We have gotten some queries re: DNA data leaking out of the Tolense valley site via a new paper. This paper is “Genomic data from an ancient European battlefield indicates on-going strong selection on a genomic region associated with lactase persistence over the last 3,000 years” by Burger & others. Apparently, the data is being interpreted quite differently by various people.
I guess a few things are in order:
First, ancient genetics are not the focus here and I’m not even close to a neophyte in these matters.
Second, as I understand it, the focus of the paper is also something entirely different – namely ancient lactose tolerance. As a result the paper does not get into the various autochtonisms, etc.
Beyond that even a quick scan suggests that, with respect to at least the Polish Suavic-autochtonic theories, the paper is neither helpful nor hurtful.
On the “down” side, the few samples that were analyzed show, on the Y-DNA side, no R1a but a few I2s and R1bs (they do show an R1 that had not been further identified).
(That said, the sample is small (the authors were able to use only 14 samples) and the Tolense battle is in Tolense, that is not in Poland. Also, I have no idea whether the I2s and R1bs are or are not ones that are nowadays commonly found among Suavs).
Beyond Y DNA, the authors look at the whole genetic package and based on that look imply that most of the samples cluster with a group the authors label “Central-Eastern European.” This group is clearly different, however, from a separate group the authors label “Slavic.” While there is some overlap, the CEE group beats out the Slavic group.
So these are not Slavs/Suavs then.
Or are they?
The authors define Slavic/Suavic to include:
- Russian
- Ukrainian
- Belarusian
- Polish
- Sorb
- Mordovian
This generally makes sense but there are a few quirks. Why are Mordovians included? They are (or were) not Slavic speaking. Maybe the idea is to throw everyone east of the Oder and north of the Carpathians (or at least a Carpathian line extended eastwards?). Oh, but plus the Sorbs.
For that reason presumably, Czechs and Croats are not included and neither are Bulgarians or some other populations that had had a significant Slavic footprint such as Hungarians.
On the other hand, if Sorbs are related to Serbs and, if the authors are excluding the Croats, then query should Sorbs be part of this group.
If you look at the definition the authors use for CEE, you will note this includes the following groups:
- Albanian
- Bulgarian
- Romanian
- Hungarian
- Czech
- German
- French
Immediately the thing that is striking is that there may be a significant overlap with Slavic populations here. Obviously, there is the matter of Czechs. There are also Bulgarians, Hungarians and Romanians that may and do have a Slavic connection. But even if you exclude all those as coming from “south of the Carpathians”, this grouping also includes Germans some of whom may be East Germans. That East Germans should be similar to the Tolense population should surprise no one.
Further, the CEE population includes Germans and the French. But a German from Bavaria and a German from Hamburg are very different Germans. This is even before you get to East Germans… And what of the French? Which French are included? The ones from Calais or the ones from Marseille or the ones from Bordeaux?
(Other curiosities are also present – for example, the Lithuanians are grouped with Estonians and Finns).
Even taking all this into account, the authors still end up with a situation where there is an overlap between the group labeled Slavic and some Tolense individuals…
This raises a question where, for example, in the group labeled Slavic are the Poles?
If, as we might suspect (given they are the western most – aside from the Sorbs – Slavs in the grouping), they are more towards the “SW” tip of the Slavic grouping then they would overlap with a portion of the Tolense sample.
This is so even before we consider that some of the Poles may be Poles who had previously lived in what was Eastern Poland and had been resettled in the former German territories post WWII – essentially “hopscotching” over the rest of the Polish population.
Given how broadly these groups “Slavic” and “CEE” are defined, you’d want to break them up into specific countries and specifically state how the present day population samples were picked for each of those countries.
Without having any clear data with regards to these points, it is difficult to make any conclusions regarding the autochtonism of the Poles or Polabian Slavs from this sample.
This is hardly surprising however since the focus of this paper was not on questions of population movements…
I also can’t help but notice that the samples for Norway and Iceland are set so far apart from one another. Since Iceland was primarily settled from Norway how is this possible? Also, why are Croats such outliers?
Finally, note that the mt-DNA lineages in the sample do not appear to be significantly different from those of your Poles (at least to my, admittedly untrained, eye).
With that last piece of information in mind, it would behoove the various researchers of Suavic migrations to consider that R1a may have come later to the game but also that it did not greatly change the dominant DNA (other than on the paternal side obviously) nor, and this is important, perhaps even the language of the local population…
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