Pontic Greek Results

[TeneTana]

https://youtu.be/oo7URznpXjA


Interesting results

[Andrewid]

I've made a K36 similarity map for this individual who is apparently of 100% Pontic Greek origin.

The results are very interesting as they fit in with my own and other Greek Cypriot results. Greek Cypriots and other Greek Aegean islanders have a spike in their degree of similarity with the north east Black Sea coast of Turkey. This is because they share a certain substrate from at least the Byzantine period onwards with no significant Turkic admixture. The second highest Pontic match of this individual is to Cyprus despite the geographical distance. Closer to Cyprus in fact than to any of the neighbouring Caucasus populations.

The Pontians are more Armenian shifted and the Cypriots have more Levantine. Both populations have a spike in the Levant in terms of Assyrian Christians. Though the Pontians are too remote to be considered a part of the Mediterranean genetic continuum, it is obvious that there is a genetic connection, particularly to its eastern wing. Notice that Dodecanesians and Cypriots have a closeness, and though southern Italians are quite far, they are closer than continental Greeks (who have Slav-Vlach-Arvanite admixture). This links Pontians to the Aegean substrate despite their geographical isolation. Would appreciate Erik to comment on this.

 

 

[Erikl86]

Thanks Andrew for posting this additional info.

There is not much to add to what you already said, but if I could, it'll be that what we see when we look at Pontic, Armenians, Assyrians, Cypriots and even the recent Hatay Alawites, that there used to be a genetic cline from the northern regions Fertile Crescent all the way to Central Anatolia.

It's quite clear that Assyrians and Armenians cluster close together, but they also cluster with Pontic Greeks to a degree, and with Cappadocian Greeks and Cypriots.

I have to agree that IMO, the main suspect for this is the Byzantine Empire, and previously the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, which pretty much guaranteed that these people would live together and later on adhered to similar religions which would enable intermarriages, with the "glue" being common Hellenic identity - atleast when we're discussing Pontic, Cappadocian and Cypriot Greeks.

It could also be older, though - both Assyrians and Armenians seem to have substantial Hurrian ancestry, which might explain their genetic affinity, and this Hurrian-like admixture might have spanned all across Eastern Anatolia at the time, making that region genetically similar to Northern Mesopotamia and Armenia.

[Kanenas]

Thanks Andrew for posting this additional info.

There is not much to add to what you already said, but if I could, it'll be that what we see when we look at Pontic, Armenians, Assyrians, Cypriots and even the recent Hatay Alawites, that there used to be a genetic cline from the northern regions Fertile Crescent all the way to Central Anatolia.

It's quite clear that Assyrians and Armenians cluster close together, but they also cluster with Pontic Greeks to a degree, and with Cappadocian Greeks and Cypriots.

I have to agree that IMO, the main suspect for this is the Byzantine Empire, and previously the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, which pretty much guaranteed that these people would live together and later on adhered to similar religions which would enable intermarriages, with the "glue" being common Hellenic identity - atleast when we're discussing Pontic, Cappadocian and Cypriot Greeks.

It could also be older, though - both Assyrians and Armenians seem to have substantial Hurrian ancestry, which might explain their genetic affinity, and this Hurrian-like admixture might have spanned all across Eastern Anatolia at the time, making that region genetically similar to Northern Mesopotamia and Armenia.

All modern Greek speakers had a Roman identity, not an Hellenic one. The name 'Hellenes' became commonly used after the revolution of 1821.

__
There are evidence with incriptions of 2800 years old contacts of people who identified as ~’ŠRYM with people who identified as ~Hiyawa (and were called DNNYM by the ŠRYM)

But there is the bad practice of calling inscriptions of people who clearly identified as Assyrians as 'Phoenician'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87...6y_inscription
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karatepe_bilingual

A connection of the 'Luwian' speakers of that region with ancestors of the Classical 'Greeks' seems to exist. Firstly, the 'house of Mopsos'. Secondly, the names ~Hiyawa and DNNYM seem to be connected with names like Achaeans, Ionians (originally ΙΑFONEΣ, pronounced ~yawones) and Danaans.

__
Pontic Greeks should have ancient West Iranian admixture too. I don't know if any Pontic Greek can descend from Mithridates VI but there may be some >2000 y.o. Persian admixture.

[Bruma]

Wonder what his K36 would oook like from Lukasz or using nMonte

[LTG]

It's quite clear that Assyrians and Armenians cluster close together, but they also cluster with Pontic Greeks to a degree, and with Cappadocian Greeks and Cypriots.

