Ancient DNA from North-Central Europe

[Peterski]

Ancient DNA is slowly revealing the genetic prehistory of the region. We already have several aDNA samples contemporary with the Lusatian culture, but all of them are from the fringes of that culture (and it will be more difficult to find samples from the core area, because "Lusatians" commonly practiced cremation):

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#5/51.138/25.576

Tollensetal (Welzin) - DNA of warriors who died in battle ca. 1250 BC
Turlojiske - 3 samples dated to 1010-800, 930-810, 908-485 BC
Halberstadt - 1 sample (I0099/HAL36C) dated to 1113-1020 BC
Bylany - two Hallstatt culture samples dated to ca. 850-700 BC

This map shows cultural (archaeological) situation around year 1200 BC. In Suchowola a new Lusatian culture settlement dated to 800-500 BC has been discovered recently, so it turns out that this culture extended even more to the north-east (the distance between Suchowola and Turlojiske is 90 km). Chotyniec, is a recently discovered Scythian settlement from 700-500 BC:

https://i.imgur.com/z9JKmIG.png

According to one theory, the Lusatian culture could be a Pre-Proto-Slavic culture:

http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/fds/fds_1.htm

^^^ Map:

http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/fds/fds_011.jpg

[Peterski]

Tollensetal (Welzin) - DNA of warriors who died in battle ca. 1250 BC

https://i.imgur.com/z9JKmIG.png

^^^
Fought at the border of 3 cultures (Lusatian, Nordic Bronze Age, Jastorf):

https://i.redd.it/fgjlayau2r711.png


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1fMnrjHOUM

https://i.imgur.com/uNPzrm9.png

[Petros Houhoulis]

Ancient DNA is slowly revealing the genetic prehistory of the region. We already have several aDNA samples contemporary with the Lusatian culture, but all of them are from the fringes of that culture (and it will be more difficult to find samples from the core area, because "Lusatians" commonly practiced cremation):

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#5/51.138/25.576

Tollensetal (Welzin) - DNA of warriors who died in battle ca. 1250 BC
Turlojiske - 3 samples dated to 1010-800, 930-810, 908-485 BC
Halberstadt - 1 sample (I0099/HAL36C) dated to 1113-1020 BC
Bylany - two Hallstatt culture samples dated to ca. 850-700 BC

This map shows cultural (archaeological) situation around year 1200 BC. In Suchowola a new Lusatian culture settlement dated to 800-500 BC has been discovered recently, so it turns out that this culture extended even more to the north-east (the distance between Suchowola and Turlojiske is 90 km). Chotyniec, is a recently discovered Scythian settlement from 700-500 BC:

https://i.imgur.com/z9JKmIG.png

According to one theory, the Lusatian culture could be a Pre-Proto-Slavic culture:

http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/fds/fds_1.htm

^^^ Map:

http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/fds/fds_011.jpg
This theory is made by an idiot. He precludes that the Wends and the Venedi, and perhaps even the Antes were Slavs without a single proof in his hands - and several centuries of silence in written sources. Furthermore there is no need for a large number of Slavs to exist physically in order to dominate Eastern Europe. If they managed to assimilate other people to the degree the Indo-Aryans did in India, they could have been a relatively small group of people. Even worse, the close relations between all Slavic languages is proof that they are not as old and have not diverged as much of each other as the western Indo-European languages.

The worst mistake at branding the Lusatians as as Slavs by the authors though, is the idea that the Greeks and Romans did never encounter the Slavic people, while there is enough proof to suggest that the Lusatians invaded Greece and Asia Minor and became the Brygians/Phrygians. We are fully aware that the burial custom of the proto-Greeks and later the Macedonian kings was cremation, just like the Lusatians! Nevertheless, the remnants of the Phrygian language in Asia Minor are too far away from anything satem. It is quite evident that whatever language the pre-proto-Slavs spoke was actually closer to the Baltic languages which in turn is much closer to Latin and Greek and especially Thracian than Slavic is. Even the Balts underwent Satemization though, which means that their original language was probably even closer to Greek and Latin and Thracian at some point. Slavic is, for all intents and purposes, a recent innovation due to the lack of writing which restricted immensely the preservation of language, unlike the Greek, Latin and other languages where a more stable environment and the presence of a written language resulted to a considerable slowdown of the evolution and alteration of those languages.

