Balto-Slavs in Magna Graecia

The two Balto-Slavic samples that I've mentioned earlier on this blog have been finally published in The diverse genetic origins of a Classical period Greek army:

Two individuals (I10943/W0396 and I10949/W0403; Sicily_Himera_480BCE_3) fall with modern northeastern European groups and eastern Baltic populations of the first millennium BCE and can be modeled using exclusively BA individuals from Lithuania as a proxy source (P = 0.129).

I10943 Mass grave 1&2 480 BCE battle 764-516 calBCE (2475±20 BP, PSUAMS-4118) Sicily, Himera U5a1a1+152 R-Y35* R1a1a1b1a2b
I10949 Mass grave 1&2 480 BCE battle 751-413 calBCE (2450±20 BP, PSUAMS-4866) Sicily, Himera H1m I-L233* I2a1a(xI2a1a2)

 

Y-DNA of one of them is typically Slavic:  https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y35/

Or rather was, because now it will be surely called "Baltic", "Lusatian" or "Para-Balto-Slavic".

Comments

Arza said…
IIRC in the G25 they're almost identical to modern Lithuanians, close to Belarusians. But they seem to have a little bit more of the Steppe ancestry.
Matt said…
I'll be interested to see if group 2 shows any of the Baltic/Slavic drift; that could help to localize if they are more like Balkan / Pannonian. In turn whether this reflects some network of recruiting warriors that stretched all the way north of Greece proper. The ydna suggest a Balkan link.
EastPole said…
“This observation of the derived allele in I10943/W0396 agrees with his genetic ancestry, with the greatest affinity to BA and IA Eastern Baltic groups. Notably, this individual also has an uncommon physical appearance among the studied samples, with HirisplexS estimating highest probabilities for a combination of blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin. This phenotype also rose in frequency in the Eastern Baltic in the 1st millennium BCE”


These mercenaries could be Thracian, which would confirm theories about Slavic/Baltic influences in Thracian military elites.

Xenophanes wrote: “The Ethiopians claim that their gods are flat-nosed and black-skinned; the Thracians, that they are blue-eyed and have blond hair.”
Thracian religion was similar to Slavic and Vedic. Orphism came to Greece from Thrace.
Arza said…
@ Matt

IIRC some Sicilian samples other than the ones from "Group 3" show minor "drift", but nothing spectacular. Unless there are newly sequenced individuals I haven't seen yet.
Arza said…
@ EastPole

This would also explain why the Thracian language contains a dozen words that look like they were taken straight out of a Slavic language.
ambron said…
This individual may have a lot of Balto-Slavic drift:

"One low-coverage individual, I17870/W0336, falls intermediate between Sicily_Himera_480BCE_2 and Sicily_Himera_480BCE_3 on both PCA and with respect to the main ancestry clusters inferred from ADMIXTURE (Fig. 2)."
Arza said…
@ ambron

Can you ask Waldemar in the Slavic Chronology thread on AG to post the PCAs from Slovenia that he showed at night and deleted in the morning?
ambron said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
ambron said…
Arza, this is on my forum:

https://slawomirambroziak.pl/forum/index.php?topic=5215.msg100807#msg100807
Suevi said…
Any interesting thoughts?

