Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3083616/

The archaeological site of Sagalassos is located in Southwest Turkey, in the western part of the Taurus mountain range. Human occupation of its territory is attested from the late 12th millennium BP up to the 13th century AD. By analysing the mtDNA variation in 85 skeletons from Sagalassos dated to the 11th–13th century AD, this study attempts to reconstruct the genetic signature potentially left in this region of Anatolia by the many civilizations, which succeeded one another over the centuries until the mid-Byzantine period (13th century BC). Authentic ancient DNA data were determined from the control region and some SNPs in the coding region of the mtDNA in 53 individuals. Comparative analyses with up to 157 modern populations allowed us to reconstruct the origin of the mid-Byzantine people still dwelling in dispersed hamlets in Sagalassos, and to detect the maternal contribution of their potential ancestors. By integrating the genetic data with historical and archaeological information, we were able to attest in Sagalassos a significant maternal genetic signature of Balkan/Greek populations, as well as ancient Persians and populations from the Italian peninsula. Some contribution from the Levant has been also detected, whereas no contribution from Central Asian population could be ascertained.


The maternal gene pool of Sagalassos was then compared with a higher number of populations (ie 157 populations) but from a shorter mtDNA fragment (HVS-I) and the Fst values obtained (Supplementary Table 7) have been graphically plotted on a map of Eurasia and North Africa (Figure 3). Results are consistent with those from the HVS-I/HVS-II comparisons, showing the genetic proximity of Sagalassos with its neighbouring populations, particularly some Eastern Mediterranean groups (Turkey/Anatolia), the Balkans (mainland Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia) and Crimea.20, 34, 37, 38, 39

Overall, it is remarkable that the Fst values point to a proximity of Sagalassos with the samples from Turkey, Crimea, Iran and Italy (Campania and Puglia), Cyprus and the Balkans (Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece), which show the lowest nonsignificant Fst values (Fst<0.005, Supplementary Table 8).

Haplogroup composition in Sagalassos was investigated by means of the PCA (Supplementary Table 9). In the two-dimensional plot (Supplementary Figure S1), which explains 32% of the total variation, Sagalassos is located in a marginal position, close to a cluster of populations from the Caucasus (the Georgian sample being the closest to Sagalassos), the East Mediterranean (Cyprus and Rhodes) and the samples from the Near/Middle East. In this pool of populations, contribution of haplogroups U3, N1, U1 and HV to the first and second PC was found to be particularly high (Supplementary Figure S2).

A total of 20 HVS-I/HVS-II haplotypes from Sagalassos were found to match modern sequences (Supplementary Table 10 and Supplementary Text). In agreement with the results of the Fst-based analyses, we detected relevant haplotype matches with the populations that historically may have contributed to the makeup of the Sagalassos mtDNA pool, particularly the Balkan area (eg Northern Greece, Macedonia, Bosnia and Bulgaria), Italy and Iran. Of particular note is the presence of haplotype LA35 exclusively in Macedonia (frequency 0.5%), and AK41a and LA20 exclusively in Italy (both at 0.25%), as well as the high frequency of AK15a in Iran (15%). Shared haplotypes were also found in the Near/Middle East (eg AK62 and AK56-69_2, 2.33% in Saudi Arabia), in particular LA54 found only in Jordan (1%). Finally, two matches with Central Asian samples, one with Tajiks (the haplotype AK15a, assigned to haplogroup N1b) and one with Uygurs (AK60, assigned to haplogroup T2b) were detected.