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

[Radko]

@ambron

We need to look at where a population resembling the autosomal early Slavs lived in the Iron Age.

For example we have no Slavic-like samples from Iron Age Poland. Wielbark, Przeworsk and Oksywie cultures represent populations of different origin than Slavs.

Do we have Oksywie samples?

Not officially published Apparently, they are very similar to Wielbark culture samples.

[Orentil]

@ambron

We need to look at where a population resembling the autosomal early Slavs lived in the Iron Age.

For example we have no Slavic-like samples from Iron Age Poland. Wielbark, Przeworsk and Oksywie cultures represent populations of different origin than Slavs.

Do we have Oksywie samples?

Not officially published Apparently, they are very similar to Wielbark culture samples.

Hopefully they apply something similar as the supervised admixture model of Gretzinger to show if it is rather NOR or CNE like (or Vyas SCAND / NGBI model, giving similar results). This could answer the question if Wielbark developed out of Oksywie or if they really arrived by ship ;-)

[Radko]

RKF106 has been added to FTDNA (it's under R-L1029).

KFJ019 is under R-L260.

KUP015, RKC051 and RKC052 are under R-Y1392/R-Y2902.

[ph2ter]

I would also add a line from Ukraine Lviv area to Gomolava sample area. There are 4 Croatian samples from that area. I19561 and I26748 model with Gomolava and CSK038 samples well, they seem to be ancestral to them. They are around 30% Celto-Germanic shifted towards modern South Germans. That admixture was probably acquired after arrival in Pannonia.

Target: SRB_Gomolava:I1116__AD_931__Cov_93.70%
Distance: 1.1986% / 0.01198626 | ADC: 1x RC
29.8 Hungary_IA_LaTene:I20752 (German-East like)
17.8 Croatia_Brekinjova:I26748_EE
17.2 Ukraine_Viking_o.SG:VK542_noUDG.SG
13.8 Hungary_Conqueror_Elite:VPB-167.SG
11.8 Germany_MA_Krakauer_Berg:KRA010
9.6 Denmark_Viking.SG:VK274_noUDG.SG

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O8zKwml...sp=sharing

I also noticed that there are 2 ancestral Slavic branches among Croats. While they both plot closely on PCA, in distance they are very far. One is Slovakian, South Polish, Zakarpattia like and It seems ancestral to Kvarner, Herzegovina, Slovenia, Rusyn, few northwest Croatians and some medieval Lika samples. Other branch is very Lviv and Sumy like. That one is ancestral to my father and Jastrebarsko sample especially, and to some northwest Croatians and Croatians from Bosnia. Possibly indicating Pounje ancestry from which most Central Croatian ancestry comes from?

How could that be interpreted in your opinion in migration period?

I see three ancestral Slavic branches among today's Croats:
- Czech-Moravian-Polish which came through the Moravian gate
- Ukrainian which came directly from Western Ukraine
- Southern Ukrainian which came via route that was going south of the Carpathians

[ambron]

Radko

For the record... Y1392 actually has Dnieper origins, but in the Bronze Age. None of his descendant lines reached Central Europe with the Avars directly from the Dnieper. These lines are mostly Central European (often Polish) from the Iron Age.

[ambron]

Radko

Calling individuals located in the Polish-Ukrainian cluster "Eastern Slavic" is misleading. Ukrainians are Eastern Slavs linguistically, but genetically they are Western Slavs (in their main mass). The range of genetic variability in Ukrainians reaches even further west than Poles.

[Radko]

If I'm not mistaken, RKF106 is currently the earliest (~609 CE) R-L1029 sample with Early Slavic-like autosomal profile.

I've asked Leonid Vyazov to check if the sample shares IBD segments with later Medieval Slavs (I'm sure it does).

