A new dataset has appeared online from a yet to be published paper titled
Cosmopolitanism in the depths of Barbaricum evidenced by archaeogenomic data from the Late Iron Age Goth community of the Masłomęcz group.
Most of these Gothic samples are clearly of Scandinavian origin, and very similar to present-day Swedes. Overall, however, they create a somewhat heterogeneous cluster that also overlaps with present-day Poles thanks to the presence of a few Balto-Slavic-related and possibly Roman-related individuals.
The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) plots below were produced with the excellent
Vahaduo G25 Global Views tool using the data
here.
Their Y-haplogroups more or less reflect the PCA results:
PL046 R-YP6228
PL048 I-PH833
PL049 I-A11537
PL052 R-Y48961
PL059 I-PH833
PL062 I-S15301
PL065 I-Y294193
PL066 R-FGC2555
PL067 R-S7759
PL070 I-CTS10028
PL071 I-BY316
PL076 I-S9318
PL082 I-Z2041
PL085 J-Z38241
PL086 I-FT29339
See also...
Early Slavs from Tribal Period Poland
Wielbark Goths were overwhelmingly of Scandinavian origin
High-resolution stuff
857 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 801 – 857 of 857@Ebizur
Technically, you're right again—we can only confirm that it's R1, but I assume you'll agree with me that it can only be R1b. So, given its proximity to Villabruna and its dating, common sense tells me that we're dealing with another L754 or P297 specimen.
And there must be many others, even though the West has been overwhelmingly dominated by I2a-M438 for millennia. This is the opposite of what happened in the Balkans o el Baltico, where I2a arrived in a region dominated by R1b.
My question is, which sample is considered the earliest to belong to the WHG cluster? And does it contain North Eurasian hunter-gatherer admixture?
@Rob
All of Europe—from north to south and east to west—is full of R1b, especially since the mesolithic. Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria in particular, where there is not only V88 but also L754 and M269. Many of these R1b samples in the west are clearly R1b-V88, but there are also L754 and other questionable samples that could also belong to this group.
We also have V88 in Denmark, M73 in Norway and the Baltic, V88 & L754 (5000 BCE) in Bohemia, V88 in Germany, Italy (Continenza-5209 BCE), Iberia (Chaves-5134 BCE), and Sardinia (Noeddale-4189 BCE). Most of them reached the west during the neolithic, but there are surely more mesolithic samples. I’m sure Gimbutas’s supporters think that those western R1b samples (regardless of which branch they belong to) spoke a different language from their relatives, the R1b samples of the Russian or Ukrainian steppes, but in my opinion, this doesn’t make much sense. The funny thing is that, eleven years ago, everyone thought that R1b came from the steppes, bringing their Indo-European language with them; I think it’s time for someone to redefine that theory, adapting it to the knowledge we have today.
The discovery of a Balkan HG-L761 (70% WHG) in Romania makes that region of the Balkans key to understanding the origin of R1b-P297. On the other hand, L23 and Z2103 are clearly steppe markers & U106 & L151 central europeans; the only remaining question is the origin of L51
@Mr Shomu
The Villabruna cluster (WHGs), as I currently understand it, is found in Italy following the Last Glacial Maximum (Paglicci—17,000 BCE, Grotta de Mura, Tagliente 2, San Teodoro in Sicily, Villabruna, etc.). These people are partly descended from the Gravetians and have some ANE admixture, but what apparently sets them apart is an Anatolian influence (many geneticists argue for a Near Eastern influence, which is debatable but possible). We now know that they intermixed with the Magdalenian people in the west and with the Pinarbasi people along the Danube. The role of R1b-L754 in all this is currently negligible because they are overwhelmingly I2a-M438 or even I1-M253; in my opinion, the Balkans are the key, but time will tell who is right.
@ Ebizur
''..the specimen from Iboussières, his Y-DNA can only be determined to belong to haplogroup R1''
Thanks. So if Iboussieres is certainly R1, then it must mean he's R1b-L761, allowing for coverage & common sense.
For west of the Balkans, that gives Villabruna (west Epigravett), Iboussieres (west Epigravett), and Blatterhohle (hunter-farmer) as R1b-L754->V88. An interesting handful
''the Tianyuan man must have belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup K2-M526''
The so-called "Eastern Non-Africans' and the various Y-hg K clades were present throughout Eurasia (Balkans, West Siberia, East Asia, South Asia). I bet if we had pre-35000 bp individuals from west Europe, they'd be there too (there are a couple of remnant mtDNA M in Goyet, etc).
