E-V13 - Theories on its Origin and New Data

[Riverman]

Continuation from the Anthrogenica and GenArchivist 1.0 forum thread on the topic of E-V13, theories of its origin and new data, papers on the haplogroup.

I went through the ancient DNA evidence available on FTDNA and sorted the branches by marcro-regions. There is some interesting observation, which points to the main branches of E-Z5017 + E-Z5018 living further to the North, at least not too far South of the Danube. The ratio of these two main branches increases drastically in Central Europe compared to the ancient DNA from the Balkans.

Samples from Hungary (ca.):
E-Z5018: 19
E-Z5017: 9
Branches common in current Balkan/Thracian samples as shown in the screenshot: 3




That's a staggering 28 : 3 or simplified about 9 : 1 ratio for Hungary.

For the South Thracians and Medieval Greeks ("East Balkans") combined its 0 : 4
For Viminacium+Naissus (a more mixed bag) it is 1 : 2, with the E-Z5018 sample looking like its coming from a Scytho-Sarmatian branch.
Croatia/West Balkan (Sipar, Sveti Križ, Scitarjevo, Hypo Banka it is 1 : 3

If we combine Hungary vs. Balkan (Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece), we get for the combined Z5018+Z5017 vs. rest:

Hungary 9 : 1
Balkan 2 : 9

The exact opposite! And the two samples from Croatia and Serbia are likely arrivals from a Northern region themselves. The same might apply, to some degree, to the Central European samples, like e.g. Alt Inden (Germany) which don't fall into that category.
We can therefore assume that there was a massive E-V13 block, dominated by Z5018+Z5017, to the North of the Central Balkans, either at or North of the Danube, presumably with a centre in Romania and associated with the Dacians.

Therefore we have a clear pattern for Central Europe (Hungary, Poland, Czechia) vs. Balkans (Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria) up to the Roman period.

The only other sample group with a dominance of E-Z5017+5018 are the Himerans with 1:0, and again, their autosomal profile puts them into a more Northern spot and relatively closer to Mezocsat-Gáva. They won't have been from a population all too South of the Danube, in the Central-East Balkans, which fits into the whole pattern.

For the critics: Indeed, there is a lack of Balkan samples so far, but why this odd ratio, especially in comparison to the Central European samples? Just compare: https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/E-V13/tree

[Riverman]

I did sort the most relevant samples we got up to now by EEF percentage and group - note that we can be pretty sure that Mezocsat-Gáva had E-V13, especially since the succesor group of Sanislau-Eastern Vekerzug being highly likely represented by the individual samples in Chotin, Slovakia - since both Gáva and the Sanislau group did cremate their dead, this find is exceptional. The Mezocsat-Gáva locals are all females, otherwise, with a larger sample, I'm highly confident some E-V13 would have popped up.

Therefore we see a tripartition of the Carpatho-Balkan E-V13 sphere, which are extremely likely to represent Daco-Thracians ethnically:
- Northern Late Gáva group, which transformed into first Mezocsat ("Prescythians" = Thraco-Cimmerians), then with the Scythian influence into Vekerzug (primarily Eastern Vekerzug, Sanislau group being full scale in the Gáva tradition, cremated their dead, produced similar pottery still etc.)
- Central group, most likely representing Basarabi - we see a decrease of WHG by about half, while the steppe percentage stays largely the same. The most likely explanation is a heavy mixture with local North-Central Balkan people (like Belegis I, Brnjica etc.) at the exclusion of the Danubian block (Encrusted Pottery, Monteoru). Such selective mixtures took place multiple times, e.g. Corded Ware did mix way more with GAC people than with other Copper Age communities they encountered. A primary reason for this might have been the cultural affinity of groups like Belegis and other cremating Central Balkan groups to Gáva.
- Southern group, with a decrease of both WHG and steppe, presumably do to heavy admixture with Mycenaean Greek-like and Anatolian people, including Anatolian backflow from the Thracian colonies in West Asia (note especially the spread of Anatolian Grey ware in the late phase of Psenichevo/post-Psenichevo)

There are samples in between, like the Eastern La Tene outlier and the Moldovan. The later from the Scythian period likely represents an individual half-way between post-Psenichevo and Basarabi, which would make sense insofar, since both strains encountered and mixed with each other in Moldova.

The Pannonian LBA samples we got so far look like being closer to Kyjatice and not representing the core of Gáva, which appears way more clearly with the Mezocsat and Eastern Vekerzug samples.