Pontic Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians certainly show a strong overlap. However, I am not sure where you got the idea that Assyrians and Armenians cluster with Greeks from Cyprus and Central Anatolia, because that is incorrect. Central Anatolian Greeks appear to be equidistant between Pontic Greeks/Armenians and Cretan Greeks - they show great overall similarity to the Anatolia ChL sample we have. Cypriot Greeks are more varied, but they overlap with Cretan Greeks and Anatolia BA with the exception of one outlier that clusters into the Levant.

East Mediterranean-Levant-West Asia PCA.jpg

1. Southern Italians, Sicilians, Maltese, Western Jews, Aegean Greeks, the Collegno outliers, Cypriot Greeks form a gathering of far Southeastern European populations or what you guys like to call the East Mediterranean continuum.
2. Central Anatolian Greeks are just outside of this Eastern Mediterranean continuum and clearly have strong West Asian input from Eastern Rome but still they do not cluster with Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks.
3. You then have Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks who are far removed from the East Mediterranean peoples and form their own cluster which is distinctively West Asian.

[Andrewid]

Pontic Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians certainly show a strong overlap. However, I am not sure where you got the idea that Assyrians and Armenians cluster with Greeks from Cyprus and Central Anatolia, because that is incorrect. Central Anatolian Greeks appear to be equidistant between Pontic Greeks/Armenians and Cretan Greeks - they show great overall similarity to the Anatolia ChL sample we have. Cypriot Greeks are more varied, but they overlap with Cretan Greeks and Anatolia BA with the exception of one outlier that clusters into the Levant.

East Mediterranean-Levant-West Asia PCA.jpg

1. Southern Italians, Sicilians, Maltese, Western Jews, Aegean Greeks, the Collegno outliers, Cypriot Greeks form a gathering of far Southeastern European populations or what you guys like to call the East Mediterranean continuum.
2. Central Anatolian Greeks are just outside of this Eastern Mediterranean continuum and clearly have strong West Asian input from Eastern Rome but still they do not cluster with Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks.
3. You then have Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks who are far removed from the East Mediterranean peoples and form their own cluster which is distinctively West Asian.

I don't think there's anything you said that I massively disagree with. But in fairness to Erik, he said clustering 'to a degree'. Of course Cypriots don't cluster with Pontian Greeks or Armenians in the strict sense. But what we are looking for is patterns. Despite the fact that from everything I've seen Cypriots cluster closest to Dodecanesians (which unfortunately Davidski does not have an academically verified sample group for), there is a kind of 'genetic bridge' which runs above current Anatolian populations (with their Turkic admixture) over to Cappadocian Greeks. It doesn't mean that Cappadocians, let alone, Pontians are a part of that continuum. What we are seeing is a greater degree of similarity with certain populations despite other populations being more distant genetically even though the latter are closer geographically. This can be understood by socio-historical conditions and developments.

Btw, the Mediterranean continuum idea was not created on this forum. Sarno and her colleagues spoke about it in their paper on southern Italy (Ancient and recent admixture layers in Sicily and Southern Italy trace multiple migration routes along the Mediterranean), but other geneticists have spoken about it to.

@Bruma It would indeed be good to run nMonte etc calculators but we would need Pontic coordinates. Erik does a very useful similarity map based on Global25, but we need coordinates for this.

[lukaszM]

Wonder what his K36 would oook like from Lukasz or using nMonte

Using kit number from the movie

Amerindian -
Arabian 2.09
Armenian 17.63
Basque -
Central_African -
Central_Euro -
East_African -
East_Asian -
East_Balkan -
East_Central_Asian -
East_Central_Euro -
East_Med 21.46
Eastern_Euro -
Fennoscandian -
French -
Iberian -
Indo-Chinese -
Italian 11.40
Malayan -
Near_Eastern 16.55
North_African -
North_Atlantic -
North_Caucasian 8.28
North_Sea -
Northeast_African -
Oceanian -
Omotic -
Pygmy -
Siberian -
South_Asian -
South_Central_Asian 0.13
South_Chinese -
Volga-Ural -
West_African -
West_Caucasian 18.79
West_Med 3.66



nMonte3

GR_Pontus 0.9554419
TR_Trabzon 0.9641779
Armenians 1.2081356
GR_Central_Anatolia 1.4161268
IQ_Chaldean 1.6650717
Assyrians 1.7444707
Georgian_Jew 1.7472717
Lazes 1.7528981
Azerbeijani_Jew 1.8415475
IQ_Syriac 1.8588790


"distance%=0.9123"