More specifically, Y-hg P* could have moved north from somewhere near India, some going to northeast Siberia, some toward west Siberia, eventually diversifying into R & Q. During the Ice Age, R groups moved in various directions (Iran- Central Asia, East Europe), whilst Siberia became repopulated by Y-hg Q & C.
@Gaska
Okay, we have Mesolithic R1b in Europe, but did they survive into the Neolithic? I know there are Baltic ones, but autosomally they are more associated with the IGHG, so what about the rest of Europe? I mean the ones after the Anatolian influx. We have so many samples from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Europe — are there any R1b of interest among them? Or were they wiped out and assimilated by incoming ANF? Then why do you claim that Yamna R1b is from Europe? It is not there in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic.
TMRCA estimates courtesy of FTDNA:
R1-M173: TMRCA 21,799 (99% CI 26,356 - 17,745) ybp
R-M269: TMRCA 6,484 (99% CI 7,869 - 5,271) ybp
R-M417: TMRCA 5,433 (99% CI 6,602 - 4,410) ybp
An overwhelming majority of extant members of Y-DNA haplogroup R1 belong either to R-M269 or to R-M417. The Iboussieres specimen has lived several millennia before the MRCA of either of those now-common subclades.
The Iboussieres specimen may indeed have belonged to a branch of R1b with a similar phylogenetic position as the Iron Gates specimens or the Villabruna specimen, but I do not think it is good practice to declare, without substantive evidence, that he was in fact a member of such a branch.
As for Y-DNA haplogroup K2, I think the nomenclature should bear part of the blame for the phenomenon of people assuming that all members of subclades of K2 must be closely related to one another. In reality, members of QR, NO, M, S, etc. are barely more closely related to one another than any of them is related to any member of haplogroup I, haplogroup J, or even haplogroup H or haplogroup G. It is easy to see that K2 must have spread very widely at some early date (I estimate that it should have begun to spread by ~50 kybp) based on its presence in Germany ~46 kybp, Western Siberia ~45 kybp, and North China ~40 kybp as well as its ubiquitous presence and tremendous internal diversity in present-day Australasia. I would say that K2 is just another generic (proto-)Upper Paleolithic lineage, similar to any other member of F-M89.
@Ebizur
A kind of Eurasian panmixia of haplogroups seems to have been a thing. Eventually they'd become more or less frequent in select populations over the course of the Upper Paleolithic.
@Mr Shomu
The picture in mainland Europe is becoming clearer: we now have R1b-L754 in the Epigravettian period, R1b-P297 in the Mesolithic, and three samples of R1b-M269 from the Romanian and Bulgarian NEOLITHIC (Starcevo-Koros-Cris & Gumelnita-Karanovo). So, at least in the Balkans, there is genetic continuity within the R1b lineage. I assume you’ll agree with this, unless you think that R1b-M269 is a lineage of the ANF.
The predominant male haplogroups of the Yamnaya culture have their earliest origins in the Balkans (I2a-L699 and M269). Others are very rare and have their origins in the Baltic (R1b-M73), in Khvalinsk (V1636), and in Siberia (Q). With the data we have, how can anyone argue that R1b originated in Russia, Mongolia, Ukraine, or the Caucasus? It’s a joke, isn’t it? I’ve said it dozens of times: we’ll only be able to change our minds when R1b samples older than the ones we know of appear. If that happens, we’ll acknowledge it without any problem, but in the meantime, you’re defending a fairy tale.
@Ebizur
Thankfully, the fact that the BAM files for ancient samples are publicly available has opened up the genetic debate to everyone. Many people can analyze ancient genomes, and discrepancies can be discussed. This is the case with Iboussieres, who, officially, can only be classified as R1-M173 due to the uncertainty raised by the positive SNP at L754. No one is claiming that academia should also classify it as L754 or P297; I am simply saying that since R1a has never appeared in Western Europe, common sense tells us that given its age it must be R1b-M343 > L754 > P297. And don't forget that we also know that the Italian-Balkan Epigravetians intermingled with the Iberian and French Magdalenian people. I think that’s common sense, isn’t it?
This debate is nothing new; it happened with ATP3 in Iberia, which was recognized as at least R1b-P297 by Harvard ten years after its publication, or with the R1b-M269 sample from Smyadovo.
Regarding Villabruna and Pestera Climente, both have ancestral markers for P297 and V88, but they lack coverage for L389, so they could very well belong to this marker. If R1b-V88 appears in the Balkans around 9000 BCE, why wouldn’t very ancient samples of P297 also appear in that region, especially since we also have M269 neolithic samples there? At the moment, we know that P297 is present in the Baltic and Karelia, but since R1b-L754 is not found in those regions, common sense tells us that these must be migrants from the Balkans who recolonized those regions as the ice retreated. What has been completely debunked so far is the theory that these markers originated in the steppes or Siberia.
Eastern Caucasian branch of the R1bZ2103:
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/R-FTG16563/tree
@Gioiello
I'm reading that supposedly Germanic languages are predominantly Centum, sometimes they're considered a Centum-Satem hybrid, with the Satem influence being secondary
If those linguistic insights are correct, that secondary Satem influence could come from:
1). R1a folks contributing a minor admixture into the Single Grave Culture, which brought CWC cultural features to SGC and eventually gave a rise to a minor Germanic branch R1a-L664
2). Battle Axe Culture (R1a-Z284)
Could be a mix of both, but:
1). First option has a backing in the fact that R1a-L664 is present among both West Germanic and North Germanic speakers
2). Second option is murky due to R1a-Z284 geneflow having little-to-no reach among West Germanic speakers
@ Shomu
'Then why do you claim that Yamna R1b is from Europe? ''
Anyway the Don region, from where Yamnaya probably expanded, is in Europe
@Rob
A Kura–Araxes individual with a Yamnaya burial rite?
"Today, during the clearing of another burial in the upper layers of the settlement, traces of red ochre were noticed.
The burial was made in an oval-shaped pit. The skeleton was laid on its side, with the limbs bent at the elbows and knees. The skull was crushed under the weight of the soil. In the area of the feet, near the heel bones, and on the ribs, small traces of red ochre can be seen. This may be one of the signs of a funerary rite that, in a regular and repeated form, we do not yet observe in other burials.
This is also a clear indication that the inhabitants of the settlement of Zidyan-Kazmalyar were familiar with ochre, obtained it somewhere, and used it in rituals reflecting their spiritual and cultural life"
https://t.me/AskerkhanProDagestan/1221?single
Approximate coordinates of this site
https://www.google.com/maps?q=42.0861,48.1562
@ Shomu
''A Kura–Araxes individual with a Yamnaya burial rite?
https://t.me/AskerkhanProDagestan/1221?single ''
From the image, I can't see anything specifically Yamnaya-like, because there are no grave goods and the burial position does not strike me as Yamnaya. Looks like a high-flexed side position, which is seen throughout the west Eurasian post-Neolithic world. Ochre was also widely used, back to Epipaleolithic west Asia & Europe.
But there is no reason why KAx would not have adopted some Yamnaya traits. I have noticed that the domestic sphere of KAx was relatively homogeneous (typical houses, fireplaces, 'household metallurgy', ceramics); but there burial rites were diverse (single/ multiple; flat burials/ jar burials/ quasi-kurgans, etc)
file:///C:/Users/gioie/Documents/The_Proto_Indo_European_Origin_of_J1_P58.pdf
Sz Ig, I thank you for the paper and I'll read that with great interest, but I have been writng about that for all my life. The IE language did come from Yamnaya, my R1b-L23-Z2103, and before from the Siberian corridor and the link with the Siberian languages above all the Ugro-Finnic ones. Of course in Yamnaya and above all in Sintashta (above all hg R1a) some Caucasian hg like J entered the IE pool. From the charioteers of Sintashta not only the Mitanni but all the Mycenaean dinasties. I thought that hg J was entered in Middle East (Cadmo dinasty). We'll see.
file:///C:/Users/gioie/Documents/The_Origins_of_the_Surname_Bota_From_Per.pdf
Based on the size and preservation of the bones, they may have belonged to an adolescent. The estimated height was about 150 cm. The body was laid with the legs bent at the knees and the arms bent at the elbows. Because the field was intensively plowed during the Soviet period, the skull had already been crushed within the burial. It is difficult to determine the exact date due to the absence of burial goods. It most likely belongs to one of the Bronze Age periods. What is important in this burial is the presence of ochre traces. It can be assumed that the skeleton lay on a mat or surface painted with an ochre solution.
Currently, there is contention over the assignment of Khvalynsk and Afanasievo. Khvalynsk, in
particular, runs into a problem. FTDNA has identified the Khvalynsk individual I6735 with the Y-DNA
haplogroup J1-Z1841. However, ExploreYourDNA’s Haplogroup Explorer had designated this particular
sample as J1a2b. This is a common long-form for J1-P58.
While it may seem hasty that I have relied on the newer Haplogroup Explorer rather than the FTDNA
designation, this is not the first time that misassignments or differences in designation has occurred
with FTDNA. For example, recently, I had tested with DNAChron, which uses more advanced methods
of SNP testing. Within the past few days, their recent update to my Big-Y J1-C127097, identified as an
Imperial Era (200 BCE) mutation, shifted my subclade to J1-BY61095, an early Medieval (970 CE)
mutation. That is a whopping 1200 year difference between the two. p. 7
Marco, as you may see, this is the usual behaviour of the Jews of FTDNA, because 200 BCE permits a Jewish supposed origin, whereas 970 CE doesn't.
@Rob
By the way, this may also be very interesting for you and for others who are interested in the migrations of Indo-Europeans into Anatolia via the Balkans.
In the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, during construction of the Kabataş–Mecidiyeköy–Mahmutbey metro line, mound burials dating to the Early Bronze Age were discovered.
The total number of burials has reached 124, including 45 kurgans of the Altai-Turkic type. These burials date to around 3500–3000 BC, meaning they are about 5,000–5,500 years old. The kurgans are stone circular structures with various forms of burial, including cremation and urn burials.
Particular attention was drawn to the discovery of leaves in one of the kurgans. They were found next to cremated remains and are thought to be connected with ancient rituals. The find is estimated to be about 5,500 years old.
Since this Facebook channel is pro-Turanist, they described them as “Turkic–Altai type kurgans.”
Personally, I have no doubt that these kurgans could be associated with Indo-Europeans. 👇
https://www.facebook.com/share/18jYBjkmMs/
@All
Does anyone have links to any credible academic or news sources about these Copper Age kurgans in western Anatolia?
https://www.facebook.com/share/18jYBjkmMs/
These sites have been known for quite some time. I think Ethan and I have linked article before
Eg Kurgans in Turkey? Should we believe in what we see?
By Mehmet Ozdogan
It seems to me this is an old story; the “pro-turanists” just found it and turned these kurgans from Indo-European into Altai, in order to make their presence in Turkey seem older.
There's a few news articles with bits and pieces you can dig up and translate from Turkish, but nothing comprehensive.
Apparently the majority of individuals were cremated? Which is both interesting and unfortunate.
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/amp/prehistoric-tombs-found-during-excavations-in-istanbuls-busiest-square-164611
IE in Anatoia are a comlpexity, because Hittites adopted cremation, kinda like the advanced Indo-Aryans. There is an entire horizon from Balkans to Anatolia, Ezero related, but deeply set in Sredni Stog. But luckily there are a few inhumations because they also adopted flat & jar burials of the 'local tradition'.
By contrast, the “kurgans” in central-east Anatolia (Arslantepe, Alacahoyuk) are mostly non-IE, linked to Majkop or KAx (well, they’re not really kurgans)
@ Ethan
''There's a few news articles with bits and pieces you can dig up and translate from Turkish, but nothing comprehensive.''
Ozdogan has written several articles about it already.
https://istanbul.academia.edu/mehmetozdogan
Obviously the views there’s need some ironing out & updating with adna. I think some of his chronology is off as well.
Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most popular wheat species in the world today. However, studies on the domestication of wheat have rarely focused on the evolution of this specific species of Triticum. The discussions that have emerged have focused on the evolution of bread wheat, revealing it to have emerged from the hybridization of an already domesticated free-threshing wheat and the wild goatgrass known as Aegilops tauschii Coss. These studies, however, have focused on the previous genetic evidence, with data suggesting a date of circa 7,000 to 6,500 BC, and given the distribution of the parent grains, a locus of the South Caucasus and Southwest Caspian regions for its emergence. This paper discusses the archaeological data, including archaeobotanical and chronometric data from the excavations at Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, Georgia of the South Caucasus, which provides physical evidence for the emergence of bread wheat and A. tauschii, supporting the aforementioned studies.
https://www.lifescience.net/publications/1993105/an-independent-center-for-the-origin-of-bread-whea
Could you elaborate on your theory of the origins of the Balto-Slavs and the Balto-Slavic drift? Is the Balto-Slavic drift connected to Aegean hunters? Did the Slavs emerge in the Bronze Age in the Carpathians? Or did they emerge later, from a mixture of Baltic and Hungarian bronzes?
Aegean hunters? Hahaha.
No, Balto-Slavic genetic drift is native to Eastern and East-Central Europe.
It's distantly derived from Eastern European hunter-gatherer genetic drift that mixed into Corded Ware populations as they expanded towards the Baltic region from the forest steppe.
However, Balto-Slavic drift in its true sense also includes the much more recent genetic drift that happened during the rapid expansions of Balts and Slavs across East-Central and Eastern Europe.
So, the Baltic and Slavic languages, like the closely related Indo-Iranian and Germanic languages, are derived from the Corded Ware culture.
But, just like the Indo-Iranian and Germanic speakers, Balts and Slavs are not pure descendants of Corded Ware people. They have ancestry from a variety of non-Indo-European groups that contributed to their specific genetic drift.
@ Davidski
"But, just like the Indo-Iranian and Germanic speakers, Balts and Slavs are not pure descendants of Corded Ware people. They have ancestry from a variety of non-Indo-European groups that contributed to their specific genetic drift".
Of course you're right. I frequently spoke about the origin of my Y not only in these last 5300 Years but perhaps in these last 15 or 20000 Years. Of course one thing is the uniparental markers and another the autosome, but even the autosome is composed of many uniparental markers. The best friend of my teen Years was Probably from a Longobard family, but he entered the Longboard pool perhaps from an Ostrogoth who lived and fought the Greek-Byzantine wars and, survived, entered the Longobard pool. He is G-L166, close to a Goth found in Poland but with no link at the autosome level with his close relatives as to the Y like Oetzi, whereas Italians like me are very close. Another friend of mine, named Bellandi, very likely descends from a Longobard family but her traits are the same of a woman of Swed of 8000 Years ago, so I think that her oldest ancestors probably were people who lived in Scandinavia at the first migration from Northern Siberia like the Sami, and they have still to-day the characteristics selected from those people.
@Maptysk wrote in his tweet:
If i had to draw the IE expansion with Arrows, this is how i'd do it :
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HG-mF3LaQAASfGs?format=jpg&name=large
I rrecall that Dancing Fragments' original theory was that Balto-Slavic drift being a fusion of Balkan_Farmers + Ukr-HGs. Chose to completely ignore advice that Baltic_BA can be adequately modelled as CW + Narva, probably because it didnt align with his pet theory. I have seen a lot of nonsense abotu Encrusted pottery , etc as well. I think people are getting imaginative with pretty much any form of HG ancestry east of Berlin/ Rome
On the other hand good on him for coming up for air in the real world, and leaving for a moment the Adult DayCare that is GeneArchivist
@ Mr Shomu tepe
I think that Latins/Sicels (R1b-Z2110) arrived in the Latium through the Adriatic and not through central Europe like Osco-Umbrians and the Euphratic people (R1b-Z2106) in Mesopotamia from North of the Black Sea and through Georgia.
I think most of the Balto-Slavic drift didn't exist before the Late Bronze Age and it formed in the already mixed Corded Ware + Narva population around the Baltics.
perhaps
proturanist writes:
According to current data, the hypothetical spread in the region of the "Anatolian" branch from the Pre-Indo-European peoples—who are thought to have arrived from northern Caucasia to northern Mesopotamia in the 4000s BCE and then dispersed into the interior of Anatolia, later differentiating into peoples such as the Hittites and Luwians.
https://x.com/oguzhantekden/status/2049376497052381199
@ Norfern
''I think most of the Balto-Slavic drift didn't exist before the Late Bronze Age and it formed in the already mixed Corded Ware + Narva population around the Baltics.''
