Basically the area of Albania has different sources. There are the most ancient ones, I would assume they are largely R-Z2103 and otherwise fairly mixed, probably distantly related Greek-Armenian, and then there are two people coming in, associated with two of the main haplogroups modern Albanians carry.
The first group is J-L283 and it seems to have been associated with the Bell Beaker periphery, later transitioned into Tumulus Culture, in Pannonian into the Middle Danubian Urnfielders in part. Essentially, they came from the West and being culturally, as well as autosomally, strongly influenced by Southern Bell Beakers. This can be best illustrated by these images:
https://aegeobalkanprehistory.kreas.ff.cuni.cz/2008/03/06/when-the-west-meets-the-east/
This is the framework in which J-L283 expanded, most likely related to the Bell Beaker into Pannonian-Adriatic periphery, which transitioned into the Tumulus culture in Pannonia-Western Adriatic. I would associate this with the Proto-Illyrians.
The second group coming in the Bronze Age was Channelled Ware, and I want to give some hints as to what happened, I posted it before, but people might not know this quotations:
Alexandra Papazovska, Early Iron Age Settlements in Macedonia and Their Relationship to Cemeteries. From the printed version of:
https://www.academia.edu/43626649/S...Heilmann_Aleksandar_Kapuran_and_Marek_Verčík_
About the invasion of the Channelled Ware people in the area of (North) Macedonia (p. 142 ff.):
From the end of the 12th to first half of the 11th century BCE, the territory along the Vardar River Valley might have been under frequent attacks and exposed to movements of populations from north to south, who brought new elements from the northern and central Balkans, which were especially visible in the material culture (including channelled pottery, fibulae and weapons such as swords of the Erbenheim and Nenzingen type as well as axes). These movements at the end of the Bronze Age hindered and influenced the development of communities in this part of the Balkans, which suggested by the discovery of burnt layers in settlements along the Vardar River Valley (for example, at Stolot near Ulanci, Manastir near Caska, Veles, Vardarski Rid, and Kastanas). Some settlements were destroyed completely, while others changed their location to a safer position, as is the case of the settlement at Vardarski Rid by Gevgelija, which was moved to a neighbouring hill of Kofilak (Fig. 2).
The most illustrative example of these occurrences was identified on the site Manastir near the village of Caska, Veles, where the discovered material (including monochrome pottery, bronze and bone tools, spindle whorls, hand mills, and jewellery) illustrated local character, cultural and economic power of the settlement until its destruction. The nature of the destruction layers in which these objects were discovered suggests the settlement suffered from a severe fire. A couple of bronze axes, spearheads, and arrowheads simply links to the northern Balkans (Fig. 3), and if the context of discovery is taken into account, it is feasible that they might have belonged to those who destroyed settlement. These types of weapons were unknown to this territory in the previous period and hence they seem to be unique. Thanks ot the relatively simple stratigraphy of the settlement and the clear original context of the finds, it is evident that the settlement suffered in a heavy fire and was never rebuilt again. Burnt layers dating to the Late Bronze Age were also discovered at settlements in the Lower Vardar Valley (such as at Kastanas, Vardino Vardaroftsa), wher ea number of "influences" from the northern and central Balkans are visible in the portable finds.
Things to note:
- The Channelled Ware people moved south along the river valleys and burnt a large fraction of the local peoples settlements down along their way.
- The local people did not disappear completely, but they retreated to upland fortified and hidden settlements.
- The Channelled Ware people did not leave, but primarily settled in the lowlands
If we reveiw known settlements and cemeteries in the region, two types of both settlements and cemeteries can be distinguished. The flat cemeteries with inhumation burials are found around settlement positioned on high and dominant hills, while the cemeteries with cremations are usually associated with unfortified settlements positioned on lower terraces.
The situation was really similar to some later Germanic and Slavic settlements in the Alpine and Carpathian zone. The end result was most likely a merged-fused population at some point, with one side keeping the upper hand on the long run. Genetically, the result was a mixture of course.
