speakers which remained in the South didn't just receive that Northern admixture as much, but mixed with locals from the Central and Southern Balkans, Aegeans, depending on their position.

The next issue is Romanians from different provinces, because very clearly, Northern Romanians and Moldovans are more likely to have Slavic, mostly Ruthenian admixture than those from Wallachia.

Something similar applies to other kinds of admixture, especially German and Hungarian-Szekler, which is also more likely for those Romanians which lived for a prolonged period of time in the direct vicinity of these people and either mixed with, or assimilated some of them.

I think all of that is pretty clear and straightforward but the question of how many Daco-Roman elements survived North of the Danube and were later incorporated into the Romanian people or even earlier into the local Slavic tribes as well. That's not as clear and can only be answered by ancient DNA.

Even the direct comparison of some more Southern Vlach/Romance groups is incomplete, because apparently there wasn't just a migration from the North to the South, but Vlach migrations in the opposite direction happened as well. This means more Northern admixture was brought by Vlachs as far as Greece. How much is up to debate, we need aDNA to answer that.

Most of the Daco-Romans from the old province of Dacia were transferred to Moesia, to the newly founded province of Dacia (ripensis):

I think that the newly founded South Danubian provinces of Dacia and Moesia superior were the homeland for the Vlachs/Romanians. This would also explain the gene and reciprocal influence of Albanians and Vlachs, since I think that the Albanian homeland was the neighbouring province of Dardania. This would have made the Daco-Romans and Proto-Albanians direct neighbours.

Why Albanians ended up with more E-V13 than the Vlachs is the only remaining mystery and it might be attributed to a strong group of tribal Dacians which were resettled into those provinces and became a socially dominant part of the emerging Proto-Albanians - IMHO.

Such tribal Dacians would have had a much higher proportion of E-V13 than the already mixed Daco-Roman population of the provinces.

Yep, I pretty much agree with most of this; it's what I've been saying. As far as one haplogroup becoming dominant at the expense of another, there could be many reasons for it, and the process could even be largely internal to a population, in which proportions of existing haplogroups change over time without too much external input as a catalyst. That said, external influences are more likely to be reasons sometimes.

I also agree that it is a complicated situation with all the different migrations people have made over southeastern Europe.

This is a map of one theory, which I find close to what probably happened:

Here is another, which I find less likely as it assumes Albanians are specifically Dacians that migrated from northern Dacia down to where they are today... that's reaching a lot in my opinion.

This last one here seems to imply a partial survival of Romance populations on the north side of the Danube, at least in the southwestern regions:

 

[Nicu]

Of course, the local Slavic element was long incorporated into the Romanians, with the exception of some Ruthenian areas in Northern Romania, in which a Slavic element survived for a longer period of time.
As for the Germanic, the problem is that G25 sometimes fails to recognise minor admixtures, especially if the wrong references being used. This can only be solved with more ancient DNA, like explained before.

What I forgot to mention before is the steppe admixture many Romanians have, which seems to be transmitted by one of the various steppe groups which lived in Romania (original Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans etc.). I noticed that the Romanian average has about 0,5-2 percent East Asian admixture from this source.
Since this admixture is so widespread, it might help to pin the exact origin of the core Romanian group down, since it seems to have spread with the core Vlach-Romanian group and is not a regionally very restricted phenomenon.

Hm, I wonder about this. I'd imagine most of the Turkic/Central Asian input was restricted to the lowland regions of the south and east rather than the mountains in the center, and that what little there was of these politically dominant elite groups was soaked up by first a mixture of whatever was there (probably Slavic speakers who held deeper local ancestry) and then the expanding Vlachs. I'm not sure how many of the eastern nomads got to the other side of the Carpathians into Transylvania/Ardeal. Although the Pannonian basin was certainly a favorite for lots of migratory peoples like the Huns and Avars, and later the Magyars, so there is that to consider.

I myself didn't really get any East Asian score on my tests (at times I briefly saw 0.1% pop up and then disappear, likely statistical noise). But I can't speak for all Romanians. Still it is an interesting testament to the history of the region. What's also interesting is that they didn't seem to really leave any linguistic traces (nor did the early East Germanic tribes like Goths and Gepids- again more evidence that the Vlach ancestors of Romanians may not have been there to absorb this and only arrived later).

Another brief note to add: I have seen even a few Aromanians who have a bit of visible Turkic or steppe ancestry, although it's less common. But I think certain villages in the Macedonia and southern Bulgaria area may have been affected by some kind of Cuman raids or something (or more likely where some of them were resettled by the Byzantines, who they both served as mercs for and raided at different times). Not sure how this relates to the equivalent component in Romanians to the north, or if it was a separate thing.

 

[Nicu]

What's your R-L23 subclade, mate? What does yseq clade finder give you?

Not sure if I did it right, but apparently R-FTA30946? Which seems to be most common in France, oddly...