Slovenia
https://i.postimg.cc/wgLwP5sS/Screenshot-20221006-000925-Zoom.jpg

Little Hungarian Plain
https://i.postimg.cc/R9ZrkZ1M/Screenshot-20221005-234620-Zoom.jpg
Unknown said…
What nonsense are you writing again EastPole?
The cultural influence including the linguistic one is in the opposite direction from Thrace/Balkans to the Baltic. And it has always been so, including on the subject of the Christianization of all of Europe. And Yes, Orphism comes from Thrace, but Thrace is quite far from the Baltics geographically.
About "blond" Thacians: regardless of how illogical such a statement is, you continue to insist on blond Thracians.
The Thracians were never in their majority blond and therefore their depiction everywhere, including Thracian mounds, they are depicted with predominantly brown hair, as would be expected for a Pontic Mediterranean population.
The lie about blonde hair doesn't work for another very clear reason. According to Prof. F.Müller ξανθος (Griechisch Woordenboek, Den Haag, 1926), the word used by the Greeks in the past is a definition of the color of well cooked meat, i.e. brown.
What is today's meaning and interpretations in the translations of old texts is irrelevant. It is clear that in Thrace the anthropological type you mentioned is a minority and it is illogical to insist like this, given that we have images and they also support my position and of serious scientists.
The ancient Greeks were swarthy people with black hair, resembling the present-day population of North Africa. For them, light brown hair is unusually light. If Thracians were described as having light hair, the Greeks obviously meant lighter than their black hair.
The majority of the Thracians were neither red-haired nor blond, but with brown hair - exactly what is the most popular hair color even today in the Balkans.
In general, the attempt to equate Balts and Slavs and blur established boundaries in definitions, not only ethnic geographical, linguistic, historical ones is a modern forum absurdity, apparently instigated by EastPole-like types trying to appropriate a foreign identity because of their appetizing and rich ancient history.
Just to insert, according to historians, which nations have the habit of stealing/appropriating foreign history - these are the young nations. Look there in the Wikipedia you like a lot; what it says about when these northern countries were founded - 20-21 century - :Д and what is their contribution to Slavism and European history at all. I think if I say "0" I can't be wrong.
EastPole said…
@Arza

“This would also explain why the Thracian language contains a dozen words that look like they were taken straight out of a Slavic language.”

The same with Greek. There are plenty of Slavic words in Ancient Greek which probably entered Greece with Hyperborean/Thracian influences. We are very lucky that I10943 and I10949 got buried by Himerians in a common grave and not cremated as often happened with our elite warriors.

@Unknown

Linguistic and cultural/religious influences had following directions:

https://postimg.cc/B89FVHMH

and not the opposite. It can easily be proven by looking at the etymology of words and the origin of myths.


natsunoame said…
You apparently conveniently skip over inconvenient truths for your Baltic theories.
By ASSIMILATING this one: "In general, the attempt to equate Balts and Slavs and blur established boundaries in definitions, not only ethnic geographical, linguistic, historical ones is a modern forum absurdity, apparently instigated by EastPole-like types trying to appropriate a foreign identity because of their appetizing and rich ancient history."
Baltс is NOT equivalent to Slavs as you wish for convenience and never has been. The only connection of the Balts or Northern Europe with the Thracians and their culture is through cultural influence and lexical borrowings from the Thracians or later Slavs (W. Obermüller 1872); from South to North. That's why:
J. W. Donaldoson: Pelasgian language, as it appears in the oldest forms of certain Latin and Greek archaisms, was unquestionably most nearly allied to the Sclavonian

S.F. Dunlap: Thracians, Getae, Scythians..were so many links in a chain connecting Pelasgians with Media...Pelasgian was unquestionably most nearly related to Sclavonian

See a Baltic language or Balti mentioned somewhere?!

No one writes about Baltic when mentioning a connection even with Sanskrit, it is clear that the connection is found only because of the existing today lexical borrowings among the Balts from the Slavs, there is no other reason.

Baltic and Slavic are different languages ​​with different origins and have no overlap except as indicated due to cultural influence, but that is clearly from South to North.
You also write funny nonsense about the sun, where did the sun cult come from (David's blog). For some blond Thracian elites. Where do you get such nonsense from?!
Naturally, they are not of northern origin. Here we are talking about practices related to farmers and seasons, the Sun Cult is important where there is abundant sun for agricultural crops. Not with the cold and dark north.
The mythological circle of the Hyperboreans also seems to know the ritual gesture of eiresione - according to the fragment preserved in Hesychius from Cratin's comedy Deliades, the Hyperboreans worship branches under the open sky.

All these circumstances suggest that the origin of eiresione, although edited by the ancient authors in the characteristic for the second half of the 5th century BC. Athenian patriotism and Athenocentrism, goes back to a more ancient Eastern Mediterranean festival circle with the epicenter of the cult of the solar Paleo-Balkan deity on the island of Delos. The ancient traditions of the amphictyony of the islanders, to which the Thracian tribes along the so-called "Hyperborean diagonal" also belong (Pindar., Olymp., 3, 16; 31; Pindar., Pyth ., 10, 29; Herodotus., 4, 13; 32 )."

