Genetic history of East-Central Europe in the first millennium CE

[Peterski]

Link to the paper:

https://genomebiology.biomedcentral....iH5jvLRo_-hmx0

Abstract
Background
The appearance of Slavs in East-Central Europe has been the subject of an over 200-year debate driven by two conflicting hypotheses. The first assumes that Slavs came to the territory of contemporary Poland no earlier than the sixth century CE; the second postulates that they already inhabited this region in the Iron Age (IA). Testing either hypothesis is not trivial given that cremation of the dead was the prevailing custom in Central Europe from the late Bronze Age until the Middle Ages (MA).

[Token]

Great paper but no great surprise. By the way, for those who kept saying that the early Slavs would be mostly brunet, those Medieval Polish Slavs were predicted as being as blond as the Iron Age Germanics:

Although the exact phenotypes of the studied individuals are unknown, the estimated population-wide allele frequencies at loci associated with hair, skin, and eye colours indicated that, on average, individuals in both groups were blond haired, light skinned, and blue eyed

[Jana]

Seems they try to push autochtnous theory despite lack of evidence and lack of continuity between Polish Iron Age and medieval Polish Slavs. I dislike when nationalist agenda interferes with science.

[Peterski]

There is Slavic R1a-M458 already in Iron Age Poland:

"We found that all IA group individuals with Y-hg R1a belonged to the R1a-M458 lineage. These results, together with the earlier report on R1a-S204 lineage detection in an individual associated with the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture [26], strengthen the evidence that R1a-S204 Y-hg lineages, which are dominant in present-day East-Central European populations (Polish, Czech, Belarusian, Ukrainian) [80], were already present in East-Central Europe, at least since the Late Bronze period".

[Lucas]

Among four 4 R1a samples East-central Euro autosomal proportions vary from 0 to 75%, so some of them can't be Slavs probably.

BTW

We obtained multiple valid two-way models showing that IA_X populations are mixtures of Norse populations (~ 90–95%) and local proxies (5–10%). The models with Denmark_IA and Czech_EBA_Unetice were plausible for all three IA_X populations: IA_Pruszcz_Gdanski, IA_Kowalewko, and IA_Maslomecz (Additional file 2: Table S9). Several valid models were also produced for Denmark_IA + Poland_EBA_Unetice, Lithuania_BA, or Estonia_IA.

This is close to statistical error percentage.

[Lucas]

But beware, paper has many errors, when you look for example in qpadm tables. I hope Davidski will make proper models.

[cass]

Seems they try to push autochtnous theory despite lack of evidence and lack of continuity between Polish Iron Age and medieval Polish Slavs. I dislike when nationalist agenda interferes with science.

You can safely wait for the earlier results of the Lusatian Culture and Scythians from Poland.

[Lucas]

You can safely wait for the earlier results of the Lusatian Culture and Scythians from Poland.

There was Scythian form Poland sample?

[cass]

There was Scythian form Poland sample?

It should be. After all, it was the Scythians who destroyed the Lusatian culture.


Peterski published samples of Scythian farmers from UKR.

[rothaer]

The first component was linked to the Mesolithic western hunter-gatherers (WHGs), who came to Europe approximately 14 thousand years ago [27].
(page 2)

From where outside of Europe did this component, linked to WHG, come to Europe aproximately 14ky ago? Do the authors here introduce themselves regarding their knowledge and thoroughness?
The following parts of the paper suggests so.

The results demonstrated that the genetic ancestries of the IA individuals and MA individuals were similar and typical for post-Bronze Age Europe—three main genetic components common to all Europeans (WHGs, NAFs, and YAMs) contributed equally to the genomes of individuals from both studied groups (Additional file 9: Fig. S20B).
(page 5/7)

That’s banal.

To explore this issue, we tried to identify within the IA group, the outliers that would represent the utochthonous IA population. Such individuals could be used to model the population that mixed with incomers associated with the Wielbark culture. Unfortunately, none of the methods we applied allowed us to identify the outliers.
(page 7)

To those who think that the later Slavs were derived more or less 1:1 from the „autochthonous IA population“: It gets hard to maintain such an imagination if not a single such individual could be found now.

Based on the archaeological and historical findings, we expected the Wielbark cultureassociated IA individuals to be the northern European IA immigrant population with the admixture of the autochthonous IA population.
(page 7)

What „archeological and historical findings“ exclude the nearby Jastorf culture area as source for a western immigration? Its spread to the area in question is archeologically visible.

The above findings indicate that the observed genetic differences between IA and MA populations resulted from local demographic processes that most likely took place during the IA.
(page 7)

What? A population that the authors find being „mixtures of Norse populations (~ 90–95%) and local proxies (5–10%).“ transformed within abt. 500 years by „local demographic processes“ genetically into medieval Poles?
I think these authors are ruining their scientific reputation.

It’s a pity that they did not also make statements about „local linguistic processes“ that led to a Germanic speaking population becoming a Slavic speaking population within the same period of time.

All three IA_X populations had also valid one-way models with Ukraine_Scythians as a source.
(page 7)

This explains all.
Didn’t this insight cause any of these authors to refrain from publishing a paper based on such bad models?

This observation supports earlier reports that Ukraine_Scythians had close genetic affinities with the ancient northern populations (Sweden_IA, Sweden_LN, Denmark_LN) [68]. However, a model competition test (described in [69, 70]) showed that Denmark_IA is a better source of the ancestry for the IA_X populations than Ukraine_Scythians (Supplementary Information) which is consistent with archaeological data [32].
(page 7)

So just neatly this team of experts preferred to model Eastern Germanics in a one-way model to hail from other Germanics instead of from Ukrainian Scythians. If I would have developed such a bad model I would have kept this accident to myself.

We obtained multiple valid two-way models showing that IA_X populations are mixtures of Norse populations (~ 90–95%) and local proxies (5–10%).
(page 8)

Sounds somewhat much „Norse“, but still plausible.

All MA_X populations (12) formed valid one-way models with IA_Maslomecz, 10 with IA_Kowalewko and 9 with IA_Pruszcz_Gdanski.
(page 8)

Yes, no wonder, after that procedure even gave a valid one-way model for a ~ 90–95% Norse and 5–10% local proxy population to fully hail from Ukrainian Scythians.

If there was a genetic continuation of the autochthon IA population, then one should be able to model the IA_X populations as mixture of the MA X populations and Hungary_Szolad_Migration_Period who were shown to be incomers migrating from north through the region of contemporary Poland to south Europe.
(page 9)

Not a single author out of all these scientists knows what’s known about the migration path of the Longobards?

Still, the MA populations showed close relations with ancient north and north-western Europeans indicating the continuity of the northern European genetic component. That is why, to model some of the MA populations, Denmark_IA could be used as the only source.
(page 12)

Medieval Slavic populations in contemporary Poland can be modeled with Denmark_IA as the only source? Then there can just be congratulated to such a sophisticated genetic model.