This sentence is inherently self-contradictory
@Rob
The drift maximizes in the early 1st millenium BCE in Estonia and Latvia, no population prior to that has as much drift as they do. I seriously doubt the existence of a mysterious turbodrifted "Baltic HG" that has simply been left unsampled.
I'm going to bring your attention to a small, but surprisingly important in this context detail that pretty much everyone glossed over as "irrelevant"
Estonia_BA had the strongest genetic drift, Latvia_BA had a slightly weaker one, and Lithuania_BA the weakest
From this data point we can conclude that this genetic drift was originally native to the Northern Baltics specifically, and spreaded from there in a Southward direction
I wouldn't be surprised if adjacent to Estonia parts of Russia (Leningrad region, Northern part of Pskov region, Novgorod region) of the contemporary dating would also turn out to have a stronger genetic drift than Latvian/Lithuanian BA
The theory of a Balkan origin of this genetic drift doesn't really make any sense when you compare Estonian/Latvian/Lithuanian BA to each other and see that this drift weakens in a geographical direction towards the Balkans (Lithuania being geographically closest to Balkans, Estonia farthest away)
Recent excavations at the site of Yassitepe Höyük (Bornova, Smyrna) have demonstrated a strong Mycenaean cultural influence, testifying that this particular settlement was an important center of trade and cultural contact between the Mycenaean Aegean and Western Anatolia.
Continued below the tweet in the comments -
https://x.com/hermahai/status/2049423470623064486?s=20
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-9509678/v1
Paper argues that the I-S12195 sample from Nicaea should be dated to late antiquity as opposed to its late medieval radiocarbon dating.
Genomic profile of the sample seems to support that.
Distance to: Turkey_Marmara_Iznik_Y.kapi_PostMedieval.AG:I14844.AG__AD_1564__Cov_73.63%
0.01148163 Anatolia_Early_Modern_Nicaea_(Anatolian_BA_Profile)_(n=1)
0.02802037 Italy_Lazio_Roman_Empire-Late_Antiquity_Isola_Sacra_(East_Med-Anatolian_Profile)_(n=2)
0.02835496 Anatolia_EBA_Ovaoren_(n=3)
0.02846363 Anatolia_MLBA_Kaman-Kalehoyuk_(n=4)
0.02865403 Anatolia_EBA_Isparta_(n=3)
0.02868786 Anatolia_LCA_Camlibel_Tarlasi_(n=12)
0.02924620 Anatolia_EBA_Izmir_Yassitepe_(n=2)
@ Norfern
''The drift maximizes in the early 1st millenium BCE in Estonia and Latvia, no population prior to that has as much drift as they do. I seriously doubt the existence of a mysterious turbodrifted "Baltic HG" that has simply been left unsampled''
What I was saying is that although hunter-gatherer ancestry persisted well in the the third millenium, it is unlikely to have persisted into the LBA (exceptions - Fenoscandia, etc). So I think the CW + Narva-rich admixture occurred earlier than the LBA, but the population remained low, and then grew more rapidly.
Elephants' ancestors were the size of dogs. They grew, however. If we want to understand the origins of the Balto-Slavic drift, we obviously need samples not with the strongest Balto-Slavic drift, but with the earliest Balto-Slavic drift. And such samples come from the Balkans. I listed them in the Kisapostag thread on genarchivist. And it doesn't matter that their Balto-Slavic drift is weak. Odnako za vremya puti sobaka mogla podrasti. Subsequently, when they moved north and mixed with hunters, the drift intensified. Unfounded claims that PCA distortion is present in the case of Balkan samples with Balto-Slavic drift don't convince me. Yeah, it's only for certain samples that everything is distorted.
I don't have a favorite theory, and I'll accept any answer as long as it's confirmed. If we look at the West Eurasia PCA, we see that there's little difference between Slavs and Germanics in terms of hunter-gatherer admixture. Slavs are only slightly more hunter-gatherer than Germanics, and only slightly more WHG. This isn't enough to confidently distinguish them. Thus, the difference between Slavs and Germanics is related to differences in their southern admixture. Evidently, the southern admixture of Slavs originates from a Balkan source. Therefore, we can assume that Slavs are descended from something like Baltic_BA plus Balkan admixture. However, if we move to a dimension that shows the southern admixture of Slavs, we find that Baltic_BA no longer fits into the triangle between Corded Ware people, GAC farmers, and hunters. Baltic_BA is shifting in the same direction as the Slavs themselves, meaning it appears Baltic_BA shares the same southern admixture as the Slavs. Let's try to do something about this.