The branch wrapped in white and red threads and decorated with fruit called eirisione / εἰρεσιόνη was not created by the Greeks.
Do you know what this description means - it's the martenitsa you smart!!!
"This tradition is related to the ancient pagan history of the Balkan Peninsula, related to all agricultural cults of nature...The eiresione itself was customarily worn on at least one of the festivals in honor of Apollo, modeled after the festivals of Dionysius."
https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0
Draft Dozen said…
@Unknown
In original Xenophane’s text wrote πυρρούς (flame-coloured, yellowish-red, red), not ξανθος.
The possibility cannot be excluded that xanthe also may include “brown,” and the verb xanthizein is used for the color of fried fish. But that it did not always mean “brown,” but usually “yellow” or “golden” is clear from its use for gold itself, for ripe corn, for sandy soil, for the discoloration produced by jaundice, and for “white” wine, of which there are now all tints in Greece, from “hock” to “madeira.” It is the name of several rivers, and no one who has seen either the Lycian or the Mysian Xanthus in flood doubts that a pale sandy color is meant.
By xanthe Pindar meant description of a flower bank with “rays (spikes or petals) of xanthe and full purple”. Of the same flower, ion, the botanist Theophrastus mentions, after other varieties, “the white ion, and still more the flame-colored, and then the black, which needs care all the year round.” Etymologically ion is the equivalent of the Latin viola but it is not certain to what flower or flowers the Greek word ion was applied. But any flower which included white, flame-colored, and black varieties, - like pansy and iris, to name only familiar kinds - certainly included also all tints of cream and yellow, as well as full purple.
Returning now to the classical use of xanthizein, we find it employed for changing the natural color of the hair, and dyed hair is contrasted with hair that is of that color “by nature,” xanthophyes. Fortunately we can test this process, for the herb which was used, Xanthium strumarium, does actually turn human hair not brown but golden yellow, and is commonly used still as a yellow dye.
From Sir John Linton Myres - Who Were the Greeks?
natsunoame said…
...he must have written it in pure English, funnyman
With each translation, the text has changed, conveniently.

You write nonsense just to make something more out of an obvious lie. Repeating a lie does not make it true and the squealing insanity of you and others like you on the forums in a sick desire to connect with a piece of someone else's history and identity is already laughable to me.
The Thracians were never predominantly blond, because their habitat/geographical position does not suggest it. In addition, they have old settlements in Asia Minor suggesting even Middle Eastern connections, and there were, for example, of the Sea Peoples with the Levant and Egypt.
They were Pontids, Mediterraneans in the past and today, just like their direct descendants the Bulgarians. Even Renfrew
("Archaeology and Language") states very directly that Thracian is the closest to the language spoken in Bulgaria today. This is the logic of things and you cannot change it with parrot nonsense. Serious scholars such as Renfrew and F. Müller I have mentioned do not involve their names with such lies, but seek explanations for the inconsistencies that clearly arose from an unsuccessful translation at best. And here we are not talking about a mistake in the translation, but about a deliberate distortion of the truth in new editions.
ambron said…
Appeared probably quite a few pre-medieval samples with a significant share of Slavic genetics:

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?26174-Stable-population-structure-in-Europe-since-the-Iron-Age-despite-high-mobility&p=883190&viewfull=1#post883190
Matt said…
Hey guys, I posted this at Davidski's place, but thought worth putting here for your interest too:

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB53670 -

Patrilocality and hunter-gatherer-related ancestry in Middle Bronze Age East-Central Europe

The post-Neolithic demographic history of East-Central Europe, despite this region being on the confluence of various ecological zones and cultural entities is poorly explored. Here, the descendantsof societies associated with steppe pastoralists form Early Bronze Age (EBA 2400-1800 BC) were followed by Middle Bronze Age (MBA 1800-1200 BC) populations displaying unique characteristics. Particularly, the predominance of collective burials, the scale of which, was previously seen only in the Neolithic.

To study kinship of those MBA societies and to test whether the re-emergence of those old traditions was a result of genetic shift or social changes, we generated and analyzed 91 genomes from individuals associated with EBA and MBA from modern day Poland and Ukraine.

