Ancient DNA from North-Central Europe

[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/art...=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/art...=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:



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/-0X53ULQMZ...st_Eurasia.png



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

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.co...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.