Here is the G25 of these most important samples up to now:



https://ibb.co/pZg1Lph

[Riverman]

To the question of whether E-V13 was the lineage of the Proto-Thracians: In short yes. Reasoning and background of the evolution: 

I say they were the original Proto-Thracians, but not the Pre-Pre-Proto-Thracians to put it that way - an absurd construct of an word, but its what this is about. We deal with a Cernavoda branch which moved into the Carpatho-Danube zone, Decea Mureşului is a probably one of the most important sites and known groups of this process. Now clearly, the steppe element which moved in, from Cernavoda-Usatovo related, corded decorated ceramics using Western steppe tribes, which first moved into Tripolye-Cucuteni territory, then into the Carpathians and Northern Balkans, were of course not E-V13 dominated.

But this kind of hybrid culture, with an IE dialect, was an hybrid of this incoming IE and local Copper Age groups (like Tripolye-Cucuteni, Petresti, Eastern Bodrogkeresztur, Northern Gumelnita etc.). The most likely haplogroup of the steppe people was R1a and I2. Therefore the original speakers were R1a - and they would be still R1a if either Füzesabony-Otomani or Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni brought Pre-Proto-Thracian.

So we deal with a general Western IE dialect group in Cotofeni, which emerged from this fusion of steppe and locals, from which Pre-Thracian evolved. As soon as they reached the Pre-Thracian stage, which is when they split from other groups of this Western IE continuum, E-V13 is extremely likely to have been on board.

For once, I repeat again, E-V13 had its biggest bottleneck, when it almost went extinct, exactly when Yamnaya raided and nearly destroyed Cotofeni around 2.800 BC. The E-V13 phylogeny is really interesting, because there is potentially an earlier split around 3.000 BC, but the groups which split off are one very North Western branch, E-BY6550:

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/E-V13/tree

All the others approach very clearly the date of the Yamnaya invasion. The next oldest is one of the main Balkan branches: E-PH1246

The vast majority of E-V13 however stems from E-CTS5856 with a TMRCA of about 2.400 BC, so well after the Yamnaya invasion. Even E-PH1246 really grows afterwards.

So an absolutely crucial date for E-V13 is:
- Survival of the Yamnaya invasion, presumably within Cotofeni around 3.000-2.700 BC
- A period with survival, but nothing more. We might deal with a very small population between about 2.800-2.400 BC
- From 2.400 BC, we get a stable growth, especially of the main trunk branch of E-CTS5856
- There is a huge peak of growth in the Transitional Period, from about 1.300-900 BC, coinciding with the spread of Channelled Ware in the Carpathian, Western steppe and Balkan zone, but reaching further.

Chances of finding E-V13 before 2.400 BC are very thin and all groups in between 2.400-1.300 BC, which are of relevance, did regularly cremate their dead. So we can only hope for irregular burials and neighbours assmilating E-V13 individuals, like the Vekerzug individual from Chotin, which clearly comes from the Eastern group which cremated their dead. Probably the individual comes from a family which assimilated into one of the Western clans which preferred inhumation.

One of the most important groups to consider around 2.400 BC is very clearly Nyirseg (also related term and group Sanislau = the same name and site which was inhabited by cremating groups in Vekerzug, from which the Chotin indivdual came from!).

Nyirseg is No 6 on this map:


https://indo-european.eu/wp-content/uplo...-maros.jpg

Why is Nyirseg so important? Because they have the traditions which later appear in Wietenberg and Eastern Otomani, in Suciu de Sus and Igrita etc., in Gáva and beyond, in most later Daco-Thracians, already. They cremated their dead and either used urns or even more often scattered the ashes.

We have some samples to their West (No. 4, ancestors of Encrusted Pottery) and to their South (No. 7, Maros culture), and both were different, had different haplogroups.

Up to the wider Urnfield phenomenon, the borderline for the strict cremation rite was always the Tisza - East of the Tisza, Transtisza, is the homeland:

The cremation custom, which is most often associated with the local milieu in the barrows in eastern Slovakia, has in fact no direct forerunners, contemporaries or successors. After the graves of the Lažňany group, there were later only individual cremation graves of the Baden culture (Bracovce, Hanušovce, Sefia). The graves from the Nyírség-Zatín group, which could be considered as practicing cremation, are so far unknown from eastern Slovakia [this is now corrected; see below]. At the same time, the cremation rite became indigenous to the Lubaczów and Upper Dniester groups.

https://indo-european.eu/2020/10/east-sl...he-graves/

The core zone of Nyirseg, Eastern Otomani (Gyulvarvarsand), Suciu de Sus, Lapus and earliest developed Gáva is nearly identical. And they all practised cremation as their regular burial rite. Nyirseg was influenced by Vucedol, Mako and Rosia (there will be a Rosia sample in the upcoming Transylvanian paper):

However,
this issue is far from resolved: knowing that the Nyírség style was to a large extent inspired by
Vučedol wares, it seems most unlikely that the potters of the Nyírség culture were unfamiliar with
interior decorated bowls.