That's kinda weird... so it's something Celtic maybe then? Here I was thinking the L-23 I got was through some local Thracian source eventually straight to the IE Yamnaya culture going back far enough.

 

[ioas]

Ok maybe I overstated that initially (and it's a bit of a stereotype or generalization that northern Romanians are all gonna be more Slavic), but there is a little something to it. I know for a fact there were several hundred Ukrainian families that moved into the Maramures region several centuries ago as well, and have assimilated over time. Not even talking about Romanians in Bukovina, which probably have the highest amounts of any Romanian speakers.

I will say that on most genetic charts I've seen, Moldovans (from the Republic of Moldova at least) tend to have some degree of genetic separation from Romanians proper, likely due to more Slavic admixture. But again, maybe it's overstated sometimes, I don't know.

Also, I don't think every region of Romania has equal amounts of Vlach (original East Romance speakers) input. I think places like Oltenia and southern Transylvania have a lot compared to other areas. There are parts of southern Romania where people look more "southern" than many Bulgarians even, but there are also parts where this is not the case. And in western Romania you get much more of a Central European vibe, or more Western Balkan leaning (Dinarid and such), while in southeastern, like Muntenia and Dobrogea, you get more Pontids. How exactly this corresponds to whatever the original Vlachs were, I'm not sure, because we don't know exactly what they were (assuming that all modern Vlachs diverged to some extent from that by mixing with other people). Sometimes linguistic overlays can occur on top of more ancient and established population patterns, and geography matters more. But with the advent of modern transportation, people are moving around everywhere and that doesn't hold true as much anymore.



I believe it varies based on where the Aromanians are to some extent, but it's less than that. Also, 41% sounds a tad high for southern Romanians, but I guess it depends on the study. Is that based on autosomal?

Yeah their is a link I put in this thread where this Moldovan from the rep been collecting them for years

 

[ioas]

Also you know what kinda amazes me that the early vlachs leaders in their family had both slavic names and Latin names for example litovoi and his brother barbat. I don't why but it amazes me

 

[ioas]

Ok maybe I overstated that initially (and it's a bit of a stereotype or generalization that northern Romanians are all gonna be more Slavic), but there is a little something to it. I know for a fact there were several hundred Ukrainian families that moved into the Maramures region several centuries ago as well, and have assimilated over time. Not even talking about Romanians in Bukovina, which probably have the highest amounts of any Romanian speakers.

I will say that on most genetic charts I've seen, Moldovans (from the Republic of Moldova at least) tend to have some degree of genetic separation from Romanians proper, likely due to more Slavic admixture. But again, maybe it's overstated sometimes, I don't know.

Also, I don't think every region of Romania has equal amounts of Vlach (original East Romance speakers) input. I think places like Oltenia and southern Transylvania have a lot compared to other areas. There are parts of southern Romania where people look more "southern" than many Bulgarians even, but there are also parts where this is not the case. And in western Romania you get much more of a Central European vibe, or more Western Balkan leaning (Dinarid and such), while in southeastern, like Muntenia and Dobrogea, you get more Pontids. How exactly this corresponds to whatever the original Vlachs were, I'm not sure, because we don't know exactly what they were (assuming that all modern Vlachs diverged to some extent from that by mixing with other people). Sometimes linguistic overlays can occur on top of more ancient and established population patterns, and geography matters more. But with the advent of modern transportation, people are moving around everywhere and that doesn't hold true as much anymore.



I believe it varies based on where the Aromanians are to some extent, but it's less than that. Also, 41% sounds a tad high for southern Romanians, but I guess it depends on the study. Is that based on autosomal?

Also romanians from bukovina get the most slavic dna but it's still in mid 50 range. Yeah your right that regions of romania don't get equal input of vlachs input. Hell even countys in the different regions are different from each other but remember one thing every one in balkans have Balkan plus slavic dna including Romanian and Moldovans. Sorry for spamming this thread I am passionate for subject

 

[ioas]

https://imgur.com/m2wtfGn

sorry couldn't resist here is a pca that use the averages of different romanian countys here is the averages used for the PCA https://geneticaromd.github.io/adn/database.html

 

[Aspar]

And other Vlachs moved south toward northern Greece and southern Macedonia, mixing with locals there and becoming the basis for the Aromanians, and perhaps Megleno-Romanians (interestingly this language seems to be a bit closer to Romanian itself than Aromanian is, occupying a bit of an intermediate space between them; it seems to have split off of Common Romanian later than Aromanian did).

Although this is true, some people's interpretation is wrong regarding this. Even though Meglen Vlach is closer to Romanian than Aromanian is to Romanian, it's still closer to Aromanian than Romanian.

Theodor Capidan has made extensive analysis regarding these languages and found more isogloses and phonetic changes shared between Aromanian and Meglen-Vlach than between Meglen-Vlach and Romanian.
Some of these are very old and present clear division between southern and northern Eastern Romance languages.
For example, the change ci > ts, where we have the vulgar Latin word cīnque and it's descendants in Romanian and Istro-Romanian cinci and ćinć respectively but tsintsi in Aromanian and Meglen-Vlach.

