Stolarek et al: Genetic history of East-Central Europe...

[ambron]

ph2ter

Maybe different... maybe you could make a map of only these pure Slavs.

[Radko]

Dear ph2ter, can you provide us with the most accurate IA-Roman map of the avarage Early Slavs?

Ancient DNA connects large-scale migration with the spread of Slavic-associated culture

Today, speakers of Slavic languages comprise around one-third of the European population and inhabit nearly a half of the European continent. Yet, there is no consensus among historians and archaeologists how this present-day distribution is connected to the spread of Slavic-associated material culture in the fifth to sixth centuries over major parts of Eastern and Central Europe, as the evidence from the written and archaeological record is characterised by both continent-wide similarities as well as region-specific trajectories. Consequently, the question of to what extent this cultural and linguistic transformation also affected the genetic composition of the continent has been a subject of enduring debate. Here we present an extensive dataset of genome-wide ancient DNA data from several sites in Central Europe, dating between 400 and 1200 CE and spanning the relevant phase of cultural and linguistic transition. We demonstrate that the arrival of Slavic-associated material culture in the studied regions is associated with a substantial influx of genetic ancestry from a region in present-day northern Ukraine and Belarus. Comparing archaeological and genetic evidence, we find that this change in ancestry coincided with a change in social organization, characterised by an intensification of inter- and intrasite genetic relatedness and strong signals of patrilocality and -lineality.

Joscha Gretzinger
Hellen Mager
Ralf Schwarz
Arnold Muhl
Jörg Orschiedt
Felix Biermann
Mario Slaus
Harald Meller
Zuzana Hofmanová
Johannes Krause

[Ebizur]

A finding of relatively close autosomal affinity between the Pannonian Avars and present-day Buryats is actually quite surprising. Such a finding would match with the sharing between these two groups of Y-DNA haplogroup N-F4205 (TMRCA 2,495 [95% CI 3,064 - 2,026] ybp according to FTDNA); however, a majority of present-day Buryat males actually belong to C-CTS2657 (TMRCA 9,046 [95% CI 10,642 - 7,685] ybp according to FTDNA) > C-M407 (TMRCA 4,186 [95% CI  5,068 - 3,450] ybp id.) > C-Z4328 (TMRCA 789 [95% CI 1,168 - 512] ybp id.), and I am not aware of any case of C-M407 or even any case of C-CTS2657 among the Pannonian Avar specimens tested to date. Furthermore, it is possible that all or most Buryat members of N-F4205 may belong to a very young subclade, N-B199, whose age may be roughly equal to that of C-Z4328 (i.e. sharing a common ancestor around the time of Genghis Khan, long after the time of the Pannonian Avars).

How could the present-day Buryats maintain such a strong signal of affinity with the ancient Pannonian Avars despite the Buryats' apparently having passed through at least one major bottleneck after the era of the Pannonian Avars and the Buryats' belonging mostly to an entirely different clade of Y-DNA that has not been found among Pannonian Avars?

Assuming for the sake of argument that the Pannonian Avars were in fact a western extension of some collateral relatives of ancestors of the Buryats, what could the ethnonym "Avar" possibly have meant? It sounds a bit like Mongolic words meaning "huge, enormous, gigantic" (e.g. *aburghu digas-n "huge fish" > forms meaning "legendary aquatic creature/monster" in Buryat, Huso dauricus i.e. Kaluga sturgeon in Russian, or avarga zagas "shark" in Mongolian), but, in that case, there is no explanation for what has happened to the velar element in the Mongolic word for "gigant(ic)": why were the Pannonian Avars called "Avars" instead of "Avarg(a)s"?

[ph2ter]

ph2ter

Maybe different... maybe you could make a map of only these pure Slavs.

I don't know what is the point of such map:

[Bukva_]

Some people here still can't get over the fact that Slavs didnt originate in Poland and It is getting quite annoying and redundant.

[Tomenable]

Distance is very good now (as Early_Slavic I used the 3 newly published "Avar" samples):

https://genarchivist.com/showthread.php?...4#pid14584

Target: Polish_Medieval(n=62)
Distance: 1.1869% / 0.01186853
76.6 Early_Slavic(n=3)
13.4 Wielbark(n=49)
10.0 Przeworsk_PCA0012

[ambron]

ph2ter

This map illustrates, among others, the area of the original Slavic homeland between the Vistula and the Dniester, designated by modern linguists.

[ambron]

Bukva

Some people here cannot accept the fact that Slavs come from Poland and western Ukraine.

I just don't understand why this fact upsets them so much.