What older authors of the past thought about the complex:

He defined the Kosihy–Čaka group as a regional group of
what he termed the “spätäneolitische Kulturkomplex”, an umbrella term for the Nyírség/Makó/
Zatín/Bošáca/Jevišovice/ěivnač/Melk cultures. Each regional group of this Late Eneolithic cultural
complex had evolved on a local (predominantly late Baden) substratum under cultural impacts of the
Vučedol culture and other Balkanic–Anatolian cultures.

The Nyirseg people were cattle breeders:

Similar proportions can be noted on the sites of the Nyírség culture: a dominance of cattle, followed by pig,caprinae, a few dogs and horses: Dani (1999) 66–67; Vörös (1999) 74. The ratio of wild species and fi sh is
very low

The list of related ceramic treatments includes practically all candidates of relevance:

This type of roughening was applied to some bowls too. Some
vessels of this type were decorated with combed patterns in combination with roughening. Surface
treatment of this type, generally applied during the Early Bronze Age 1–2 in the Carpathian Basin,
has good analogies in the late Vučedol culture, the neighbouring Somogyvár–Vinkovci culture, the
Glina III (IV)–Schneckenberg group distributed in Transylvania and Wallachia, in various smaller
cultures of Transylvania (Livezile, Şoimuş, Iernut and Jigodin groups), in the Nyírség culture and in
the Corded Ware culture of Moravia

Only two are out (Somogyvar-Vinkovci and Corded Ware from Moravia). The first being rather ancestral to Encrusted Pottery, all the more interesting that while there were similarities, there are also differences:

The plain, undecorated variants of these bowls appear in both Somogyvár–Vinkovci andMakó–Kosihy–Čaka assemblages. Interestingly enough, they are absent from the ceramic inventory
of the Roşia and Nyírség groups, even though these groups demonstrably maintained contact with
the Makó–Kosihy–Čaka and Somogyvár–Vinkovci cultures.

Here we see again a difference to the Transtisza groups (Nyirseg and Rosia), at the same time being all connected to the North Balkans as well:

https://www.academia.edu/2523227/The_Beg...apest_2009

The appearance of Nyirseg might fall into time frame the first stable, significant growth of E-V13 took place (starting about 2.100 BC, but especially in the MBA, with Otomani-Gyulavarsand and Wietenberg):

Thus EBA I (2600/2500–~2150 BC) covers the lifetimes of the Makó‑Kosihy‑Čaka, Somogyvár‑Vinkovci, proto‑Nagyrév
Cultures as well as the Bell Beaker Csepel Group. EBA II (~2150– ~ 1900 BC) comprises the early
period of expansion of the Nagyrév, early Maros, Nyírség, Hatvan Cultures, as well as the
Encrusted Pottery Culture in Transdanubia (Szabó 2017). It is my conviction that this new
chronology of the Early Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin should be taken into account as
it simplifies the relative chronology and is corroborated by the new AMS data.
Based on the 14 C data published for a series of sites, such as Wietenberg sites in Central
Transylvania, Otomani‑Gyulavarsánd sites in North‑Western Transylvania and North‑Eastern
Transylvania, and the Füzesabony‑Otomani Culture sites in Slovakia, Zsolt Molnár assert‑
ed that ‘the MB I period can be placed in the 2070–1890 BC interval, the MB II phase in the
1910–1730 BC interval, while the MB III phase can be dated to the 1760–1530 BC chronological
segment’ (Molnár – Ciută 2017). In general, this corresponds to the abovementioned chrono‑
logical scheme

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...r_15_Years


We have of course no sampling from any of the truly relevant Transtisza groups.

[Riverman]

On the various Channelled-Stamped Ware expansions into Moldova, starting with Gáva-Holigrady, Belegis iI-Gáva/Chisinau-Corlateni, Psenichevo-Babadag, Basarabi:

Early Holihrady Hallstatt culture in the regions
from the eastern Carpathians and from the Western Podolia
(cca 1200 - cca 800 (?) a. Chr.), related to the culture with
G?va grooved pottery, originating in the Carpathian basin,
forming all together the so-called block
cultural G?va-Holihrady-Grăniceşti (Свєшнiков
1964, 40 et seq .; Смирнова 1969, 7-33; idem 1976,
18 pcs .; idem 1990; Крушельницька 1990; idem
1993, 56 et seq .; Malev 1981; Крушельницкая,
Малеев 1990, 123 et seq.).

Early Hallstatt culture Chisinau-Corlateni
(c. 1200 - cca 900 BC) from the region of
The forest-steppe of the Dniester-Siret River is connected
of the culture with grooved pottery type Belegi? II
from the Middle Danube basin (L?szl? 1994; Leviţki
1994а; Sava, Levitsky 1995, 157 et seq.).

Tămăoani-Holercani cultural group with ceramics
engraved and polished (ca. 1100 - ca. 1000 BC),
known in the area between Siret and Dniester, in the area
of the confluence of the steppe with the forest-steppe, represents the periphery
north and northeast of the cultural block of
at the Lower Danube Babadag I-Tămăoani-Holercani
(and the Balta group on the left bank of the Dniester) (H?nsel
1976, 122 et seq .; L?szl? 1986, 65 et seq .; Levitski 1994b,
219 et seq .; Vanchovov 1993, 28-39; Nicic 2008).

Early Hallstattian culture Cozia-Saharna with
incised and stamped pottery (approx. 1000 - approx
800 BC) from the forest-steppe region of interfl
the Dniester-Siret River represents the eastern limit of
of the Eastern Balkan cultural bloc
P?eničevo II-Babadag II (H?nsel 1976, 134
et al .; L?szl? 1989, 111 et seq .; Kashuba 2000, 255 et seq .;
Niculiţă, Zanoci, Arnăut 2008).

Middle Hallstatt culture Soldanesti (c. 800
- cca 700 a. Chr.) 1, widespread in the southern region
of the Middle Dniester basin, is a component part
of the Basarabi cultural complex, which
originates in the Middle Danube area (Мелюкова
1958, 64-76; 1979апушнян 1979; Гольцева, Кашуба
1995, 32-37; Kaşuba 2008a, 37-50)

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aur...rpatic.png

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...0_p_49-102

These were all closely interconnected cultures, all based on Channelled Ware forerunners of the Carpatho-Balkan cremation block.

[Riverman]

The fading unified Channelled Ware horizon being successively replaced by Stamped Pottery in the Southern-Eastern zone of expansion in the Balkans-Moldova, However, Channelled Ware traditions were kept alive, especially and most notably in Psenichevo, which basically still copies pieces in the Gáva style.

After Channelled Ware, the routes of communications completely shifted from Aegean-Anatolian in the Mycenaean period to Transylvania as the centre of production and redistribution:

From the point of view of the objects’ provenance, with the exception of several socketed axes,
considered to be of local production, almost all the other items have perfect analogies in hoards from
Hungary and Transylvania. This situation seems a little bit different compared to the Late Bronze Age
(Bronze D), when these depositions contain types of objects from Danubian workshops (socketed axes
of Oinac type, sickles a patte) or North Pontic workshops (the sickles from the Constanţa hoard – Kurčanskij
type after Dergačev and Bočkarev 2006), the Transylvanian imports being almost nonexistent (Ailincăi
2013b; 2016b). The metal objects found in Early Iron Age sites with stamped pottery indicate various
routes of circulation for both merchandise and ideas. They are characterised by variety and represent a
sign of contacts over longer distances. Although most objects are of Transylvanian origin, others, such as
knotted fibulae, indicate also at least some contacts with Aegean Greece and even Western Anatolia (e.g. Kašuba 2006; 2008a).

The area of Psenichevo was therefore between the Carpathian basin and the Aegean-Anatolian sphere. Which is, probably, highly important if assessing the autosomal composition of the E-V13 rich post-Psenichevo samples from sites mentionedi in this paper, like Svilengrad.

The chronology of the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in South-Eastern Europe is based above all on the analysis of correlations with the Aegean, the most important proving to be sites such as Troy, Assiros or Kastanas, where pottery and other objects of Balkan origin are present in association with local ones. Conventionally, the Iron Age in the Balkans begins with the first iron objects and corresponds in general lines with the introduction of channelled pottery of Gáva type (12th century BC) (Berciu and Petrescu-Dîmboviţa 1960; Zaharia and Morintz 1965). For the chronology of the Early Iron Age stamped pottery from the Carpathian-Danube area, of the most importance are the stratigraphy of the site from Babadag, the connections with other cultural milieus and the elements of absolute chronology 

The two main groups of importance (Psenichevo and Basarabi) continued to use knobs and channels in the Gáva tradition beside stamped-incised motifs:

The resemblances with finds from the level VII b2 from Troy made Morintz include this first phase in the second half of the 11th century BC. The second phase was marked by the presence of stamped motifs, in association with incised motifs. This second phase was parallelised with the Protogeometric, the Mediaş horizon from Transylvania, and also groups with stamped pottery, being dated on general lines to the 10th -9th centuries BC. The third phase was considered contemporaneous with the Basarabi phenomenon, being characterised by pottery decoration mainly with channelled motifs (Morintz 1964; 1987; Jugănaru 2005).

The very idea of stamped decorations causing a complete break with the ealier Channelled  Ware horizon is just wrong.

In fact, the three ornamentation techniques (incision, stamping and channelling) are associated in closed complexes and habitation levels, being contemporaneous. Even more, the types of decoration and the manner of execution seem to be associated with specific categories of vessels rather than representing a chronological evolution (Ailincăi 2011; 2016a).

The research conducted during the last few decades evidences the existence of a horizon with channelled pottery, of Gáva tradition, preceding and then co-existing, in different areas, with the stamped pottery sites. The appearance of the channelled pottery, both in the intra-Carpathian space and outside, before the 12th century BC is already sustained by the absolute chronology [...]
The ulterior co-existence of the two ceramic horizons is attested also by the finds of stamped pottery in sites with classical Gáva pottery (Morintz 1964; Alexandrescu and Pop 1970; Hänsel 1976; Muscă 1980; Mihai 1983, 439-446; Chicideanu 1999-2001; Kalli 2017; Gábor 2017), as well as by the existence of sites with mixed pottery, such as those from Rasova or Bucu (Renţa 2008), on the Lower Danube (Ailincăi 2013b; 2016b).

The main reason for the shift being the Cimmerian invasion and the Belozerka influence form mixed Channelled Ware-Cimmerian groups, which moved down from Moldova and spread along the Danube first, which helped the shift to more incision based motifs. But the base was everywhere Channelled Ware.

As could be noticed, in less than a century this pottery decoration fashion spread all over the area studied, this situation showing the speed with which this ceramic tradition covered a vast territory. If at Troy the coarse ware is associated with the arrival of a new population of Balkan origin, a fact attested to by chemical analyses (Guzowska et al. 2002; Pintér 2005; Aslan and Hnila 2015; Hnila 2012), in the Carpathian-Balkan space this style seems to have spread quite rapidly through several communication routes, following the Black Sea coast or the passes of the Balkan Mountains – Danube – Prut – Dniestr – Dniepr, as the mapping of the finds indicates (Fig. 1). The existence of this horizon with incised and stamped pottery contrasts to a certain degree with the horizon with channelled pottery, with which it co-exists and interferes during the 10th -9th centuries BC. The interesting fact is that this contrast is preserved also in many other domains of material and spiritual manifestation, in the funerary rites and rituals, settlement types, metallurgy, clay objects, metal deposition etc. These observations make us believe that the choices of those communities were not random, but based on a series of shared values and beliefs facilitating an increased interaction. In our opinion, this increased interaction contributed to the creation of such homogenous pottery styles (Plog 1980) over such vast areas, as well as to the circulation of ideas, techniques and objects in the entire Carpathian-Balkan space. Proof of this are the numerous existing contacts both with the Aegean and Western Anatolia, and the intra-Carpathian and North-Pontic areas. This tendency to adopting and level a ceramic style over such a large space is preserved and even amplified later, with the appearance of the Basarabi phenomenon, which coincides both with the creation of a new symbolism and the generalisation of iron metallurgy in the Carpathian-Balkan area.

The Stamped Pottery was the result of fusing influences from Channelled Ware (Eastern Carpathian basin), the steppe (Belozerka, Cimmerian) and the Aegean-Anatolian sphere. The connection was established by the expansion of Channelled Ware itself, and kept alive in the vast Southern block afterwards.

The paper offers examples of pottery from the Stamped Pottery groups, the style of Psenichevo is the most reminiscent of Gáva, very clearly so, note especially the knobs, proportions and channelling motifs:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...rpretation

[Riverman]

Basarabi spread along the Danube as far as Bavaria and Austria, through Eastern Hallstatt. We have evidence for Basarabi migrants (warriors, artisans, brides and their entourage etc.) in Frög in particular.


I think there won't be one big spread of E-V13 to the West, but multiple ones, begining with Urnfield network migrations from Gáva.


One of the more important seems to have been Vekerzug, La Tene backflow and the Dacians, with Daco-Roman and Dacian tribal resettlements.


E.g. the people of Birdoswald, the Dacian soldiers stationed there, were likely E-V13 dominated and their descendants could account for some E-V13 branches in Britain:

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visi...irdsowald/


A lot of the E-V13 in Italy has a La Tene to very Early Roman period TMRCA, together with Britain, and oftentimes overlapping with the East as well (like with samples from Hungary, Slovakia, Romania etc.).


So it really looks that a significant portion of the Italian E-V13 is of Celtic-Dacian origin. This being best proven by the huge Sardinian sample. Just go through the Sardinian samples (all from the huge scientific paper on Sardinia) and their TMRCA's - most are likely to come from Genua, in Liguria, the Genuese region, E-V13 being in a fairly high frequency. A notable example for North Western Italians being Garibaldi.

Unfortunately the Genuese aren't well tested, but the Sardinians are, just check E-Z5018 and E-Z5017 Sardinian samples on FTDNA:

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/E-Z5018/tree


Particularly interesting in this respect is e.g. E-Z21291, with the new sample from Fonyod.


We therefore have direct evidence of a Hungarian Late Roman/Iron Age sample, from which an English and Sardinian branch split off. Other subbranches of E-Z21291 are from Czechia, Greece and Russia.


The Sardinians split at 250 BC, so we can assume they were in Italy at least 300 BC.


The logical conclusion is La Tene backflow, a spread with Celts. The Hungarian being at the root of E-Z21291, around 700-600 BC. This is ideal for Vekerzug. Vekerzug being the successor of Mezocsat-Gáva, especially the Eastern, cremating Sanislau group.


Therefore this is a perfect example of:

Vekerzug-Sanislau -> Late Hallstatt-La Tene Celts, spread into Italy before 300 BC.

[corrigendum]

Therefore we see a tripartition of the Carpatho-Balkan E-V13 sphere, which are extremely likely to represent Daco-Thracians ethnically:

Moving my reply to Riverman:

There is no "tripartition" of any "Carpatho-Balkan E-V13 sphere" simply because these groups are not related to each other. Clinality has to do with a gradual shift in ancestral components in a scenario where one is reduced and the other is increased. When you have 3 different components (steppe, ANF, WHG ancestries) which change radically from population to population there is no gradual shift, no clinality. Drawing lines which cover half of Europe isn't a cline.

These 4 groups are not in cline with each other:

The Himerans and Kapitan Andreevo show clinality but this is not because of some "Carpatho-Balkan" clinality but because both belong to the Balkan cline on opposite sides (Kapitan Andreevo near the southern (Aegean) cluster and the Himera near the Illyrian cluster). Mezocsat and Kyjatice have no clinality between them. They are just central European populations but these autosomal clusters have no relation to Balkan ones and more importantly you can't derive one from the other via the gradation of a component.

If one adds all other populations covered in Riverman's cline, it becomes apparent that what's being described is not a cline but half of Europe. There is as much "clinality" between Mezocsat and Kapitan Andreevo as there is between Mezocsat and Illyrians and between Kyjatice and Mycenaeans and even between Tumulus Culture groups and Kapitan Andreevo.

This is what it looks like once all populations are added. There is no clinality in this case other than the fact that we're dealing with ... populations of Europe. In terms of modern geographical areas, this supposed cline covers all profiles from the Netherlands to the Aegean.

[corrigendum]

Data from medieval Transylvania (moving from genarchivist.freeforums.net):

The aDNA study from 16th century Pericei, Transylvania (northwest Romania) published the first medieval/post-medieval samples not just from Transylvania, but from Romania as a whole. The only sample which we had so far came from Southern Arc and belonged to a high eastern steppe individual.

The sample size is small (although still larger than most areas of the medieval Balkans) but what is missing is E-V13 and other Paleo-Balkan haplogroups which Romanians (~10-12% E-V13/ ~5% J-L283) brought to the region when they moved northwards. This settlement always had and still has a Hungarian majority, so it's expected that such haplogroups will have a lower distribution among non-Romanians. The implication is of course that E-V13 didn't play any demographically significant role in these areas before late migrations northwards.

[corrigendum]

A lot of the E-V13 in Italy has a La Tene to very Early Roman period TMRCA, together with Britain, and oftentimes overlapping with the East as well (like with samples from Hungary, Slovakia, Romania etc.).


So it really looks that a significant portion of the Italian E-V13 is of Celtic-Dacian origin. This being best proven by the huge Sardinian sample.

You are inferring information about the geographical location of clades in the past based on their modern locations. This is methodologically incorrect.

The aDNA record doesn't show that a "significant portion of Italian E-V13 is of Celtic-Dacian origin". The IA E-V13 samples from Himera, Sicily are presumably just west-central Balkan profiles, and they're not what one might consider to be "Celto-Dacian".

There are also two samples from late antiquity/early medieval Rome:

Rome, central Italy, 400-600 CE:

R107
Italy_LA.SG:R107.SG,0.118376,0.148267,-0.006034,-0.033915,0.020311,-0.019243,-0.006345,-0.003692,0.010431,0.025878,-0.001949,0.004046,-0.004608,0.003441,-0.00665,-0.005304,0.008866,-0.00076,-0.00088,0.006878,0.000374,0.001484,0.009983,0.00494,-0.000479

Target: Italy_LA.SG:R107.SG
Distance: 2.5257% / 0.02525726
54.4 TUR_Barcin_N
25.4 Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
10.2 Israel_Natufian
7.4 GEO_CHG
2.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2_I8728
0.6 WHG

Distance to: Italy_LA.SG:R107.SG
0.02414560 Italian_Apulia
0.02477884 Italian_Abruzzo
0.02500317 Italian_Basilicata
0.02604876 Italian_Campania
0.02754230 Italian_Marche
0.02816541 Greek_Apulia
0.02825966 Greek_South_Tsakonia
0.02856915 Italian_Umbria
0.02906748 Italian_Molise


Piedmont, northwestern Italy, 580-630 CE:

CL38
Italy_North_EarlyMedieval_Langobards_3:CL38,0.100164,0.14319,-0.01697,-0.05491,0.004616,-0.011435,-0.004465,-0.006,-0.003886,0.015672,0.003085,0.006744,-0.006095,-0.004542,-0.013572,-0.003182,0.004563,0.00038,-0.003897,-0.000375,0.003619,0.007666,-0.002958,0.007953,0.010897

Target: Italy_North_EarlyMedieval_Langobards_3:CL38
Distance: 2.8039% / 0.02803927
50.2 TUR_Barcin_N
16.6 Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
13.0 GEO_CHG
11.8 Israel_Natufian
8.2 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N
0.2 Han

Distance to: Italy_North_EarlyMedieval_Langobards_3:CL38
0.02699630 Greek_Kos
0.02791665 Greek_Dodecanese_Rhodes
0.02806734 Greek_Crete
0.02848391 Greek_Crete_Lasithi
0.02904599 Italian_Calabria
0.02908877 Greek_Dodecanese
0.03073418 Ashkenazi_Germany
0.03076571 Greek_Cyclades_Amorgos
0.03084933 Italian_Campania
0.03091443 Greek_Crete_Heraklion
0.03134585 Romaniote_Jew

The aDNA record shows that the earliest E-V13 samples in Italy tend to have either a Balkan or an east Med-shifted profile, but not a central European-like profile.

If one hypothesized that somehow "Celto-Dacians" brought a significant portion of E-V13 in Italy, wouldn't at least the profile of the single E-V13 found in Maslomecz, just north of the Carpathians be close to what one might consider "Celto-Dacian"?

No:



He definitely came from a very southern area. Hence, the bottom line is that the claim that a "significant portion of Italian E-V13 comes from Celto-Dacians" goes directly against available aDNA data. My opinion is that E-V13 in Italy is mostly related to various migrations from the Balkans in different periods.

[Riverman]

Those in Roman territory did mix with people with an "Imperial Roman" profile, which included Levantine admixture. That's how they acquired it. E.g. in the larger Viminacium sample is an E-V13 indivduals which is heavily Levantine shifted, whereas the great majority is of local Balkan Iron Age stock, either more Northern (Dacian and Celto-Dacian) or Southern (South Thracian) branch, with very little increase of CHG-Iranian.
That single heavily Levantine shifted individual is the result of Levantine "Roman" migrants (administration, soldiers, traders, slaves etc. and their families) to the Danube provinces intermarrying with locals. He is a complete outlier from the rest of the E-V13 carrying individuals on the site. But of course, in Rome itself, such mixtures wouldn't be outliers, because how long do you think a Dacian or Thracian lineage would have remained unmixed in the city of Rome?

As for the Transylvanian sample, that's just 7 lineages of mostly German background plus one from the steppe. You will get higher percentages from German migrants to the region than 0, let alone from locals of Huingarian, Vlach and Ruthenian stock.
Once we get larger samples, your argument will just falter.

Also, we do know that there was continuous Dacian population in the area, up to the later migration period. But not afterwards. The locals either moved out, were annihilated or assimlated by the incoming Slavs. Mostly the first I guess, which is why I would search for local lineages rather among Ruthenians, than Germans and Hungarians. Even more so in Ruthenians than in Vlachs, which immigrated too.
North Western Transylvania has a strong Slavic substrate, most closely related to Ruthenian. Therefore I expect the oldest local lineages to be found in Ruthenians. And of course the people which assimilated them.

[corrigendum]

Those in Roman territory did mix with people with an "Imperial Roman" profile, which included Levantine admixture. That's how they acquired it. E.g. in the larger Viminacium sample is an E-V13 indivduals which is heavily Levantine shifted, whereas the great majority is of local Balkan Iron Age stock, either more Northern (Dacian and Celto-Dacian) or Southern (South Thracian) branch, with very little increase of CHG-Iranian.

I think that you're missing the point here.

The Balkan + East Med profile could only be produced in the Balkans (south of the Danube), but nowhere in Dacia or the north Carpathians and it's certainly not related to any Celtic-like profile. The Viminacium individuals can't have any Dacian or Celto-Dacian profile because almost all samples who are part of the Balkan cline range from IA Croatia to IA Bulgaria, so their profiles will range from the E-V13 in IA Croatia to the E-V13 in IA Bulgaria, which again points to the Balkans. The Maslomecz individual came from such an area, but he didn't originate from the Costoboci (variously described as Dacian and Celtic) who lived between the Carpathians and the Dniester.

