Slavic peoples ethnogenesis

[Peterski]

In 850 AD eastern part of what is now Germany was inhabited by Slavic-speaking people.

Later those Slavs became Germanized. After 1200 AD they migrated eastward as "Germans".

And after that some of them again became Re-Slavicized by Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, etc.

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I actually know some specific examples of such "Germans".

A 13th century merchant - Albrecht Baruth (also known as Albert Bart) - who came to Wrocław, Poland, from Baruth, the HRE.

Sources say that Albert Bart was "a Thethonia" ("from Germany") but also that he was "de genere Czurbanorum" ("Sorbian by origin").

So he was a Germanized Slavic Sorb, who later migrated to Poland as a "German" settler. His Y-DNA was probably Slavic.

[Peterski]

Re: previous posts about ancestries of modern Slavonic peoples:

Yes, Slavs do have "mixed ancestries" - it is hard to be 40% of a continent's population and homogeneous!

40% of Europeans live in Slavic-speaking countries (where official language is Slavic):

http://s30.postimg.org/9tmeqp7tt/Countries_Europe.png



Even if you exclude Russia, then still 20% (1/5) of Europeans live in other Slavic countries:

http://s9.postimg.org/n8n0jr7hb/Slav...s_pop_1991.png

[TheForeigner]

Were Pomerian Slavs and Kasubians Poles or other West Slavic group? What about Silesians? And about Celto-Germans assimilated by West Slavs; how many were left in those areas, when Slavs first came there? What about Slovenes and Croats? Which Slavs are majority non-Slav and which majority Slav by origin? Were Dacians in part at least assimilated by Slavs and which or how many of these went to the Balkans? Btw, Baltic Prussians were partly assimilated by Poles too and other Balts too. How much Finnic and Baltic is in Russians?

[TheForeigner]

I wonder how much Slav and how much Illyro-Celtic and Goth the Slovenes and Croats have or how much Celto-Germanic in Czecho-Slovaks or that and Baltic in Poles.

[LightHouse89]

No, from the Early Middle Ages. Here is the extent of Slavic-inhabited lands in year 850 AD:

Map: Territories inhabited by Slavic peoples in the mid-9th century (ca. 850 AD):

LEGEND:

(thick black lines) ======== Slavic population constitutes vast majority
(thin black lines) =============== dispersed settlement of Slavic population
(small red circles) ======== Slavic people outside of main settlement area
(big red dots) ===== mixed Slavic-Baltic and mixed Slavic-Finno-Ugric settlement

http://s22.postimg.org/mtfqsgzj5/Slavic_lands_850.png



Map is originally from:

"Słowianie, ich wędrówki, siedziby i otoczenie etniczne we wczesnośredniowiecznej Europie"
("Slavs, their migrations, homelands and ethnic environment in Early Medieval Europe")
by Adam Sengebusch

But I modified it by adding also areas (big red dots) shown as Slavic by this map:

http://hetman3333.blox.pl/resource/mapa_slowianie.JPG

This map shows a larger extent of East Slavs than that by Adam Sengebush.

I showed these additional areas as mixed Slavic-Baltic or Slavic-Finno-Ugric.

so i have possible slavic ancestry? LOL

[Stanislav]

so i have possible slavic ancestry? LOL

Why not?

[FeederOfRavens]

so i have possible slavic ancestry? LOL

You said some of your German ancestry came from Rugen so yes it's very likely.

[Turkminator]

Which Slavs are closest to the Proto-Slavs in ancestry today and with what peoples have the various Slavic peoples mixed and to what extent? I was wondering about how even Slavs outside the Balkans are quite diverse in looks and there is some genetic distance between East and West Slavs. Especially Czechs and Slovaks are not so close to the others, as might be expected. While Slovenes and northern Croats are quite to the north of other South Slavs. Hungarians are not Slavic, but much of their ancestry is. Same with Austrians and East Germans.

grattez le russe, et vous trouverez le tatare pur sang.

[FeederOfRavens]

grattez le russe, et vous trouverez le tatare pur sang.

S'il vous plaît, arrêter. Vous abuser cette citation

[Peterski]

And about Celto-Germans assimilated by West Slavs; how many were left in those areas, when Slavs first came there?

I've found this article posted online on another forum by a German user from Holstein, nick Frank N. (he lives in the region of Hamburg):

=====================

It will be very interesting to finally learn about supposed population replacement when Slavs moved west around 6th century AD.

"Living in a place that used to be Slavonic until the 12th century, I have been wondering about this myself already for some time. I feel this is a good opportunity to present some of my findings and conclusion, also as they may be pertinent to Mathir's highly interesting attempt to reconstruct Slavic population movement from genetic data.

