After a decade long effort, the Marek Figlerowicz (whose fame is being rapidly outshined by his progeny – all, like the parents, featuring M- names) group finally released its genetic study of medieval and pre-medieval (read: Roman times) remains found in Poland (“Genetic history of East-Central Europe in the first millennium CE“). This has set the blogosphere on fire but, frankly, the results (putting aside the 10 year wait worthy of Communist-era project timeframes) are underwhelming and the authors’ accompanying conclusions untethered from these meager results.

The project was supposed to – at least in the minds of those that followed its odyssey – firmly establish whether Suavs were present in Poland before, say 500 A.D., that is the study was supposed to resolve the age-old question of the origin of the Polish Suavic population. Were the Suavs “always” in Poland or did they arrive in the early Middle Ages from an original Suavic homeland somewhere in the “East”.

As a side note, at least the question in the above posited form was thought to have been the age-old question. But human folly knows no bounds so another Polish geneticist, Piotr Węgleński, recently restated the problem as follows: “as concerns the origin of us Poles, we have two theories. One says that we come from the marshes of the Pripyat river. The other states that when Genghis Chan moved West with the Mongols conquering Europe, he captured various peoples along the way and he picked up our forbears somewhere between the Don and Dniepr and, heading West, dropped them off in the lands of today’s Poland.” The Overton window was thus shifted from “between the Odra and the Vistula OR Polesie/Western Ukraine” to “Pripyat Marshes OR something, something, Genghis Khan.” Appropriately enough, a few years ago Węgleński gave a lecture entitled “The Newest Developments in the History of Stupidity in Poland.” Now, with the claim that Poles arrived in Poland first in the thirteenth century, Węgleński will be able to boast that he is not only a passive reporter of this alleged process but also a contributor to its development.

So what did Figlerowicz and his team find?

Well, it seems that the Iron Age (Roman Era, or IA) cemeteries contain graves of people who look like older Scandinavian populations and the Middle Ages (or MA) cemeteries contain graves of people who look like Suavs.

Take this chart where the more dark blue the samples are the more “Scandinavian” they are and the more red, the more Suavic. The top right hand corner represents IA samples and the lower right represents MA samples.

Or take this next chart where on the right you have female mtDNA haplogroups. The two columns (second from right IA and furthest right MA) are almost the same between IA and MA. On the other hand, the two left columns show male Y-DNA haplogroups. The furthest left column shows males from IA and the second from left shows males from MA. Although there are some Suavic haplogroups on the very left (though the color scheme is somewhat misleading – only about half of the red on the left is from haplogroup R1a), they are relatively few as a percentage of the overall.

Given that Scandinavian Y-DNA haplogroups dominate the IA samples and Suav Y-DNA haplogroups dominate the MA samples, if you were to try to answer the above query using this data the only reasonable conclusion is that male Suavs, one way or another, displaced male Scandinavians in Poland between IA and MA. 

This makes the authors’ conclusions puzzling:

“The above results are consistent with the hypothesis assuming migration from north and genetic continuity in the region of contemporary Poland from the IA to the MA…However, high genetic contribution of the IA populations to the MA populations suggests not only the continuation of the common north European ancestry but also genetic continuation of the autochthon IA population which mixed with the incomers.”

And with respect to Y-DNA in particular:

“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 (Haak 2015), strengthen the evidence that R1a-S204 Y-hg lineages, which are dominant in present-day East-Central European populations (Polish, Czech, Belarusian, Ukrainian) (Underhill aka Podgórski 2015), were already present in East-Central Europe, at least since the Late Bronze period.”

Then comes this nugget:

“There are many examples in history showing that a relatively small group of male immigrants can subjugate a local community (e.g. the history of the colonization of North and South America). Thus, a small number of individuals with Y-hg R1a in the IA group does not necessarily mean a low frequency of this haplogroup in the autochthonous IA population.”

I’m sorry but this is pure speculation relying on results from other older papers. The current Figlerowicz study is, shall we say, unambiguous.

What’s particularly perplexing are the statements of the group that apparently were made at the time of or right after the publication. They are a jumbled mess at best (they may have made these statements in the paper itself – can’t recall at the moment). Apparently, a conclusion of the team is that (paraphrasing) “it is not necessary to postulate further genetic infusion after IA to form the MA population.” In other words, Suavs have likely developed from the existing IA populations. I am not a geneticist and assume that this is certainly possible but the question – looking at the above charts – is how likely that is. If these are the representative samples for the time period (see below as to why they may not be), then surely – at least on the male side – things changed between IA to MA. Could the population have changed from IA to MA in exactly the way that is postulated? Maybe. But, again, how likely is that? Essentially, the people who had disproportionately large Scandinavian genetics must have departed and the population remaining must have been characterized by fewer “Scandinavian” features. Such a selection in who left and who stayed requires an explanation. You could say that the Goths left and the Wends (?) stayed I suppose. Even if this were the case, the majority of the population in the settlements studied by the Figlerowicz team would have shown itself as Gothic. Figlerowicz also said that he does not agree with Jozef Kostrzewski’s theories (Kostrzewski claimed that the Suavs lived in Poland since the Bronze Age at least, then the Goths came and then the Goths left and Suavs remained). But he seems to be saying exactly what Kostrzewski claimed. Except that this is based on evidence that can only support Kostrzewski under some very specific circumstances.

But there is more. Apparently, Figlerowicz’s team has claimed that basically the same people lived in Poland during the IA as the kinds of people that lived in northern Germany, Lithuania or Latvia at the time.  This can be read to mean that you can’t really distinguish between such populations because they are all basically the same. But if the writers really believe that then the above claim of population continuity in the sense that most people took it to mean evaporates since the researchers and the general public are not in agreement on the meaning of the the underlying concepts. In other words, by claiming these populations are interchangeable (they are not), the Figlerowicz team really denies the point of the whole exercise. I guess they did not find evidence of Amerindians, Asians or Africans being present in Poland at the time but we kind of knew that they wouldn’t. Moreover, if Figlerowicz’s team can’t tell the difference between a Latvian, a Suav and a German then how can it confidently claim that an entirely new population from amongst those three groups did not appear in Poland sometime between IA and MA to replace or at least dwarf most of the Rest-whatever population that was left after Gothic departure?

There are ways of preserving Kostrzewski’s claims but they are not laid out by this paper nor are they supported by the paper’s data. Let’s take a more sober view of what we actually know.

The most level-headed part of the paper is the following (adding emphasis to a very relevant point):

“Here, we provide several pieces of evidence that the ancestors of the medieval populations lived in the region of present-day Poland during the IA. There are, however, several aspects that need further elucidation. Firstly, how and when the ancestors of the MA populations with Y-hg R1a appeared. The times when Y-hg R1a-M417 dominated in this territory are associated with the spread of the Corded Ware culture (from 3000 to 2300 BC) (Papac 2021). Later, it was replaced by the Unetice culture (from 2300 to 1600 BC) (Papac 2021) that was associated with the populations in which Y-hg R1a was very rare. From then until the IA, there were many archaeological cultures in this region from which no genetic data is available as cremation became the dominant burial practice. Here, we showed that the IA and MA populations inherited only a small percentage of genetic ancestry from the people associated with the Unetice culture. Therefore, the ancestors of the autochthonous IA populations with Y-hg R1a would have either had to be revived in the BA period or come from east during the BA or IA period. At this point, it should be noted that based on our results, one cannot explicitly rule out additional waves of migration after the IA. Thus, one of the reasons for the increase in the frequency of Y-hg R1a could also be migrations from Eastern Europe after the Migration Period. Although they seem less likely one cannot exclude the alternative scenarios that do not assume the presence of the ancestors of the medieval populations in the region of contemporary Poland during the IA. One possibility is the numerous waves of migration from northern Europe in both IA and medieval times.”

It may be true (apparently) that there have been no samples pre-dating Wielbark but post-dating Unetice. But the problem with this study is deeper.

The issue is the sample selection even for the period supposedly under study, that is, the Roman Era Iron Age.

The vast bulk of the samples collected appear instead to have been gathered from medieval Poland such that, Węgleński’s pioneering suggestions notwithstanding, there does not seem to be any reason to doubt that those would turn out to be Suavic – as indeed they have.

However, when we turn to the “Roman era” samples (IA) studied, they are either from a very small geographic area in Greater Poland/Kuyavia (three places total, including – the previously designated as Gothic – Kowalewko) or from two places in the Gdańsk region on the Baltic coast – areas where, it is entirely likely, Scandinavian peoples (e.g., Goths) may well be expected to have had a foothold. The only exception to this is Masłomęcz on the Ukraine border which, however, was already thought to be Gothic years before. (Somewhat notably, though, at least the maternal lines found in both Masłomęcz and Kowalewko appear to be the same as those found in Poland currently).

The only “new” (as in not previously leaked) Roman era samples are from:

• Gąski, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship – this consists of 2 samples – neither of which has any Y-DNA
• Czarnówko, West Pomeranian Voivodeship – same as above: 2 samples and none have Y-DNA
• Pruszcz Gdański, Pomeranian Voivodeship –  this has a smattering of I1s, R1bs but also I2s

Take a look at this map. The MA samples are in red, the IA Roman Era samples are in blue.

Altogether there were only five Roman-era sites studied it seems. The analyzed medieval sites and samples outnumber the Roman-era ones in the study by about 4:1.

In the Roman-era samples, we have nothing from Western Pomerania, nothing from Mazovia, nothing from large swaths of Greater Poland, nothing from Lesser Poland (save Masłomęcz if you count it as such), nothing from Silesia, nothing from ancient Prussia and nothing from Polesia.

Compare the above blue Wielbark samples with this map from Henryk Machajewski’s paper (1992):

The green sites have been connected with Przeworsk. The red are supposed to represent Wielbark. Pruszcz Gdański is 91, Masłomęcz is 71, the other Figlerowicz Wielbark sites don’t seem to be shown.