[Peterski]

(...)

Have you seen Davidski's PCA with Tollense warriors?

Some of them plot very close to modern Poles, some close to Germans (but with more of WHG admixture than modern Germans), some look like Germano-Slavic mixes (no wonder, it was a borderland of 3 cultures), and some - the ones who are genetically southern in the PCA - plot close to Bronze Age Hungarians, including that "famous" BR2 from Cassidy 2016, who had genetic links to Poles:

http://www.tropie.tarnow.opoka.org.pl/images/br2_cassidy2.gif

PCA (Welzin_BA are Tollensetal warriors, see where Hungarian_BA samples plot - some are very close to southern-shifted Welzin samples):

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0X53ULQMZ6U/WfhwdhmT9zI/AAAAAAAAGNQ/zs34s9OzA00HFftgKc-s10cus_wWLAwGQCLcBGAs/s1600/WEZ_West_Eurasia.png

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0X53ULQMZ6U/WfhwdhmT9zI/AAAAAAAAGNQ/zs34s9OzA00HFftgKc-s10cus_wWLAwGQCLcBGAs/s1600/WEZ_West_Eurasia.png

In 2017 they published "Kossinna's Smile" related to his Siedlungsarchäologische Methode:

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2017/04/kossinnas-smile-heyd-2017.html

Perhaps there will be also "Kostrzewski's Smile" after the publication of Lusatian DNA results?

Kostrzewski always claimed that Lusatian culture, co-discovered by him, was Proto-Slavic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Kostrzewski

[Peterski]

This Bronze Age battlefield was discovered several years ago.

Tollense was a battle with 4,000 warriors - more than in the siege of Troy. And it took place in area which is considered "backward Barbaricum" by historians. There are hundreds of skeletons (a dozen or so have been DNA-tested so far).

More importantly it was a battle at the border of 3 cultures.

So warriors most likely were not of the same ethnic group.

It was not a civil war.


We are fully aware that the burial custom of the proto-Greeks and later the Macedonian kings was cremation, just like the Lusatians!

And the burial custom of Early Medieval Slavs was... ???

Yes, cremation too.

[Peterski]

He precludes that the Wends and the Venedi, and perhaps even the Antes were Slavs without a single proof in his hands - and several centuries of silence in written sources.

What are you talking about?

Venedi and Antes were Slavs, and both Jordanes and Procopius are clear about it (they say that all 3 tribes had the same language, the same customs, and common ancestry). Wends is a later - Medieval - name for West Slavs, including Poles. This Greek described Slavic areas in Germany when he visited in 1438-39:

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?248977-Can-someone-translate-this-Greek-text-to-English&p=5217460&viewfull=1#post5217460

https://i.imgur.com/YzBMHHM.png

https://i.imgur.com/otfFI1n.png

^^^
Σθλαβουνία (Slavonia) was the name that he used.

In other sources, the same area is called Wendland.


Even the Balts underwent Satemization though

What about languages that underwent Kentumization and were originally Satem or at least Non-Kentum?

[Bobby Martnen]

But aren't they all really Patawomeck Indians?

[Petros Houhoulis]

Have you seen Davidski's PCA with Tollense warriors?

Some of them plot very close to modern Poles, some close to Germans (but with more of WHG admixture than modern Germans), some look like Germano-Slavic mixes (no wonder, it was a borderland of 3 cultures), and some - the ones who are genetically southern in the PCA - plot close to Bronze Age Hungarians, including that "famous" BR2 from Cassidy 2016, who had genetic links to Poles:

http://www.tropie.tarnow.opoka.org.pl/images/br2_cassidy2.gif

PCA (Welzin_BA are Tollensetal warriors, see where Hungarian_BA samples plot - some are very close to southern-shifted Welzin samples):

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0X53ULQMZ6U/WfhwdhmT9zI/AAAAAAAAGNQ/zs34s9OzA00HFftgKc-s10cus_wWLAwGQCLcBGAs/s1600/WEZ_West_Eurasia.png

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0X53ULQMZ6U/WfhwdhmT9zI/AAAAAAAAGNQ/zs34s9OzA00HFftgKc-s10cus_wWLAwGQCLcBGAs/s1600/WEZ_West_Eurasia.png

In 2017 they published "Kossinna's Smile" related to his Siedlungsarchäologische Methode:

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2017/04/kossinnas-smile-heyd-2017.html

Perhaps there will be also "Kostrzewski's Smile" after the publication of Lusatian DNA results?

Kostrzewski always claimed that Lusatian culture, co-discovered by him, was Proto-Slavic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Kostrzewski

None of these have left a single trace of their language, and proto-Slavic could have been closer to modern German than modern Slavic...

[Petros Houhoulis]

This Bronze Age battlefield was discovered several years ago.

Tollense was a battle with 4,000 warriors - more than in the siege of Troy. And it took place in area which is considered "backward Barbaricum" by historians. There are hundreds of skeletons (a dozen or so have been DNA-tested so far).

More importantly it was a battle at the border of 3 cultures.

So warriors most likely were not of the same ethnic group.

It was not a civil war.



And the burial custom of Early Medieval Slavs was... ???

Yes, cremation too.

Yes indeed. Cremation predates Satemization and the Slavic cultures. The Brygians/Phrygian language was closer to the Greek language than to any Slavic language that supposedly existed back then (but did not develop yet at that timeframe)...

[Petros Houhoulis]

What are you talking about?

Venedi and Antes were Slavs, and both Jordanes and Procopius are clear about it (they say that all 3 tribes had the same language, the same customs, and common ancestry). Wends is a later - Medieval - name for West Slavs, including Poles. This Greek described Slavic areas in Germany when he visited in 1438-39:

Except that we have no actual input from the actual Venedi, Antes and Slavs of that era, and their actual language and customs could differ significantly from what we consider Slavic today. If you had even a single prayer book we might have something to talk about, what we have here is merely an opinion not corroborated by any hard evidence, in light of the fact that neither Jordanes nor Procopius could speak that language.


https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?248977-Can-someone-translate-this-Greek-text-to-English&p=5217460&viewfull=1#post5217460

https://i.imgur.com/YzBMHHM.png

https://i.imgur.com/otfFI1n.png

^^^
Σθλαβουνία (Slavonia) was the name that he used.

In other sources, the same area is called Wendland.

He uses the term Σθαβουνία not Σθλαβουνία, the words he uses are not exact (Lubeck is translated into Lupik) and even in that case the name could have survived but the people who carried it not so. The worse issue with you though is that the Zygiotai he refers to were people of dark pigmentation...


What about languages that underwent Kentumization and were originally Satem or at least Non-Kentum?

Are there any such? Were the original IndoEuropeans speaking Anatolian style languages which went Centumization? There is no proof of any Satem language undergoing Centumization though, but French has been partially Satemized in spite of the fact that it is Centum.

Furthermore, the Frygian language of the Phrygian/Brygians who split off from the Lusatian culture remain way too close to the Greek language, and far away from any Slavic language...

[Peterski]

(...) Even worse, the close relations between all Slavic languages is proof that they are not as old and have not diverged as much of each other as the western Indo-European languages. (...)

Regarding the age of Proto-Slavic language, you are wrong. Read this:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0135820.s008&type=supplementary

"There is a near consensus among linguists that the Baltic and Slavic languages stem from a common root, Proto-Balto-Slavic, which separated from other Indo-European languages around 4,500–7,000 years before present (YBP) [1–8] and whose origin is mapped to Central Europe [8]. The Balto-Slavic node was recognized already in the pioneer Indo-European[9]. The split between Baltic and Slavic branches has been dated to around 3,500–2,500 YBP [= years 1500-500 BC] [6–8]. (...) Our consensus tree (Fig. G in S2 File) suggests the following topological and temporal reconstruction of the Balto-Slavic languages. Initial disintegration of proto-Balto-Slavic into proto-East Baltic and proto-Slavic took place during the 2nd millennium BC [= years 2000-1001 BC]. Proto Slavic splits into three major clades, East, West, South Slavic around year 100 AD (1900 Years Before Present). Further diversification of each clade into minor clades (i.e. proto-East Slavic: Ukrainian/Belarusian, Russian; proto-West Slavic: Czech/Slovak, proto-Sorbian, Polish/Kashubian; proto-South Slavic: Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian) took place during the 5th–7th centuries AD (about 1500–1300 YBP), followed by final shaping of individual languages (1000–500 YBP). (...)"