Distance to: Hungary_Rákóczifalva_609_CE:RKF106
0.02922706 Lithuanian_VA
0.02992499 Lithuanian_RA
0.03105828 Lithuanian_PA
0.03355386 Lithuanian_SZ
0.03592017 Russian_Pskov
0.03621161 Latvian
0.03808722 Belarusian
0.03836069 Ukrainian_Rivne
0.03861658 Lithuanian_VZ
0.03910529 Ukrainian_Chernihiv
0.04041342 Russian_Smolensk
0.04087973 Ukrainian_Zhytomyr
0.04140846 Sorb_Niederlausitz
0.04178742 Russian_Kursk
0.04186993 Lithuanian_PZ
0.04215356 Russian_Voronez
0.04263483 Russian_Belgorod
0.04301726 Ukrainian_Dnipro
0.04356316 Estonian
0.04392931 Polish
0.04404640 Russian_Kaluga
0.04436511 Polish_Kashubian
0.04471491 Ukrainian_Sumy
0.04518638 Russian_Yaroslavl
0.04523123 Russian_Orel

Target: Hungary_Rákóczifalva_609_CE:RKF106
Distance: 2.6764% / 0.02676414
50.0 Lithuanian_RA
21.4 Lithuanian_SZ
14.6 Sorb_Niederlausitz
6.0 Latvian
5.6 Slovakian
1.8 Sardinian
0.4 Ju_hoan_North
0.2 Mbuti

[ambron]

ph2ter

"You notice only the Medieval Poles. In the same range are also Avar Slavs from Hungary and Austria, and Czech Medieval Slavs."

That's true. Only currently, no one points to a Slavic homeland in Hungary or Austria, but in Poland they do.

[ambron]

Radko

RKF106 shares a Y chromosome haplotype with eight medieval Poles and one roman period Pole, so it should also share autosomal haplotypes (IBD segments) with them.

Did you ask Vyazov, as I suggested, to check the IBD segments of his Slavs with medieval Poles?

[Radko]

I've asked him to look at pre-Medieval Polish samples and he replied: "I finally looked precisely at the Stolarek's et al. paper. My general comment is that neither the dataset nor the ADMIXTURE is relevant to the Slavic dispersal issue."

And Medieval Polish Slavic samples will definitely show a lot of shared IBD segments with other Slavs.

[Radko]

I wonder if this team will do a better job than Figlerowicz and his team. Hopefully...

THE GOTHIC TRIBES OF EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE THROUGH THE LENS OF ARCHAEOGENOMIC DATA.

Maciej Chylenski1, Anna Juras1, Edvard Ehler2

1 Institute of Human Biology and Evolution, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań
2 Laboratory of Genomics and Bioinformatics, Institute of Molecular Genetics of the ASCR

The migrations of Goths and their consequences were undoubtedly one of the most significant events shaping European history in the Roman Iron Age. They have always attracted the attention of academics and history enthusiasts alike. These events are not only associated with major historic processes but are also believed to have been accompanied by significant cultural and demographic transformations.

In the territories of modern-day Poland, the Goths are associated with the Wielbark archaeological culture. The presence of stone structures (stone circles and pavements) on its commentaries in Pomerania region, in its early stages, is frequently interpreted as evidence of its Scandinavian origin, where the best analogies for such structures can be found.

Here, through the analysis of more than 300 genomes (including more than 100 newly reported) of individuals dated to the Roman Iron Age, we show that the majority of them differ significantly from earlier and later populations from East-Central Europe. However, that lack of predating, first millennium BCE, genomic data from the Pomerania region hinder our ability to pinpoint the moment this population arrived or formed in this region.

Nevertheless, our data show that when the population expanded south-east, somewhere in the 3rd century AD, with minimal admixture with local populations. Similarly, later early medieval populations from East-Central Europe seem primarily represent a population of different origin with only a small degree of admixture form Gothic tribes associated with Wielbark culture.

[ambron]

Radko

In a word, the myth of the Goths as a powerful people that flooded half of Eastern Europe falls.

This handful of Scandinavian migrants melted into the local Slavic mass.