You can't really determine these things by looking at a static PCA, but need to use a diachronic approach. Early Balto-Slavs are CW + Narva-rich para -Neolithics from the Baltic region. Proto-Slavs and to some degree historic Balts have some additional southern admixture, perhaps from several sources.
Germanics developed in a completely different region, there's no need to discuss them
No, we need to discuss the Germanics to determine whether the ancient example of a Northern European complexion with a high level of hunters is Slavic or Germanic. We see in the PCA that Germanics and Slavs are distinct, so it makes no sense to say that the PCA is incapable of addressing such issues.
@dancingfragments
„Subsequently, when they moved north and mixed with hunters, the drift intensified.“
The critical flaw in your theory is that a genetic drift ostensibly of Balkan origin has been growing stronger in proportion to mixing with Northeast European hunter-gatherers — and proportionally stronger as the original Balkan admixture decreases. That's just wishful thinking dressed up in fancy terminology.
@dancingfragments
„If we want to understand the origins of the Balto-Slavic drift, we obviously need samples not with the strongest Balto-Slavic drift, but with the earliest Balto-Slavic drift. And such samples come from the Balkans.“
You're weaponizing the scarcity of ancient samples as a last line of defense for a theory that otherwise doesn't make any sense. The Estonia_BA samples are just the ones we're lucky enough to have — they aren't necessarily the oldest. Can you guarantee that the original population with the strongest genetic drift wasn't living in the Leningrad region for centuries before migrating into Estonia? That's a rhetorical question.
@dancingfragments
„Evidently, the southern admixture of Slavs originates from a Balkan source.“
Re-Neolithization is a Europe-wide trend from the Bronze Age to the present. Pretty much everywhere from Norway to Greece and from Portugal to Finland, you can observe EEF admixture increasing from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages, and from the Middle Ages to today. Your Balkan theory is something a five-year-old could come up with, but beyond that, the reabsorption of local Neolithic holdouts (for the BA-to-IA genetic transition) as well as slow, gradual genetic drift over many generations are also on the table — and all three of those explanations can be true simultaneously.
@dancingfragments
„If we look at the West Eurasia PCA, we see that there's little difference between Slavs and Germanics in terms of hunter-gatherer admixture. Slavs are only slightly more hunter-gatherer than Germanics, and only slightly more WHG.“
Your admixture analysis of Slavs and Germanic peoples is useless (I loathe the word „Germanics“ — that's not an actual word in English; the correct form is either „Germanic peoples“ or, more archaically, „Teutons“). No one can even agree on which samples should be used as a Proto-Germanic reference. Some would argue for using Norway_IA samples because they're the most genetically northern-shifted and, according to certain interpretations, the most „authentic“, while I would argue for investing into the search of pre-Roman samples from coastal Northeastern Germany due to the lack of BAC admixture that I suspect the more northern groups have in abundance. Same story with the Slavs — the post-Chernyakhov groups simply aren't the same people as the pre-Chernyakhov ones, and the million-dollar question is whether the linguistic developments that split Proto-Slavic from Proto-Balto-Slavic occurred during the Chernyakhov events. This question has no answer today.
@dancingfragments
„Thus, the difference between Slavs and Germanics is related to differences in their southern admixture.“
No, the difference between Slavs and Germanic peoples comes down to the fact that they are distinct peoples who emerged in geographically separate areas and have different ancestral lineages. The bulk of Germanic ancestry can be traced back to the Single Grave culture and neighboring Bronze Age groups, whereas the bulk of Slavic ancestry can be traced to Northeastern European Corded Ware communities. The fact that we can easily distinguish them on a PCA is just a fortunate coincidence — owing to the fact that the Eigenstrat method managed to identify and dimensionally amplify a specific genetic drift that originated in Late Bronze Age Northeastern Europe and remains detectable in all populations partially descended from that source.
There are two obvious reasons why Slavs and Germanics are distinct from each other genetically:
1) genetic drift accumulated during the Slavic and Germanic expansions
2) admixture from exotic (non-Slavic and non-Germanic) sources.
That means that you don't need any significant Balkan admixture in Slavs if 1 is strong enough, and/or if 2 doesn't come from the Balkans.