GR_Pontus,49.2
TR_Trabzon,40.2
GR_Central_Anatolia,2.4
Armenians,1.6
Cyprus,1.6
Iraqi_Jew,1.2
Syrian_Jew,1
Lebanon_Muslim,0.8
Lazes,0.6
Lebanon_Christian,0.4
Belarus_Ashkenazy,0.2
IQ_Syriac,0.2
Libyan_Jew,0.2
Palestina,0.2
Samaritan,0.2


pen=0

"distance%=0.8855"

GR_Pontus,56.4
TR_Trabzon,33
Samaritan,9.6 (this is interesting)
GR_Central_Anatolia,0.6
Cyprus,0.2
Lazes,0.2

[LTG]

I don't think there's anything you said that I massively disagree with. But in fairness to Erik, he said clustering 'to a degree'. Of course Cypriots don't cluster with Pontian Greeks or Armenians in the strict sense. But what we are looking for is patterns. Despite the fact that from everything I've seen Cypriots cluster closest to Dodecanesians (which unfortunately Davidski does not have an academically verified sample group for), there is a kind of 'genetic bridge' which runs above current Anatolian populations (with their Turkic admixture) over to Cappadocian Greeks. It doesn't mean that Cappadocians, let alone, Pontians are a part of that continuum. What we are seeing is a greater degree of similarity with certain populations despite other populations being more distant genetically even though the latter are closer geographically. This can be understood by socio-historical conditions and developments.

Btw, the Mediterranean continuum idea was not created on this forum. Sarno and her colleagues spoke about it in their paper on southern Italy (Ancient and recent admixture layers in Sicily and Southern Italy trace multiple migration routes along the Mediterranean), but other geneticists have spoken about it to.

I understand what Erik was saying, I just thought the wording of that specific sentence could leave the wrong impression on some people and the distinction between Central- East Mediterranean and West Asian populations needed to be made. There's no doubt in my mind that Pontic Greeks do have ancestry from ancient Greeks and are not just Hellenized natives as some like to suggest, the fact that Anatolian Greeks and Pontic Greeks show correlation spikes with typical Mediterranean Greco-Roman populations is indicative of this admixture. The issue for me here is that it's going to be hard to gauge this when comparing Pontic Greeks to modern Armenians, because we know that modern Armenians themselves appear to harbour quite a bit of Neolithic European admixture which could skew the results somewhat. I decided to run Armenia EBA to represent an older, less admixed Caucasian population and Cretan Greeks to see how they would come out:

[1] "distance%=2.4845"

Greek_Trabzon

Armenia_EBA,63.6
Greek_Crete,36.4

As for Dodecanesians and other Aegean Greeks, I doubt we will ever see them in the G25 personally because Davidski wouldn't want to water down the accuracy of the product with amateur/potential false samples. In the future I would like to see a less 'official' G25 spreadsheet, a lot like Lukasz' K36, where we have a more informal spreadsheet of collected regional samples from across Europe that are utilised in our personal analysis even though they're not necessarily crème de la crème academic samples.

[Erikl86]

Pontic Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians certainly show a strong overlap. However, I am not sure where you got the idea that Assyrians and Armenians cluster with Greeks from Cyprus and Central Anatolia, because that is incorrect. Central Anatolian Greeks appear to be equidistant between Pontic Greeks/Armenians and Cretan Greeks - they show great overall similarity to the Anatolia ChL sample we have. Cypriot Greeks are more varied, but they overlap with Cretan Greeks and Anatolia BA with the exception of one outlier that clusters into the Levant.

East Mediterranean-Levant-West Asia PCA.jpg

1. Southern Italians, Sicilians, Maltese, Western Jews, Aegean Greeks, the Collegno outliers, Cypriot Greeks form a gathering of far Southeastern European populations or what you guys like to call the East Mediterranean continuum.
2. Central Anatolian Greeks are just outside of this Eastern Mediterranean continuum and clearly have strong West Asian input from Eastern Rome but still they do not cluster with Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks.
3. You then have Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks who are far removed from the East Mediterranean peoples and form their own cluster which is distinctively West Asian.

I did mean to a degree, plus Cypriots and Cappadocian Greeks seem to show elevated affinity to North Mesopotamians (aka Assyrians) in similarity maps, Andrew here can vouch with his own family maps.

Also, I'm not the first one to say it, in fact it is backed by peer reviewed study published by Haber et al. (2013), saying:

"Levantine populations [can be split to] two branches: one leading to Europeans and Central Asians that includes Lebanese, Armenians, Cypriots, Druze and Jews, as well as Turks, