Slavic & Ostsiedlung Berlin DNA

[Peterski]

If I hit here with the time machine from the year 1200, would you understand me, Mr. Wemhoff?

MATTHIAS WEMHOFF: No - but it depends on where the Berliners came from. Westphalia, I'm one myself, I understand - Berlin was founded by newcomers.

MICHAEL MALLIARIS: No, they spoke Rhenish (laughs). But of course the Westphalian settlers who moved east in the 13th century were also there.

CLAUDIA MELISCH: That has not been proven, the original Berliner speaks Middle Low German. This is a mixture of Central German or Central Low Saxon, from the Hanover and Platt region. They spoke in a similar way to how Walter von der Vogelweide wrote poetry - we wouldn't understand everything today, but we would understand a lot.

The Slavs who lived in our region until the 12th century are genetically different from the medieval [Berlin] settlers, as the first DNA studies show.

WEMHOFF: That's where Berlin differs from the much older Spandau, which was shaped by the Slavs. Up until the 12th century, it was the number one trading center in the region, had a castle and was perfectly connected to the mouth of the Spree and Havel rivers.

https://plus.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/das-leben-vor-800-jahren-der-berliner-trinkt-viel-bier-aber-ist-dem-suff-nicht-so-verfallen-wie-die-schwaben-429046.html

[sioned]

Large part of what is now east Germany, was settled by Flemish. and Dutch..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A4ming_Heath
The Fläming Heath is a region and hill chain that reaches over 100 km from the Elbe river to the Dahme River in the German states Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. Its highest elevation is the Hagelberg (201 m). The name Fläming originates from the 12th century, when Flemish colonists came to settle in the region from the overcrowded cities of Flanders.

Also Dutch settlers:

Niemegk is a town in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district, in Brandenburg, Germany. The name Nymik or Niemeke is possibly derived from the town of Nijmegen in the Low Countries, the place of origin of German settlers.

Wittenberg: Historical documents first mention the settlement in 1180 as a small village founded by Flemish colonists under the rule of the House of Ascania.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2763957?seq=1

https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/guvdds/bbsa/brblanguage

[Peterski]

^^^ More about it:

"Regarding the foundation and development of Cölln (Petriplatz, first graveyard 2nd half of 12th century) it is most interesting if people of Slavic origin were amongst the first inhabitants. Therefore the two major groups which are thought to have formed the early inhabitants of Cölln and Berlin fall directly on the border of genetically well distinguishable Western-European (Germans) and Eastern European populations (Slavs). The Y-chromosomal haplotypes of the here investigated three males from the early 13th century could be more allocated to Western European populations than to a Slavic origin. This is also in confirmation with the predicted haplogroups R1b, I1 and E1b1b."

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Rothe/publication/348686893_The_three_medieval_fighters_from_CollnBe rlin/links/600ae522a6fdccdcb87064c9/The-three-medieval-fighters-from-Coelln-Berlin.pdf

Strontium isotopes also confirm the origins of new settlers from areas to the west of the Elbe River.

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^^^ However, I'm not sure why did they assign E1b1b as "more allocated to Western European populations".


Based on what we already know about Early Medieval Slavic Y-DNA, E1b1b was quite common among Slavs.

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BTW when talking about the origins of Berliners, we must not forget it once used to be a 30% French city: :p

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Huguenot_Refugees_in_Brandenburg_and_Berlin,_Germa ny

"By 1700 ca. 6000 French Huguenots had settled in Berlin which was around 1/3 of the population at that time."

The authors should take this into account instead of modeling Berlin as just a two-way mixture of Slavs + Germans.

[Dušan]

BTW when talking about the origins of Berliners, we must not forget it once used to be a 30% French city: :p

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Huguenot_Refugees_in_Brandenburg_and_Berlin,_Germa ny

"By 1700 ca. 6000 French Huguenots had settled in Berlin which was around 1/3 of the population at that time."

The authors should take this into account instead of modeling Berlin as just a two-way mixture of Slavs + Germans.

Interesting.

[Peterski]

Large part of what is now east Germany, was settled by Flemish. and Dutch.

Yes, I wrote about it in my thread "Origins of Germans in Mecklenburg and Brandenburg" (also on Anthrogenica):

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?16382-Origins-of-Germans-in-Mecklenburg-and-Brandenburg

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?275741-Origins-of-Germans-in-Mecklenburg-and-Brandenburg

These settlers mixed with local Slavs in roughly 50/50 proportions, so modern East Germans can be modelled like:

(a model using Global25)

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

^^^
However, this German_East sample is entirely from one city - Leipzig.