Our results indicate that while EBA people in East-Central Europe were most likely direct descendants of the preceding populations, the MBA populations were formed by an additional admixture event involving a population with relatively high proportions of genetic component associated with European hunter-gatherers.

Additionally, our data shows that MBA collective burials contained numerous individuals related to each other, and the prevalence of close kinship among adult male descendants over adult female suggests that patrilocality was dominating form of marriage arrangements in these societies."
(ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY, POZNAN, POLAND )

Dna not yet uploaded unfortunately but a matter of time.
Matt said…
So this (from my last comment) given collective burials, dates, persons involved in the project is the result of the Trzciniec project (and also EBA burials) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TslLkXDVm9k ?

Old news to you guys I'm sure.
Arza said…
@ Matt

Thanks a lot! I knew about this project but the results are new to me. Or maybe not, because Davidski long time ago hinted that the BA samples are similar to modern day people in Poland, and only in the IA there are some unexpected results, or something like that...

Anyway, such result was expected. I'll make a new post tomorrow.
ambron said…
Matt, thanks!

These samples with a high proportion of HG are grouped together with the Baltic BA, as is the Bk-II population from the work of Daniel Gerber. In fact, we've been discussing it for over a month now here:

https://slawomirambroziak.pl/forum/index.php?topic=5627.0
ambron said…
As for the blurring of changes with a long-lasting effect in the Iron Age, signaled by the authors, if the earlier change consisted in increasing the share of WHG and I2a, its blurring had to consist in reducing the share of WHG and I2a. And the Poles today have less of both these markers.
Matt said…
@ambron, probably so I'd guess although we'd have to see to make sure. Given they are looking at sites in Poland and in Ukraine, where they would seem to be indicating there is the same sort of general population(?), then that gives rise to the question of whether there is "blurring" in Ukraine as well, and what this indicates about the probability of different later demographic expansion centres in each region, would be of interest.

If the Iron Age population in (Northern? Western?) Ukraine became "blurred" by admixing with Scytho-Sarmatian or Finno-Ugric groups, then that might be an argument to consider against this area as the late Iron Age->Antiquity urheimat preceding a Slavic expansion (at least if this is interpreted to be a demic expansion). On the contrary, some arguments could apply for sites in (Eastern?) Poland, depending on the kind of "blurring" there. Very much dependent on what this paper (and perhaps more subsequent investigations reaching into the Iron Age) finds.
ambron said…
Matt, the vicinity of the Polish-Ukrainian borderland is the Slavic homeland indicated by linguists. The hydronyms lie here on an Indo-European substrate, which means that since the bronse age, core of the local population must have been the same. The Iron Age was a time of influx of various populations to this area. We will see what populations they are were after the publication of the results.
ambron said…
Arza, have you seen updated in November Daniel Gerber's work?
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.03.478968v2.full
Arza said…
Yeah, I've seen this already in November. There're some changes, but Gerber still makes some major mistakes.
ambron said…
The most interesting thing is that Daniel Gerber explains exactly where the excess Balto-Slavic HG from outside the Iron Gates WHG comes from; mainly from the WHG of the Croatian Mesolithic and the Kuyavian Neolithic and Hungarian Neolithic, and in a small amount from the unknown EHG source, distantly related to the Lithuanian Mesolithic, but completely different from the Russian, Ukrainian, Scandinavian and younger Baltic EHG.

This will probably be what we call the "Balto-Slavic drift".
Target: SRB_Iron_Gates_MBA_I5243:I5243
Distance: 3.9152% / 0.03915241
64.2 Baltic_EST_BA
35.8 Bell_Beaker_Iberia

Target: HUN_EIA_Prescythian_Mezocsat_o1:I18241
Distance: 4.5941% / 0.04594050
61.0 Baltic_EST_BA
39.0 Bell_Beaker_Iberia

Target: HUN_MBA_Vatya_o:RISE479
Distance: 9.4297% / 0.09429718
57.4 Baltic_EST_BA
42.6 Bell_Beaker_Iberia

