Russian mtDNA, Goths of the Ukrainian steppe, and a proto-Slavic expansion from present-day Poland (Morozova et al. 2011)

A couple of times on these blogs I've made comments about the "western" genetic character of ethnic Russians, which has shown up in various analyses (see here and here). Russian scientists have now released a paper explaining why this is so. They based their conclusions only on mtDNA, which is a bit of a shame, because adding genome-wide autosomal DNA to the analysis would've provided so much more detail. Nevertheless, it's a very nice effort that helps to debunk some of the idiot myths about Eastern European history and genetics circulating in the west. First off, let's see what these Russian scientists, Morozova et al., say about the Slavic expansions.

In the first millennium A.D., the Slavs, who populated a vast territory from Vistula and Oder in the north to the northern coast of the Black Sea in the south, started to move east toward the East European Plain, which at that time was inhabited by Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes (Sedov, 1994, 1995). The Slavs moved from different parts of their vast area, with their migration continuing across several centuries (Sedov, 1994, 1995). Old Russian nationality (whose descendants are modern Russians, Ukrainians, and Byelorussians) started developing in the second half of the first millennium A.D., because of the mixing of Slavic migrants with local residents (Sedov, 1995; Alexandrov et al., 2003).

...

Therefore, the results of our study indicate the core features that resulted in the formation of the Russian gene pool; specifically, the mixture of two genetically different groups, the northern and the southwestern, which are apparently related to the two major inflows of Slavic settlers from Western Europe to the East European Plain. This statement supports the genetic position of the central zone located between the two ‘‘average Russian’’ extremes, with the central zone probably acting as the transgression area between the two. The later eastward movement of heterogeneous Slavic groups, followed by the inclusion of additional genetic elements into the gene pool, probably resulted in the formation of the more genetically different population of the southeastern section of the historical Russian area.

I'm not sure why they're referring to present-day Poland and western Ukraine as "Western Europe"? It appears as if something was lost in translation there. In any case, the upshot of the study is that the mtDNA data matches historical and archaeological records as interpreted in Russia; Slavs expanded in the first millennium AD from a large range that included modern-day Poland. This really goes against the standard western view of Slavic ethnogenesis, which basically says that Slavs exploded from the Pripet Marshes in what is now Belarus, after Germanic tribes vacated land to the west and south.

Interestingly, this Russian version of events is backed up by latest data on the structure of Y-DNA haplogorup R1a. Poles are showing the highest variance in SNPs within European R1a subclades (see here). There are subclades commonly seen in Poland and surrounds that are extremely rare in Eastern Slavic territories. Also, the two subclades showing the highest correlation with Slavs, R1a-M458 and R1a-Z280, appear to have expanded from East Central Europe, probably from what is now Poland, to the west, south and east.

Of course, this begs the question: if it was the Slavs who expanded from present-day Poland, then how did the Goths populate the Ukrainian steppe? Did they arrive in Poland from Scandinavia, and lived there side by side with Slavs, before moving east? Or, again, is there something rotten with the standard western academic theories about where Goths originated and how they made their way to the Black Sea?

Morozova et al. don't discuss the issue of Gothic origins, but their results show that Southern, and not Northern, Russians most likely do carry influence from the Goths who migrated east (Chernyakhov archeological culture). Moreover, they suggest that this admixture was probably acquired by the southern East Slavic tribes within the multi-ethnic region north of the Black Sea. This is why, they say, the northern East Slavic tribes were not party to these events.

Being quite distant from the Finno-Ugric group, the Southern Russians consequently differ from the Northern Russians in their closeness to the Germanic group. This difference indicates that the Germanic people played a significant role in the development of the southern, but not the northern segment of the Russian gene pool. In general, the Germanic influence on the formation of the Russians is not as obvious as the impact of the Slavic, Baltic, and Finno-Ugric people. However, strong interactions between the Germanic and Slavic tribes have been found in archaeological materials dating from the mid-first millennium B.C. to the early first millennium A.D. These interactions were the strongest on the northern coast of the Black Sea, in the area of the multiethnic Chernyakhov archaeological culture (second to fifth centuries A.D.). In the second half of the first millennium A.D., the descendants of this culture colonized the southern regions of the historical Russian area (Sedov, 1994, 1995). However, there is no evidence in the historical literature of the interaction between the Germanic tribes and the Slavs (and later, the Russians) after the Slavic colonization of the East European Plain. Therefore, the Germanic influence could not have occurred after the early part of the first millennium A.D., which was before the eastward Slavic migration (Sedov, 1994, 1995). Apparently, the impact of the Germanic people on the Chernyakhov Slavs affected the gene pool of modern Southern Russians, consequently differentiating them from the Northern Russians (Fig. 6).