For the area covered during the LGM, i.e. the Northern European Plain north-east of the approximate line Hannover-Berlin-Bydgoszcz, multiple pollen analyses from sediments of glacial lakes, and from swamp areas, are available. Most of them point to a dramatic, though not complete drop in agricultural land use around the 5th/6th century, followed by a small recovery around the 8th/ 9th century, substantial increase in the 12th century back to the level that existed during the 1st-3rd century AD, and a historical peak in the 14th and early 15th century. Interpreting these patterns needs to consider that lake/ swamp sediments have a limited catchment radius which, depending on the size of the lake in question, may cover as little as 1-2 km. The lakes/swamps are furthermore located within alluvial, i.e. sandy environments, and as such rather reflect the use of marginal lands, and not agriculture along fertile river marshes. As such, the pollen diagrams are likely to overstate actual changes in human land use.

On a closer look, comparing various locations reveals the existence of two diametrically opposite trends. In Western Germany, the agricultural decline already commences in the early 1st century AD. In several parts of Westphalia, agricultural land use drops by around 50% from the first century BC to the 3rd century AD. The drop is most likely related to Roman attempts to conquer lands east of the Rhine, but may also reflect contemporary Germanic incursions into previously Celtic areas. A 50% drop in cereal pollen reported from Dithmarschen (Riesenwohld) north of the Upper Elbe between the 1st and 3rd century AD, however, is obviously linked to Roman fleet expeditions during this period. At the same time, there is a marked increase in agricultural land use further east. This corresponds to Roman reports of a mass flight of Germanics across the Elbe during Drusus' campaign (12-9 BC).
Another marked drop in agricultural land use in Westphalia, to only 10-15% of the pre-Roman peak, occurs in the early 3rd century BC. Such a drop can also be observed in several locations further East, e.g. Herzberg on the south-western Harz (Jues-See), and is most likely linked to the Roman incursions under Emperors Severus Alexander and/or Maximilian Thrax (for background see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_at_the_Harzhorn). Here, again, agricultural land use further east shows a contemporary increase, indicating further Germanic migration away from areas threatened by Roman incursions.
During the migration period, Westphalia is repopulated. By as early as around 475 AD in some areas, e.g. around Rheine, and in the second half of the 6th century across all of Westphalia, agricultural land use returns to the level observed during the 1st-3rd century AD. This is interpreted as sign of Saxon immigration from north-east of the Elbe, promoted by the fact that the Franks had eliminated the danger of Roman incursions. Simultaneously, agricultural land use in Dithmarschen, i.e. the northern upper Elbe, picks up strongly, almost reaching 14h/15th century peak level. This means that the Upper Elbe area, even though it may have contributed to the Anglo-Saxon migration into England, has probably been a net immigration region during the 5th-8th century AD.

East of a line that more or less corresponds to the maximum extend of Slavic settlement during the early middle ages, the trends are opposite. Southwest of the Elbe, there are significant signs of dips during periods of Roman incursions (turn of the millennium, early 3rd century), which correspond to settlement increase further east, and (partial) recovery thereafter. Then, at latest by the mid 6th century, agricultural land use declines suddenly and massively. In the case of the well-studied Belau Lake in eastern Holstein, e.g., settlement indicators decrease from more than 30% of all pollen in the early 5th century and around 25% in the early 6th century to below 10% in the late 6th century. This corresponds to archaeological evidence of various settlements that have been given up around 550 BC. During the late 7th century, in the Belau lake sediments settlement indicators increase steeply to 20-25%. They remain at that level until around 1150, i.e. the beginning of German colonolisation. Then, another steep and steady incline to more than 55% by the beginning of the 14th century takes place. Similar patterns have been observed in other places, e.g. the Müritz lakes in Mecklenburg, and swamps in the Hanoverian Wendland SE of Luneburg, where, however, the local stratigraphy is more compressed, so dating of the changes is subject to higher uncertainty.
German Wikipedia furthermore reports a substantial increase in forest coverage (which implies substantial reduction of agricultural land use) all along the Pomeranian and South Swedish Baltic Sea coast during the Migration Period. Pollen diagrams from Rybojady on the Obra river west of Posznan show a strong increase in agricultural use including cereal production during the late Iron Age / Roman period, possibly indicating immigration from Western Germany after the Roman conquest attempt. Here. however, settlement already declines markedly during the 4th century AD, with an abrupt break in the presence of cereal pollen from approximately 400 AD on. Recovery, including re-emergence of cereal production, already commences in the 7th century, some 50-100 years earlier than in Eastern Holstein.