Now about the origin of Channelled Ware/G?va:
All the cultures from which Channelled Ware emerged have their counterparts or even origin in Romania. Many of the groups just have Hungarian and Romanian names or provinces. Take for example cultural formations I mentioned before, which need to be tested, like Cotofeni, Ny?rs?g, Mako, Livezile, Wietenberg, Otomani, F?zesabony, Berkesz, Suciu de Sus, Lapoș, Igrita etc. All these groups had either a presence Romania or a related group which reached it. In Hungary, the most interesting area for the earliest samples is the very corner North-East of Miskolc! Same goes for Slovakia, its only the Eastern part of the country, plus Transcarpathia, which is the main area of interest. In Romania, the groups are more widespread and cover larger territories, but its the North West primarily for the earliest periods.
I posted the mape numerous times by now, the G?va core being depicted in the first image (Abb. 2) in red: :
From this publication from Eugen Rung (2011):
https://www.academia.edu/2409522/E_Rung_Der_Gáva_Stil_
G?va is quite specific in this respect, because it led the thrust into the Balkans, or better primarily their main daughter group, Belegis II-G?va did. Kyjatice to the West, ("Late Piliny" on the map is their predecessor, this is an early stage map), is more in Slovakia-Northern Central Hungary. I suspect they got E-V13 too, but they don't have to, and so far we got J2a from them.
Many old authors, long before the new archaeological finds or any genetic ones, proposed G?va as the Proto-Thracian culture. Its simply the best candidate for later Daco-Thracians, because the core culture in the Iron Age for the Dacians and Thracians is one archaeological koine, that is the one of Psenichevo-Basarabi, which largely developed from Channelled Ware, when the dust settled down after the turbulent transitional period form the LBA to the EIA.
Kristian Kristiansen at least referred to that theory as well in one of his older books:
https://books.google.de/books?id=zAY4we4LKQMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false
p. 388, note group and migration from "C":
https://ibb.co/LrprcJc
Also, the Daco-Thracian sphere (Carpathian-Lower Danube), later covered first by Channelled Ware, then Psenichevo-Basarabi in the early Hallstatt phase, p. 64 (note that the Danube bent is the borderline to the West!):
https://ibb.co/T1dW2Th
And he is by no means the only one, there is a long tradition of scholars to attribute the Thracian/Daco-Thracian ethnolinguistic groups with G?va/Channelled Ware. You can quote as many linguistic splitters as you like, but that won't change the fact they had one genetic (in a biological and cultural sense) origin, which is basically Channelled Ware into Psenichevo-Basarabi. No serious scholar can deny the koine which developed in the Iron Age, with the typical repertoire. And this is what persisted into the historical period.
Quotation from Kristiansen, p. 387, which just confirms the results from numerous archaeologists working on actual material from the region:
By comparison with the slighter evidence of Celtic mercenaries in the Mediterranean, not to speak of their raids into Greece, we must in this case of systematically patterned evidence, ranging from weapons to personal dress, assume a movement of people, probably warrior groups/mercenaries, during the 13th century (BR D), followed by more massive migrations from Ha A1 onwards, as reflected by the later fibula types. This picture agrees well with other evidence of contacts during the 13th and 12th centuries.
There were two waves: First individuals and smaller groups, but then came the tribes down and burnt everything which stood in their way to the ground while marching through the Morava and into the Vardar Valley. And its these people, which also migrated the Danube down and created the Fluted Ware horizon and Knobbed Ware groups in Bulgaria - out of which Psenichevo grew, while out of Belegis II-G?va with a transition and new influences, Basarabi emerged.
And at that point we already have evidence, from the Iron Age, for Thracian and Dacian speakers respectively, from those regions. Same archaeological origin, going back, ultimately, to the G?va core zone in North Eastern Hungary, Eastern Slovakia, Transcarpathia and North Western/Western Romania in particular.
This is all East of the Danube, in the early phase pretty much of it is clearly at the Tisza and East of the Tisza, especially along the Romanian tributaries too.
To sum it up: Both E-V13 and J-L283 have a clear and by now fairly obvious background story in the Bronze Age. They come from two spheres of influence: Bell Beaker/West Pannonians vs Epi-Corded/ East Pannonian descendants of Cotofeni & Co, of which most had increased WHG ancestry. J-L283 and E-V13 were kind of the regional "governors" for these wider spread networks in the Balkans.
G?va also introduced intensified millet consumption in wide areas of the Balkans. This is the same kind of millet/millet fed pork diet which appears in Tollense, in the Urnfield period. You can read it up here, it was spread by G?va down to Greece in the LBA:
https://jaha.org.ro/index.php/JAHA/article/view/656