What this means, of course, is that the earliest Slavs could not have come into significant contact with Goths or the purportedly proto-Goth Wielbark culture, so it's unlikely they lived side by side with them in what is now Poland. In which case, either the Goths sped through Poland on their way from Scandinavia to the northern Black Sea coast, or they didn't come from Scandinavia in the first place, and entered the Ukrainian steppe from another direction than the northwest. The first option hasn't been entertained at academic level. But the second option has, and in fact matches latest R1a SNP results. Here's a nice summary of that theory courtesy of Wikipedia...

However, Guy Halsall challenges some of Heather's conclusions. He sees no chronological development from the Wielbark to Chernyakhiv culture, given that the latter stage of the Wielbark culture is synchronous with Chernyakhiv, and the two regions have minimal territorial overlap. "Although it is often claimed that Cernjachov metalwork derives from Wielbark types, close examination reveals no more than a few types with general similarities to Wielbark types".[19] Michael Kulikowski also challenges the Wielbark connection, highlighting that the greatest reason for Wielbark-Chernyakhov connection derives from a "negative characteristic" (i.e. the absence of weapons in burials), which is less convincing proof than a positive one. He argues that the Chernyakhov culture could just as likely have been an indigenous development of local Pontic, Carpic or Dacian cultures, or a blended culture resulting from Przeworsk and steppe interactions. Furthermore, he altogether denies the existence of Goths prior to the 3rd century. Kulikowski states that no Gothic people, nor even a noble kernal, migrated from Scandinavia or the Baltic. Rather, he suggests that the "Goths" formed in situ. Like the Allemani or the Franks, the Goths were a "product of the Roman frontier".

Kulikowsky, Michael (2007), Rome's Gothic Wars: from the third century to Alaric, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521846331

Halsall, Guy (2007), Barbarian migrations and the Roman West, 376-568, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521434912


This is all really interesting, because we've learned recently that there's a scarcity of Scandinavian-specific R1a-Z284 on the European mainland. It's not even very common in Denmark and Northern Germany, and non-existent in other parts of Germany. What this suggests is that Kulikowski was spot on in concluding that Gothic tribes didn't originate in Scandinavia. If they did, and made their way through Poland to Ukraine, we should see signals of that migration today via a trail of R1a-Z284 from the Baltic to the Black Sea. But such a trail doesn't exist, and out of hundreds of Eastern European R1a lineages tested to date, only one has come back Z284+. That was a Russian from Kazan (see here). I should also add that R1a-Z284 seems to be missing from all of the Southern European territories invaded at various times by Gothic tribes.

So the Goths most likely came from Germanic territory low in R1a-Z284, and the Roman frontier of the 3rd century AD would probably be such a place. If so, they would have then migrated to the Ukrainian steppe south of the Carpathians, via present day Hungary and Romania, missing current Polish territory altogether. Indeed, such a scenario matches perfectly the results of the Morozova et al. study.

I really can't wait for ancient DNA results from East Central and Eastern Europe from the Migration Period. I'm pretty sure it's on its way, and we'll probably see some articles on that next year, so it's a good time to make a few predictions. I think many Gothic remains will come back R1b-U106, I1 and I2a2a, although R1a-M458 and R1a-Z280 will also be present. Wielbark and Przeworsk remains from Poland will prove unequivocally proto-Slavic, and overwhelmingly R1a-M458 and R1a-Z280. On the other hand, the Chernyakhov culture will show a very mixed character, with R1a-Z280, R1a-M458, R1b-U106, I1, I2a2a hits aplenty.

Irina Morozova, Alexey Evsyukov, Andrey Kon'kov, Alexandra Grosheva, Olga Zhukova, Sergey Rychkov, Russian ethnic history inferred from mitochondrial DNA diversity, Article first published online: 20 DEC 2011, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21649