 

[Aspar]

Also as I was reading Capidan lately, he seems to find more old calque's and isogloses between Romanian and Albanian than between Aromanian/Meglen-Vlach and Albanian like for example the rotacism r -> n which is more prevalent in Romanian and Istro-Romanian than in the other two eastern Romance languages.
Which is quite interesting by itself and which could be showing a close relationship between Albanians and Romanians quite late and even after the split which likely took place in the 9th or 10th century.

My believe is that there was a common border between the Albanians and the Romanians somewhere in south-east Serbia.

From
Ilona Czamańska
(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań)
Vlachs and Slavs in the Middle Ages and Modern Era

Among the countries that we can define as Slavic, the earliest historical sources mention the presence of Vlachs in Bulgaria. According to the testimony of Byzantine writer Georgios Kedrenos, David, the brother of the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel, reigning in the late 10th and 11th century, was killed by “wandering Vlachs” travelling between Kastoria and Prespa. Byzantine princess Anna Commena, who writes in the 12th century, mentions numerous Vlachs, nomads living in Bulgaria. It should be noted that Anna Comnena wrote it at a time when the Bulgarian state did not exist for over a hundred years. Thus, it is necessary to ask, which territory in her chronicle could be called Bulgaria? It could only be Byzantine themata of Bulgaria, which was located in the western part of Macedonia.
The presence of numerous Vlachs in this area is confirmed during the construction of the second Bulgarian state after the great anti-Byzantine uprising of 1185. The creators of the restored state, Asen dynasty, appealed to the traditions of the Bulgarian state, but they were of Cuman-Vlach origin and adopted the title of tsar of Bulgarians, Vlachs and Cumans.
In 1203–1204 the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan wrote in letters to Pope Innocent III that he reigns over Bulgarians and Vlachs like his ancestors, tsars
Simeon, Peter and Samuel – the first rulers of the Bulgarian state in the 10th–11th century. More than that, in the correspondence between the Pope and Kaloyan of Bulgaria for the first time appeared the term “Blachia” in the territorial meaning.
Bulgarian tsar sent to the Pope the Archbishop of Bulgaria and Vlachia, Basil, while Innocent III in his edict of 25 February 1204 gave royal crown to Kaloyan and established the Roman Catholic Church for the province of Bulgaria and Blachia/Vlachia. It can be concluded that the Bulgarian state entered the territory so densely populated by Vlachs that it could have
been named Vlachia, and that it had to have some specific administrative framework as it was considered a province.
Additionally, chroniclers of the fourth crusade, Geoffroy de Villardhuin and Robert de Clari, referred to the Bulgarian tsar as John of Vlachia
(Blakia. One might ask where this Vlahia province was situated. Robert de Clari wrote that it was a province belonging to the Byzantine emperor, who rebelled against him. It was harsh and inaccessible land, which could have been accessed only by ravines. Undoubtedly, we cannot identify this Vlachia with the Wallachian Plain, as most recently historiography does, because 1) it could have been accessed very easily from the south, 2) it never belonged to Byzantine Empire. In the light of these chroniclers Vlachia must be placed in the Byzantine themata of Bulgaria, which was located in modern Macedonia. This province bordered on Cumania

The author here makes very good point. The Bulgarian Empire didn't exist for more than a century when these accounts were made. What was known as Bulgaria in the 11th, 12th and 13th century was the Byzantine themata of Bulgaria which was situated mainly in present North Macedonia, Eastern Serbia and Western Bulgaria:



The author just makes one mistake when assumes this province of Vlachia was somewhere in the vicinity of modern Kumanovo in North Macedonia because of the specific name related to the Cumans. What was Cumania back then was modern Valachia in South Romania. Accordingly, this province Vlachia must have been situated in the northern regions of the Byzantine themata of Bulgaria or modern Eastern Serbia and north-western Bulgaria and directly bordering Danube and modern Valachia which was of course Cumania back in the 12th century.

So the Vlachs mentioned in these accounts are most likely direct ancestors of the modern Romanians.
These would explain the close relationship between these Vlachs and the Cumans and why more often than not they were mentioned together in the historical accounts as some sort of hybrid Vlach-Cuman race as by the time Cumans disappeared, the Romanian Vlachs started massively to settle north of Danube and intermingling with these Cumans.
These process probably already started in the 11th century with the breakup of the First Bulgarian Empire.

 

[Riverman]

Concerning the Central-East Asian admixture: Such admixture was surely present, even higher in Transylvania (early Szekler for example), but that its pretty widespread among Romanians speaks for a more Southern/Eastern source of the admixture imho.

If I use Dai, which is not the closest fitting reference anyway, but just for the argument and as a quick shot, you see that practically all Romanians get it. Its not that high, but its noticeable even in comparison to some of the direct neighbours, therefore it should be something real for the early ethnogenesis: