A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations

[Bukva_]

Regarding the West Slavic linguistic continuum between Poland and Slovenia, it is worth adding that Pannonian-Slavic was a West Slavic dialect. Today it remains as a Slavic substrate of the Hungarian language.

It seems pretty obvious that they were weakened by the Franks and Hungarians, when they cut them off. However, its sometimes being said that the Croats as an ally of the Franks came in rather from the North than the South too. Which makes me wonder about the Croat position. But like ph2ter pointed out recently, Croats are diverse among themselves. Yet I still wondered about their absence from these branches.

I am I2-A815 and this branch was prominent in Pohansko in 850. Today there are five Y-DNA tested Croats from this branch (1 from Split, 1 from Gorski Kotar, 1 from Karlovac, 1 from Varaždin, 1 is Vojvodina Croat).

I believe that such West Slavic branches were more frequent in Croatia before Turkish conquests. There is even one Slovak with Croatian origin that is also A815 and he came to Slovakia in times of Turkish conquest according to his family tradition. The part of Croatia which was under Turkish occupation experienced big population changes. The hinterland Vlachs became dominant and they were obviously in majority PH908.

I-A815 from Slovakia, he's surname was of lower nobility in Jezerski near Cazin.

[Cascio]

Do we have any information on the genetic structure of the Rit necropolis samples?

[corrigendum]

One of the two E-V13 samples with Anatolian profiles in Viminacium are in the same (now quite rare) clade as one of the southeast Thracians from Kapitan Andreevo: E-BY5490 . They belong to parallel subclades which diverged from each other ca. 1500 BCE. 

Given the location of Kapitan Andreevo close to northwest Anatolia, it's quite likely that E-BY5490 from Viminacium is actually from the same region, perhaps a Bithynian Thracian.

[Riverman]

One of the two E-V13 samples with Anatolian profiles in Viminacium are in the same (now quite rare) clade as one of the southeast Thracians from Kapitan Andreevo: E-BY5490 . They belong to parallel subclades which diverged from each other ca. 1500 BCE. 

Given the location of Kapitan Andreevo close to northwest Anatolia, it's quite likely that E-BY5490 from Viminacium is actually from the same region, perhaps a Bithynian Thracian.

If they split 1.500 BC, that's before the major expansion events for E-V13 in the LBA-MIA and means very little in itself. But the combination of an West Asian shifted profile with the rarity makes a more South Eastern, so very South Eastern Thracian or even Anatolian Thracian, like you suggested, likely. Good catch.

[Radko]

Genetic history of Slovenia (unpublished).

Conclusions:

1. High variation during late Roman sites (c. 3rd to 5th cent.)
- diversity centred on southern Europe
- however, many outliers
- PCA outliers have non-trivial African ancestry

2. Less variation (but similar ancestry) in earlier post-Roman sites (c. 5th to 6th cent.)
- distribution remains centred around southern Europe
- fewer outliers overall
- some cluster with the Caucasus
- but most with present-day southern European populations
- no significant African ancestry, some individuals with some Asian ancestry instead

3. Chronological gap in the 7th to 8th centuries (only one site, n=5)

4. In the 9th-10th century, we see a sudden shift to ancestry associated with northeast Europe
- communities now largely cluster with more north-eastern populations
- everyone fits with European variation
- Asian/African gene flow gone

EAA 2024 abstract...

„What have the Romans ever done for us?” Multi isotope dataset from Late Antique and Early Medieval Slovenia

In recent decades, isotope research in bioarchaeology has described a very distinctive arc. A promising and revolutionary discipline in the early 2000s, it has gradually shown its potential over the past decades. However, as the technology became more mature by the 2020s, its limitations became increasingly apparent. In this process, in which isotope studies have sought links with archaeology and other bioarchaeological methods, the Central and Eastern European region has unfortunately only taken a limited part. In the present study, we aim to add to the hitherto modest knowledge base with more than 200 Sr and more than 300 C/N data from three Slovenian regions, namely the areas including Ljubljana and Celje and the Vipava River Valley, and to open new perspectives for joint paleogenomic, archaeological and cultural-historical interpretation.
Our results, although limited in themselves, combined with the results of genomic analysis, support a narrative that reconstructs the continued existence of the local population in the nearby highland settlements as the late Roman centres in present-day Slovenia were depopulated following the decline of Roman rule. On one side, evidence for this is provided by the homogeneity of human Sr data, the narrower local Sr baselines, which rather indicate a great difference in land use and nutrition habits than the arrival of new incomers. On the other side, the relatively large size of pedigrees with few unrelated individuals and the decline in genetic diversity support this reconstruction. Later, during the 9th and 10th centuries, the Sr isotopic distribution became more heterogeneous with some individuals yielding more various Sr signals and increased mobility, while a new northeast European genetic component appeared in the sites, supporting the appearance of new populations in the territory.

Norbert Faragó
Tina Milavec
István Koncz
Deven Vyas
Tamara Leskovar
Tivadar Vida
Patrick Geary
Krishna Veeramah

submissions.e-a-a.org/eaa2024/repository/preview.php?Abstract=4233

[Tomenable]

For South Slavic countries:

Pre-Medieval:
E1b1 38%
R1b 18%
G2a2 12%
J2 12%
I1 6%
R1a-Z93 6%
T1a 4%
I2a2 2%
J1 2%

What is the sample size?