[Parastais]

Ancient DNA connects large-scale migration with the spread of Slavic-associated culture

Today, speakers of Slavic languages comprise around one-third of the European population and inhabit nearly a half of the European continent. Yet, there is no consensus among historians and archaeologists how this present-day distribution is connected to the spread of Slavic-associated material culture in the fifth to sixth centuries over major parts of Eastern and Central Europe, as the evidence from the written and archaeological record is characterised by both continent-wide similarities as well as region-specific trajectories. Consequently, the question of to what extent this cultural and linguistic transformation also affected the genetic composition of the continent has been a subject of enduring debate. Here we present an extensive dataset of genome-wide ancient DNA data from several sites in Central Europe, dating between 400 and 1200 CE and spanning the relevant phase of cultural and linguistic transition. We demonstrate that the arrival of Slavic-associated material culture in the studied regions is associated with a substantial influx of genetic ancestry from a region in present-day northern Ukraine and Belarus. Comparing archaeological and genetic evidence, we find that this change in ancestry coincided with a change in social organization, characterised by an intensification of inter- and intrasite genetic relatedness and strong signals of patrilocality and -lineality.

Joscha Gretzinger
Hellen Mager
Ralf Schwarz
Arnold Muhl
Jörg Orschiedt
Felix Biermann
Mario Slaus
Harald Meller
Zuzana Hofmanová
Johannes Krause

Any data available from this article? Is this published or only abstract so far?

[Radko]

Any data available from this article? Is this published or only abstract so far?

No data available yet, only abstract.

[Orentil]

For the archaeological / chronological part of this presentation by Gretzinger et al. I would like to refer to a publication by Felix Biermann in 2022 about the region Berlin/Brandenburg (Mecklenburg/Sachsen-Anhalt) . For the regions Ukraine/Belarus I don't expect new insights (google translation):

"Former cultivated land was forested, the tree ring dates of the last well construction of Germanic settlements fall into the late 5th century. From around 550 onwards there are only a few individual finds from Brandenburg, often as a result of metal detector prospecting by volunteers from the state monument preservation team....
The Slavs migrated into these completely or largely deserted areas, and, as tree ring data from wells and other settlement findings show, at a considerable time interval. For a long time it was assumed that Slavic settlement began in the 6th or early 7th century and that the first Slavs even encountered the last Germanic people. However, many dozens of dendrodates from early Slavic settlement contexts have rejuvenated this: exact dates do not begin in the Brandenburg area until around 700. The woods in question often date material culture to the 8th century, which must be considered the earliest material deposit of the Slavs and previously would have been set to the 6th/7th century. In light of some early small finds and out of methodological caution regarding the still limited number of tree ring dates, one can assume that the first Slavs arrived in the last third of the 7th century. There are signs of a settlement collapse that lasted over 100 years, during which the Brandenburg area was largely deserted - like many regions of northern and eastern Central Europe at that time."

https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-u...S35-48.pdf

[Radko]

Distance is very good now (as Early_Slavic I used the 3 newly published "Avar" samples)

The distance is even better when we add 2 Medieval Scandinavian Vikings (for example VK539 and VK540 from Ukraine as a proxy for "Polish" Scandinavian Vikings) and 1 German settler (for example VK211 from Cedynia). And this model seems to be more plausible.

Target: Polish_Medieval(n=62)
Distance: 1.0694% / 0.01069432
76.2 Early_Slavic(n=3)
7.4 German_settler_MA
6.4 Scandinavian_Viking_MA
5.6 Przeworsk_PCA0012
4.4 Wielbark(n=49)

[Tomenable]

^^^
The thing is that VK211 is from the Ostsiedlung period and so it is younger than the 62 Early Medieval samples. And Vikings in Poland were never a numerous minority capable of altering DNA of the whole population (and when it comes to Lutomiersk Vikings we don't even have their DNA yet so we don't know if they were Scandinavian or more Slavic autosomally like Vikings from Bodzia). So how exactly is your model supposedly "more plausible" than my model?

When we model ancestry of a population we should use samples older than this population, not younger (like VK211) or from the same period.

[Tomenable]

And VK211 is not a typical German / Saxon settler but probably a Walloon settler:

Distance to: POL_Cedynia_MA:VK211
0.04027688 French_Seine-Maritime
0.04201269 Swiss_German
0.04283315 BelgianA
0.04300862 French_Nord
0.04352841 BelgianC
(...)

[Radko]

Germans settled in Poland since the 10th century (or earlier).  There were German princesses, Queens (with surely German knights, nobles, etc. in their court), bishops, priests, builders, architects, artisans, etc.