^^^
So Slavic is about as old as - or even older than - the Lusatian culture.


The worse issue with you though is that the Zygiotai he refers to were people of dark pigmentation.

The Zygiotai spoke Slavic, as did people in Hanoverian Wendland (read my TA blog entry about them).

This is how pigmentation of Slavs from Wendland (between Havelberg and Lüneburg) was described:


Physique

When in the late 19th century V. Jagic asked prof. Zimmer from Greifswald about the living descendants of Hanoverian Wends, he replied (based on information he got in a letter from Mr. Knesebeck, a district administrative official in Kreis Lüchow), that they tend to have (...) usually dark hair (...)

Culture

According to pastor Hennig von Jessen (1649-1719), they used to eat six meals a day: 1. pridubed (pre-lunch or breakfast), 2. vubod (lunch), 3. predjauzeinak (pre-dinner), 4. jauzeina (dinner), 5. pridcerek (afternoon snack) and 6. vicera (supper). (...)

[Peterski]

In any case, the domination of R1a-Z280 in the area between Turlojiske and Halberstadt indicates that the Lusatian culture was closely related to Balto-Slavs and not to "western" populations originating predominantly from Bell Beaker descendants. It follows that cultural affiliation of "Lusatians" with other Urnfield cultures, resulted raher from a purely cultural spread of certain customs towards the east, not from linguistic or biological kinship. "Lusatians" were descended from Trzciniec populations with R1a-Z280 and - perhaps - also R1a-M458. Of course I do not exclude the possibility of some Celtic and "Hungarian" (BR2-like) genetic influences in "Lusatians", including the presence of some R1b-P312.

[Petros Houhoulis]

Regarding the age of Proto-Slavic language, you are wrong. Read this:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0135820.s008&type=supplementary

"There is a near consensus among linguists that the Baltic and Slavic languages stem from a common root, Proto-Balto-Slavic, which separated from other Indo-European languages around 4,500–7,000 years before present (YBP) [1–8] and whose origin is mapped to Central Europe [8]. The Balto-Slavic node was recognized already in the pioneer Indo-European[9]. The split between Baltic and Slavic branches has been dated to around 3,500–2,500 YBP [= years 1500-500 BC] [6–8]. (...) Our consensus tree (Fig. G in S2 File) suggests the following topological and temporal reconstruction of the Balto-Slavic languages. Initial disintegration of proto-Balto-Slavic into proto-East Baltic and proto-Slavic took place during the 2nd millennium BC [= years 2000-1001 BC]. Proto Slavic splits into three major clades, East, West, South Slavic around year 100 AD (1900 Years Before Present). Further diversification of each clade into minor clades (i.e. proto-East Slavic: Ukrainian/Belarusian, Russian; proto-West Slavic: Czech/Slovak, proto-Sorbian, Polish/Kashubian; proto-South Slavic: Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian) took place during the 5th–7th centuries AD (about 1500–1300 YBP), followed by final shaping of individual languages (1000–500 YBP). (...)"

^^^
So Slavic is about as old as - or even older than - the Lusatian culture.

The real question is "What Slavic"? Because it is quite apparent that although Slavic was not directly in contact with civilized people, it did receive a certain amount of external amount of influence either in the form of bordering more advanced cultures or invasions, and we cannot quantify the overall impact of these influences, furthermore, Slavic was practically reconstructed after the Christianization of the Slavs and the enormous influence it received from the Byzantine nomenclature. This is why the Slavic languages appear to have evolved much earlier than they really did, because all of them were readjusted to "Old Church Slavonic" and some of them even "Glagolitic". If "Slavic" in the time of the Lusatian culture was akin to Brygian, then the changes in the Slavic language have rendered the modern descendants truly unrecognizable! I mean, how on earth could Phrygian be closer to Greek than anything Slavic if it was the contemporary Slavic?


The Zygiotai spoke Slavic, as did people in Hanoverian Wendland (read my TA blog entry about them).