Interestingly, just west of the line settled by Slavs, the pattern is quite different. Sediments in the Einfeld Lake, just 20 km west of the Belau Lake, do not show any traces of agricultural decline during the 6th and 7th century, and even a first, temporary cereal production peak during the 9th century, at a time when nearby Neumünster was the political centre of Saxon Middle Holstein. Similarly, pollen from the Elbaer Moor, a few km north of Luneburg, and less than 15km west of the area where Slavic village names start to dominate, does hardly show signs of agricultural and settlement decline during the 5th to 7th century. However, grain production may have been temporarily reduced, while animal husbandry increased simultaneously. Here, strong agricultural and settlement expansion commences already in the early middle ages, probably as early as by the mid-8th century AD.

I realise that this post has already become quite long, so I will discuss and interpret patterns in a subsequent post. Nevertheless, below already links to my sources. They are all in German, but enclosed pollen diagrams may still be illustrative:

Kollsee / Kosel (Angeln, north of the Eider):
http://www.ufg.uni-kiel.de/bereiche/...afeln%2017.htm
Riesenwohld, Dithmarschen (northern Upper Elbe):
http://www.museum-albersdorf.de/riesewohld/rwpollen.htm
Westphalia (Diagram with settlement indicators on p. 109):
http://www.ghl-westmuensterland.de/m...lenanalyse.pdf
Belau Lake, East Holstein (Diagram on p. 233):
http://www.uppakra.se/backup/docs/uppakra6/17_Jons.pdf
Einfeld Lake, Neumunster, Middle Holstein (Diagram on p. 70):
https://www.umweltdaten.landsh.de/nu...een_Typ_11.pdf
Luneburg area (Diagrams on p. 19 and p. 29):
http://ediss.uni-goettingen.de/bitst...pdf?sequence=1
Herzberg/ Harz:
http://home.snafu.de/voigt.buss/pskizze.htm
Western Brandenburg:
http://www.academia.edu/6761602/Jahn...he_Untersuchun
Müritz, Mecklenburg:
http://books.google.de/books?id=LHDD...derung&f=false
Oder and Obra (Warthe) valleys, Brandenburg / West Poland (various diagrams at the end of the document):
https://ediss.uni-goettingen.de/bits...pdf?sequence=1

For a general discussion, with strong focus on methodological issues, see:
https://www.academia.edu/1550778/%C3...orddeutschland

=======================================

To sum up my previous post, pollen diagrams reveal the following significant population movements in Eastern Germany and northern Poland during the Roman and Migration Periods and the early middle ages:

1. At the beginning of the 1st millennium AD, Roman attempts to conquer Germania Magna drive significant numbers of West Germanics (and possibly also Continental Celts) across the Elbe. This displacement reaches out far beyond the Oder, either directly or via Domino Effects. [Assuming that Polish scientists have also prepared pollen analyses, I invite Forum members who understand Polish to examine respective publications and check out how far to the east these population movements really extended. The Marcomannic Wars may have lead to movements out of Moravia and into Silesia, which might also show up in pollen diagrams.]

2. At the beginning of the migration period, there is a widespread, sudden and massive drop in settlement along the Baltic Sea coast and its extended hinterland. This drop starts sometimes during the early fifth century somewhere in Eastern Pomerania, and progresses westwards over the next century until it comes to a halt around 550 AD in Middle Holstein, at the Ilmenau river in Lower Saxony, and near (probably east of) the Harz mountains [Again, Polish pollen diagrams might help to clearer identify the starting point and time of this process].

3. Repopulation, most likely driven by Slavic immigration, takes place during the seventh century. Pollen diagrams suggest a westward movement along or parallel to the Baltic coast, other movements (up the Oder and Elbe) might have also occurred, but can't be traced from the pollen diagrams that I have examined. By the end of the seventh century, the migration reaches the middle Elbe and East Holstein. Since settlement remains rather constant over the following 350 years, there seems to only have been one immigration / expansion wave from the east. In the repopulated (slavicised) areas, settlement density during the early middle ages appear to have been substantially (30-50% ?) lower than during the 1st-4th century AD.

4. In the second half of the twelfth century, a strong and steady increase in settlement begins, which peaks by the late 14th century. This increase starts in East Holstein around 1150 and moves eastwards. It reaches the Oder around 1250, and the Wartha around 1300. The geographical spread and the timeline correspond well to the German colonisation. At the late 14th century peak, settlement-indicating pollen are at least double as frequent as during Roman times, and around three times as frequent as during the early (Slavic) middle age.

What caused the sudden and massive population drop of the 5th -6th century?

1. The Justinian Plague, which commenced in the Eastern Mediterranean around 541 AD, can be ruled out for Eastern Pomerania, where the drop already occurred earlier. Further to the west, the drop is more or less contemporary to the Plague. However, the fact that some places were virtually deserted, while others, only a few kilometres further west, show hardly any sign of population decrease, makes it rather unlikely that the drop was primarily caused by an epidemic. The Plague may, however, have delayed repopulation of deserted areas.