The point is that all of these profiles in Italy come from the Balkans or they show typical Imperial Roman admixture, but they don't come from ... any Celto-Dacian groups in Transylvania or anywhere else and they don't show some admixture which would point to such a profile. You can certainly claim that you believe that as we get more samples, your theory will be shown to be correct but this is different from claiming that this statement is a fact. As such, it is unfounded to claim that "a large portion of E-V13 in Italy came from Celto-Dacians" when there's not a single such sample in the aDNA record of Italy.

[rafc]

I would be very surprised if people living north of the Danube had a radically different profile than those living south of it, though.

[Riverman]

I would be very surprised if people living north of the Danube had a radically different profile than those living south of it, though.

That's the point he is constantly missing. Basarabi was living up to Transylvania and even the pre-Basarabi Gáva descendants were not that radically different. The Chotin Vekerzug E-V13 is just between those Mezocsat-Gáva and Himera, and Himera being still closer to Mezocsat-Gáva than Southern Thracians!

What kind of "West Balkan" people is supposed to be so homogeneous and contributing two different E-V13 lineages? The next big thing is the R-Z93 and E-V13 with a Caucasian profile, which proves the backflow of Noua-Sabatinovka/Srubna R-Z93 people with E-V13 to the Caucasus.

The latter are more puzzling and being rarely mentioned, but they might prove that both the Himeran Central Balkan like and the Himeran Caucasus-like individuals were mercenaries from the wider Scytho-Thracian world of that time.

I'm also pretty sure that if the two Central Balkan Himerans would have buried to their own customs, they would have been cremated.

It is the same story as it is with the Tollense people, only because of the extraordinary circumstances we got them at all and thousands of other burials being lost due to cremation.

[Riverman]

The Southern Psenichevo-Babadag and Bosut-Basarabi sphere of influence, which evolved from Southern Channelled Ware, being also characterised by the typical kantharoi - an older Balkan tradition, to which channels as decoration being added. Here is the map, note how close it mirrors the potential early E-V13 high concentration zones:



The combination of the typical pottery plus cremation is characteristic. The Illyrian groups which were just influenced usually stuck with inhumation. 

Regardless of Gáva being E-V13 or not, the Danube was no border for E-V13, but a communication route in the Iron Age.

In Ha C the almost exclusive burial rite in the mentioned barrow cemeteries is cremation. Sometimes several individuals are buried within one burial like in
S?tt? (Vad?sz 1983) or Vaskeresztes (Fekete 1985). Weapons and horse-gear for
a symbolic wagon with two horses is a regular feature, although it seems that due to the burial rite of cremation and the burning of personal belongings on the pyre together with the deceased a lot of information is being lost by deliberate destruction.

https://www.academia.edu/35174707/At_the...statt_East

Since the people in much of Transylvania and Moldova were the same kind of mix of Gáva-Psenichevo-Basarabi, there is absolutely no reason they were fundamentally different from the Dacians at the Danube. And its not arguable to say that E-V13 stopped at the Danube and had to be brought there by some sort of "Romans".

On the contrary, there was a massive backflow when Dacia was emptied and the Daco-Romans resettled South of the Danube. That brought thousands and thousands of E-V13 carriers in under- and depopulation North Balkan provinces (Dacia and Moesia in particular). A fresh reinforcement came with resettled tribal Dacians, especially Carpi people.
A lot of the structure in areas like Viminacium might be explained by a small minority of Southern Thracians, a lot of Daco-Roman mixed individuals and freshly arriving, most typically "Balkan IA" Dacians.

[corrigendum]

A lot of the structure in areas like Viminacium might be explained by a small minority of Southern Thracians, a lot of Daco-Roman mixed individuals and freshly arriving, most typically "Balkan IA" Dacians.

Nope, nothing suggests that about Viminacium. They just range between IA Croatia and IA Bulgaria.


The map you posted is irrelevant to E-V13 or to any a particular archaeological culture.

I would be very surprised if people living north of the Danube had a radically different profile than those living south of it, though.

Just north of the Danube in Serbia, possibly (as a result of southern movements) but north of the Danube in Romania I think that we'll see a substantial increase in WHG ancestry and a reduction of ANF ancestry in the LBA/EIA as we move closer to the Carpathians (closer to the Maros group). In the Roman era, as the Roman border moved within Hungary more Balkan profiles moved northwards.

My point towards Riverman is that the "Celto-Dacian" profiles he considers to represent a "big portion" of E-V13 in Italy didn't have clinality with Balkan populations, but with central European ones and they certainly didn't look like people from the southern Balkans.