In fact, all you really need is some Slavic-specific drift and local admixture from within Eastern Europe.
In the West Eurasia PCA and other similar PCAs, the Germanic and Slavic clouds overlap significantly, and the Balto-Slavic drift does not help distinguish between them. Differences between Germanic and Slavic emerge in the dimensions where the various EEF-rich sources diverge.
Radiosource, Yes, according to my theory, the Balto-Slavic drift should have intensified as Balkan farmers interbred with EHG-biased hunters. I'm not a geneticist, and I don't even know if this is possible. This is purely speculative on my part. But simply rejecting this theory is not enough for me. Please offer an alternative, provide a reasonable explanation for why Baltic_BA shifts in the same direction as the EEF-rich source, as we see in Gretzinger's plot, which shows the ancient Balto-Balkan cline and the modern Balto-Balkan cline, and on this ancient Balto-Balkan cline fall a dozen and a half new samples from Akbari et al. 2026. Therefore, I don't understand what deficit of ancient samples you are talking about. There is no deficit. We already have several dozen samples from the Balkans with Balto-Slavic drift, dating to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. One of them is marked on the map from Gerber's work as the oldest relative of Baltic_BA. How can the scarcity of hunting samples from the Leningrad region refute this?
I'll reiterate: in the West Eurasia PCA and other similar PCAs, the Germanic and Slavic clouds overlap, and the Balto-Slavic drift doesn't help distinguish the differences. For the Slavic samples, I used the Gretzinger, Olalde, Krakauer_Berg, and Pohansko samples. As far as I understand, no one doubts that these are Slavs. For the Germanic samples, I used Friesland_Saxon, Schleswig_Saxon, England_Saxon, Wielbark_Kowalewko, Wielbark_Maslomecz, VK2020_NOR_North_VA, and other similar samples without outliers. Can there really be any doubt that these are Germanic? Probably not. Germanics and Slavs are clearly distinguishable in the same type of PCA that shows differences between EEF-rich sources. Just look at Gretzinger's PCA. It's not simply a matter of Reneolithization. Germanics and Slavs clearly have different southern admixtures, and this is difficult to explain otherwise. In any case, if you have another explanation, I'd be glad to hear it. The issue here isn't Balto-Slavic drift, since it's not clearly visible here.
Radiosource, I'm not sure I explained everything clearly in the previous answer, so I'll add an additional one. Unfortunately, you're speaking abstractly where a concrete answer is required. We have a PCA of the type demonstrated by Gretzinger. Here, Germanics and Slavs are very clearly distinguished. Clearly and simply. There's nothing magical about it. We need to understand why. It's not about the differences between the Single Grave culture and Northeastern European Corded Ware communities, since samples from both types would be in the same section of Gretzinger's plot as Germanics. Both. And it's not about Balto-Slavic drift, because Gretzinger's plot doesn't visualize Balto-Slavic drift in its pure form, and the Balto-Slavic section of the plot will also contain samples without Balto-Slavic drift, for example, the Iron Age in Bulgaria. This is the specific fact we need to explain.
The earliest sample with significant Baltic drift to my knowledge is EKA1 from Corded Ware Culture in Estonian.
Target: Estonia_CordedWare.SG:EKA1.SG__BC_2245__Cov_86.69%
Distance: 3.6903% / 0.03690279
49.2 Latvia_BA
20.0 Russia_Samara_EBA_Yamnaya
16.4 Turkey_Barcin_LN.SG
14.4 Latvia_MN_Comb_Ware.SG
@ Dancing Fragments
The difference between Slavs, Germanics and Balts is multifaced and spans 3000 years. It cannot be reduced to one mystical EEF-rich source
@dancingfragments
The differences between Balts, Germanics and Slavs are basically due to the fact that the Baltic, Germanic and Slavic homelands were in different parts of Europe.
But the fact that Balts, Germanics and Slavs share so much ancestry with each other, and their linguistic families are so closely related tells us that they all come from the same, relatively recent source.
The obvious thing that they share is ancestry from the Corded Ware people. So, the Corded Ware culture is the obvious source of Baltic, Germanic and Slavic.
If proto-Slavs did have some sort of Balkan-related farmer ancestry, then this is only of minor interest, because this obviously can't be the source of Balto-Slavic languages.
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