2. Climate change: Between the 4th and 8th century AD, the European climate became colder and wetter (Migration Period Pessimum). Around 580 AD, Gregory of Tours reported various long winters, heavy rains, floods, poor harvests and famines throughout the Frankish Empire. Pollen diagrams testify for such a weather change in north-central Europe, which, among others, resulted in increasingly planting rye instead of wheat, and/or a temporary shift from farming towards animal husbandry. This also documents that farmers along the coasts had developed and used strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change. The change may nevertheless be responsible for some population decrease, especially a slight drop in settlement along the Oder and Wartha valleys that occurred already in the late 4th century AD, or the 5th century population decline along the upper Weser (a flood-prone area). However, it can neither explain the sudden, massive and widespread drop in settlement that occurred along the Baltic Sea and its hinterland, nor why nearby regions with similar climate and topography did not show such a drop (Middle Holstein), or even increased settlement (Dithmarschen). The latter case is instructive, as it displays a substantial increase in pasture, at the expense of forests - a mitigation strategy that in principle should also have been possible near the Baltic Sea.

3. The Huns: The Hunnic incursion into Central Europe commenced with the destruction of the Ostrogoth kingdom in southern Ukraine in 375; their dominance of Central Europe ended when Attila died in 453. The Huns are likely to have heavily influenced population trends in southern Poland / Silesia, but most of the population drop along the Baltic Sea occurred when their power was already broken. While they are thus unlikely to directly have caused the population decline, they should nevertheless have substantially weakened the Baltic economic base by blocking trade links with the Mediterranean, especially the network of amber routes. Successors to the Huns, such as the late 5th century Herulian kingdom around the middle Danube and lower Morava, however, attempted to re-establish (amber) trade with the Baltic Sea, so the economic downturn should in principle only have been temporary, and no reason to massively leave the western and central Baltic coasts.

4. Immigration pull: The collapse of the Roman empire obviously provided for various attractive migration opportunities: England, France, the Rhineland, Westphalia, Bavaria & Austria south of the Danube, the western Balkans, even Italy. However, if such opportunities had been the main migration motive, one would expect an west-easterly pattern - the closer an area to "attractive" immigration regions, the higher the decline in population and settlement. But the observed pattern is the other way round: Emigration starts in the east, progresses westward over time, and north of the Lower Elbe, from where it is easy to get to England or the Netherlands, people (refugees?) are piling up. This doesn't mean that the availability of migration opportunities, especially towards the newly established Germanic kingdoms along the middle Danube, was irrelevant. To the opposite - it surely helped communities to decide for emigration. However, I don't think it was the main factor. The existing population was primarily pushed out - otherwise the drop in settlement would have been much smaller and spread out over time.

5. Emigration push: Recent excavations along the projected course of the A20 motorway have uncovered defensive earthworks along the watershed between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea in Middle Holstein, next to remains of a small settlement that was apparently given up around 550 AD. The earthworks (a palisade-covered earth wall behind a small trench, 700 m of which have been excavated between a swamp and a lakeshore) are a mystery to excavators. It is the first time such structures have been found in Northern Germany, though the excavator (whom I met during a presentation of his results) is aware of similar findings in Denmark. Apparently, people in middle Holstein and further up through Jutland had reason to defend themselves against incursions from the Baltic Coast.

I know I am getting highly speculative here, but the most plausible explanation to me is a "Varangian-style" pattern that emerged somewhere in the Central / Eastern Baltic Sea (Central Swedish Coast? Gotland? "Venedii" east of the Vistula?). Originally coming by boat to trade in their amber or furs, they find out that locals are either unable or unwilling to trade with them (as the trade link further on to the Mediterranean has been blocked by the Huns). In order to not return empty-handed, the "visitors" shift from trading into pillaging mode, which over a few years should suffice to convince the locals of the need to emigrate. With the initial "partners" gone, further villages along the coast and up the rivers are "visited", until most of the local population has fled the area. When trade with the Mediterranean is finally re-established, it lacks trade hubs along the western Baltic Sea and is thus re-routed towards the East (the Varangian route along the Dnepr) or the West (the Frankish-controlled Rhine). This re-routing in turn substantially affects the population further inland (to the extent they haven't already been pushed out by the Huns, as was apparently the case with Vandals & Suebi), especially along the upper Elbe and Oder, in Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia, which causes further out-migration.

As stated above, pollen diagrams from near the western & central Baltic coast point at an almost complete stop of agricultural activities during the migration period. The problem here is with "almost". We may have a situation where all previous inhabitants emigrated, and some left-over cattle creates the impression of a bit of animal husbandry still going on. Or, many stayed in the area but moved to well-defendable places, which would rather be hill-tops than lakes and swamps (from where the pollen analyses have been taken). So, pollen analysis can probably not answer the question whether - and if so, how large a - part of the original population stayed in the area.

Archaeology has so far found little signs of settlement continuity along the Baltic coast. (...)"