Target: HUN_Mako_EBA_o:I1502
Distance: 2.1969% / 0.02196859
52.6 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
47.4 Baltic_EST_BA

Target: HRV_Jag_MBA:JAG85
Distance: 2.4605% / 0.02460504
43.6 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
41.2 Baltic_EST_BA
10.4 TUR_Alalakh_MLBA
4.8 ITA_Sicily_EBA

Target: HRV_Jag_MBA:JAG78
Distance: 2.6200% / 0.02619971
48.8 Baltic_EST_BA
48.8 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
1.8 ITA_Sicily_EBA
0.6 RUS_Krasnoyarsk_BA

Target: HRV_Jag_MBA:JAG58
Distance: 2.6968% / 0.02696849
50.4 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
42.0 Baltic_EST_BA
4.4 Bell_Beaker_England_EBA
2.4 MKD_BA
0.8 RUS_Krasnoyarsk_BA

Target: HRV_Jag_MBA:JAG34
Distance: 2.1607% / 0.02160711
41.4 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
41.2 Baltic_EST_BA
17.4 MKD_BA

Target: HRV_Jag_MBA:JAG06
Distance: 2.5129% / 0.02512910
51.2 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
41.2 Baltic_EST_BA
7.6 TUR_Alalakh_MLBA

Target: DEU_Tollense_BA:WEZ64
Distance: 3.8711% / 0.03871142
48.4 Baltic_EST_BA
38.6 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
13.0 Bell_Beaker_England_EBA

Target: DEU_Tollense_BA:WEZ15
Distance: 3.0511% / 0.03051058
50.8 Baltic_EST_BA
38.6 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
8.8 NLD_LBA
1.0 Bell_Beaker_England_EBA
0.8 RUS_Krasnoyarsk_BA
https://ibb.co/hBJW8fj

https://ibb.co/9ZjBZV8
Balto-Slavic drift
https://imgur.com/imJspKv
ambron said…
Arza, I think I understand where the idea, after the positions on PCA, for early Slavs as a three-way mix of Balts with East Germanics and Scythians, against which you protested so vigorously on Eurogenes. Note that on Reitsema's PCA (above in this thread), Iron Age Baltic, Germanic and Scythian samples converge in the main Slavic cluster, covering the Polish cluster.
Baltic BA/Gravettian https://imgur.com/VShn5Ki
Arza said…
@dancingfragments

Can you post on pastebin the coordinates you used for the last chart?
Arza https://pastebin.com/R4BCWcWd
Arza said…
@dancingfragments

Thanks a lot!
Arza You're welcome.
Target: Baltic_EST_BA
Distance: 0.3016% / 0.00301642
46.8 Balto-Slavic_HG
13.2 Yamnaya_RUS_Kalmykia
12.2 RUS_Krasnoyarsk_MLBA
11.0 TUR_Ikiztepe_LC
10.2 GRC_Mycenaean_Attica_BA
3.4 UKR_Meso
3.2 RUS_Karelia_HG
https://imgur.com/a/lrSafm9
https://imgur.com/qrtrQFT

https://imgur.com/DSWP9IR

Target: Baltic_EST_BA
Distance: 0.9869% / 0.00986910
52.2 Balto-Slavic_HG
47.8 Andronovo+Ikiztepe


Target: Baltic_EST_BA
Distance: 0.4230% / 0.00423047
48.4 Balto-Slavic_HG
17.2 RUS_Krasnoyarsk_MLBA
10.8 TUR_Ikiztepe_LC
10.2 GRC_Mycenaean_Attica_BA
8.2 Yamnaya_RUS_Kalmykia
5.2 Russia_Karelia
https://imgur.com/7HvGtLq
ambron
RISE175 has a Baltic BA admixture

Target: SWE_BA:RISE175
Distance: 1.6547% / 0.01654692
28.0 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA
22.2 Baltic_EST_BA
14.0 Bell_Beaker_England
12.2 Iberia_Southeast_BA
8.0 England_CA_EBA
5.2 RUS_Srubnaya_MLBA
2.8 FRA_Occitanie_EMBA
2.6 DNK_LN
2.4 MAR_EN
1.8 MNE_Vrbička_N
0.8 Rochedane