[Pribislav]

Radko

For the record... Y1392 actually has Dnieper origins, but in the Bronze Age. None of his descendant lines reached Central Europe with the Avars directly from the Dnieper. These lines are mostly Central European (often Polish) from the Iron Age.

There were no Polish lines in the Iron Age, Poles are a medieval population.

[ambron]

Pribislav

Your words are the so-called hypercorrectness. I used a colloquialism.

[Radko]

I'm not sure if this study was posted before...

Synthesis of palaeoecological data from the Polish Lowlands suggests heterogeneous patterns of old-growth forest loss after the Migration Period

Abstract
Human impact on Central European forests dates back thousands of years. In this study we reanalyzed 36 published pollen data sets with robust chronologies from Polish Lowlands to determine the patterns of large-scale forest decline after the Migration Period (fourth to sixth century CE). The study revealed substantial heterogeneity in the old-growth forest decline patterns. Using new high-resolution studies, we could better understand the timing of this transition related to increasing economic development. After the Migration Period, forest expansion continued until the seventh to ninth centuries cal. CE, when the dawn of Slavic culture resulted in large-scale forest decline, especially in north-western and north-central Poland. Later, forest decline was recorded mainly in north-eastern Poland and was related to Prussian settlements, including activities associated with the Teutonic Order, as well as with new settlements from the fourteenth century. The composite picture shows a varied spatio-temporal forest loss and transition towards the present-day, human activity dominated landscapes. However, some sites, such as in north-eastern Poland, are characterized by a less abrupt critical transition. The pristine nature of the oak-hornbeam forest had already been destroyed in Early Medieval times (eighth to ninth centuries cal. CE) and the potential for recovery was largely lost. Our study has confirmed previous assumptions that the decline of hornbeam across the Polish Lowlands may be an early indicator of local settlement processes, preceding severe forest loss, and establishment of permanent agriculture.

(...)

In general, the greater the human pressure in the temperate forest zone, the smaller the forest area5,9,10. However, in some instances, sudden events associated with climate and socioeconomic transitions, often caused by warfare and/or epidemics, have resulted in restricted impact of human activity on vegetation11,12,13,14. The Migration Period (MP) was, without a doubt, the last such large-scale event in Central Europe11. In addition to political and ethnic transformations in Europe11,15,16, it was a period of brief respite for the vegetation, especially in Central Europe17,18,19,20. Within Poland, this period is assumed to have lasted from the second half of the fourth century until the beginning of the sixth century CE (from this moment, CE should be assumed where the era is not indicated). Still, its range and chronology are inferred from limited archaeological finds21. Palynological data revealed that the forest started to grow on fallow and abandoned pastures across the Polish Lowlands during the MP cf.22,23,24. This forest regeneration was characterized by a spread of European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) and common beech (Fagus sylvatica, mainly in NW Poland). The regenerated forest was then probably gradually exploited by new Slavic societies from the east, western Ukraine and southern Belarus. They started to colonize the ‘empty’ landscape and thus renewed forest clearances25,26.

However, until ca. fifteenth century, the north-eastern part of the Polish Lowlands was occupied by diverse Baltic tribes (mostly Old Prussians, Galindians, and Yotvingians), who slowly moved eastwards mainly under the pressure of the Teutonic State and were finally conquered27,28,29,30.

Geographical distribution of sites from the date at which Carpinus betulus (green) and Fagus sylvatica (red) peaked before decline commenced during the last 1500 years.


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-12241-1

Here's another publication (if you haven't read it yet).

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

"The crisis of the Migration Period is reflected in the whole study area, as demonstrated by the rising values of forest indicators, the falling proportions of pollen from vegetation characteristic of anthropogenic habitats and the disappearance of cereal pollen from many sites. According to our data, the process began in the 3rd–4th c. in Pomorze and Pojezierze Chełmińskie, but at the scale of the area as a whole depopulation was greatest in the 5th–6th c., except for Pojezierze Mazurskie."