Nope, there is no conclusive evidence about the Zygiotai, some folks even suggest that they were German leftovers from the crusader armies!!!


This is how pigmentation of Slavs from Wendland (between Havelberg and Lüneburg) was described:

Irrelevant. I referred to dark skin, not dark hair. A person can have very light skin and still dark hair... Thus the best candidates are Gypsies, and the accounts of the Zygiotes as Gypsies are by far more convincing than anything else that I have read in Greek accounts which are inaccessible to you!

[Aren]

Have you seen Davidski's PCA with Tollense warriors?

Some of them plot very close to modern Poles, some close to Germans (but with more of WHG admixture than modern Germans), some look like Germano-Slavic mixes (no wonder, it was a borderland of 3 cultures), and some - the ones who are genetically southern in the PCA - plot close to Bronze Age Hungarians, including that "famous" BR2 from Cassidy 2016, who had genetic links to Poles:

http://www.tropie.tarnow.opoka.org.pl/images/br2_cassidy2.gif

PCA (Welzin_BA are Tollensetal warriors, see where Hungarian_BA samples plot - some are very close to southern-shifted Welzin samples):

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0X53ULQMZ6U/WfhwdhmT9zI/AAAAAAAAGNQ/zs34s9OzA00HFftgKc-s10cus_wWLAwGQCLcBGAs/s1600/WEZ_West_Eurasia.png

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0X53ULQMZ6U/WfhwdhmT9zI/AAAAAAAAGNQ/zs34s9OzA00HFftgKc-s10cus_wWLAwGQCLcBGAs/s1600/WEZ_West_Eurasia.png

In 2017 they published "Kossinna's Smile" related to his Siedlungsarchäologische Methode:

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2017/04/kossinnas-smile-heyd-2017.html

Perhaps there will be also "Kostrzewski's Smile" after the publication of Lusatian DNA results?

Kostrzewski always claimed that Lusatian culture, co-discovered by him, was Proto-Slavic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Kostrzewski

They look like slightly WHG-shifted Western Europeans. Only two seem to be plotting convincingly with Balto-Slavs.
I'm not surprised though, since neither the Balto-Slavic nor the Germanic ethnogenesis had happend by that time.

[Petros Houhoulis]

In any case, the domination of R1a-Z280 in the area between Turlojiske and Halberstadt indicates that the Lusatian culture was closely related to Balto-Slavs and not to "western" populations originating predominantly from Bell Beaker descendants. It follows that cultural affiliation of "Lusatians" with other Urnfield cultures, resulted raher from a purely cultural spread of certain customs towards the east, not from linguistic or biological kinship. "Lusatians" were descended from Trzciniec populations with R1a-Z280 and - perhaps - also R1a-M458. Of course I do not exclude the possibility of some Celtic and "Hungarian" (BR2-like) genetic influences in "Lusatians", including the presence of some R1b-P312.

Well, it would certainly make more sense if the Lusatians were Balts and way, way more sense if they were Centum people like the Boii who most probably settled as far as Boeotia...

[Aren]

In any case, the domination of R1a-Z280 in the area between Turlojiske and Halberstadt indicates that the Lusatian culture was closely related to Balto-Slavs and not to "western" populations originating predominantly from Bell Beaker descendants. It follows that cultural affiliation of "Lusatians" with other Urnfield cultures, resulted raher from a purely cultural spread of certain customs towards the east, not from linguistic or biological kinship. "Lusatians" were descended from Trzciniec populations with R1a-Z280 and - perhaps - also R1a-M458. Of course I do not exclude the possibility of some Celtic and "Hungarian" (BR2-like) genetic influences in "Lusatians", including the presence of some R1b-P312.

But we do have Late Bronze Age aDNA from the western part of the Lusatian culture not far from Tollense. They were genetically close to modern day Germanics and Celts.

[Peterski]

But we do have Late Bronze Age aDNA from the western part of the Lusatian culture not far from Tollense. They were genetically close to modern day Germanics and Celts.

That sample is from Proto-Jastorf area not from Lusatian area, although close to the border between these two cultures.


there is no conclusive evidence about the Zygiotai, some folks even suggest that they were German leftovers from the crusader armies!

Germans are not dark-pigmented.