In other words, Figlerowicz’s team knew there had been Goths in Poland around the same time, it looked for Goths and it found something that looks like Scandinavian, possibly Gothic, DNA.

The team does not appear to have figured out how to deal with the lack of body parts necessary for DNA studies (presumably given the prevalence of cremation in most of Poland prior to the introduction of Christianity). This means all of the Przeworsk culture is simply excluded from the study. Naturally too, this is not unexpected but is nevertheless disappointing given the fanfare that surrounded this effort.

In fact, take a look at this graph from the same paper. Strictly speaking, if you were to analyze the results of only this study, not only isn’t there any evidence of Suavs in Poland during the IA but also there really isn’t any evidence for them during the period from about 450 A.D. to about 950 A.D. They just have no samples for that period.

Plus, as pointed out already above, the samples for the Y-DNA portion of the study include only three sites: Pruszcz Gdański and two sites which were known to be Gothic before – Kowalewko plus Masłomęcz (and Kowalewko does have someone with an R1a haplogroup though it’s not obvious whether its subclade is “Suavic”). Many more Wielbark sites could have been part of this study (see map above), most notably from Mazovia and Polesie but they were not. So while the conclusions above seems unambiguous, the sample size on which they are based is sparse to say the least. In fact, to be honest, we can’t even draw full conclusions about the Wielbark sites either just based on this study. This too is disappointing and, frankly, I don’t see a reason for such a narrow scope of the Wielbark sample size.

To put the project’s IA range in some perspective take a look at this map. The yellow area is the area of Poland from which Roman Era Iron Age Y-DNA samples have been recovered and analyzed. The area in red is the portion of Poland that archaeologists and geneticists still have some work to do on:

Now this took about a decade. Someone with better math skills can figure out when we will be done at this rate but I worry that by then future geneticists will need another DNA study just to figure out what ethnic group actually started this project.

Figlerowicz and his team may be commended for undertaking this project but they really should have kept expectations far lower. It’s not that their results are equivocal. It’s more that they simply don’t have enough results to derive any definitive conclusions.

Anyway, when and if a broader study is done at some point, covering all Roman Era sites in Poland as well as the pre-Roman period we will know whether Suavs (in the sense of the typically Polish Y-DNA haplogroups) lived in Poland during or prior to Gothic migrations.

It seems the answer to this question may be ‘yes’ – at least for southeast Poland – albeit here too the Y-DNA haplogroup frequency split does not correspond to current percentages (more I2a than R1a) as per a new Maciej Chyleński & others article (“Patrilocality and hunter-gatherer-related ancestry of populations in East-Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age“).

Here are the results from that paper:

As can be seen there are plenty of R1a’s, particularly in the Strzyżów culture but also in the Mierzanowice culture plus the Komarów culture which is in Ukraine including:

• R1a1a1b1a2a aka Z280>Z92 in Komarów
• R1a1a1b1a2b aka Z280>CTS1211 in Strzyżów and Trzciniec
• R1a1a1b1a1a aka M458>L260/S222 in Trzciniec

In fact the R1a percentages run as follows:

• Iwno – 0%
• Komarów – 50%
• Mierzanowice – ~67%
• Strzyżów – 80%
• Trzciniec – 16%

Here you can see the geography of the samples:

Now are these the specific Suavic downstream clades? We will probably never know as you’d have to dig deeper in the DNA and these samples are what they are. Nevertheless, if you asked for Western Suavic DNA at this level today, it seems that you would get this. (There seems to be some confusion with their Mokrzec site which the dataset shows as R1b but the supplementary data paper claims is R1a.)

Incidentally, after R1a, the biggest Y-DNA haplogroups in Poland are I1 and R1b. Maybe these are from former Gothic tribes (or Celts or even Germanic tribes) but they might as well be remnants of R1b (and perhaps I1) wanderers who never made it to Scandinavia (or maybe who wondered back out years before the times of the Roman Empire).

It is curious that Trzciniec is mostly I2a and, particularly, more southern and western form of it but even here in Trzciniec you see two I2a1b2a’s aka CTS10936 which has been found all over the continent but its preponderance is in eastern/southern Europe.  

In any event, if the answer were ‘no,’ then the next question will have to be where did they come from? To answer that you would need samples from southern Swabia around the Bodensee, the Elbe country, Pannonia, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine, Belarus and, perhaps even the territories from Lake Lacha to Lake Pihkva.

Note that the same Figlerowicz group is also going after the origins of the Piast dynasty – Polish, Scandinavian, Czech, Hungarian  or, maybe Ukrainian (probably hg N BTW)? This seems like it ought to be an  “easier” project but here too the team seems to have hit a stumbling block as the Church and local antiquities authorities apparently refused to allow the researchers to access some of the few known graves of actual Polish kings. Given the alleged importance of this project, this refusal seems absurd but, of course, the monarchs aren’t, hopefully, going anywhere so there is always potential for someone changing their mind given, perhaps, some future less invasive method of analysis.

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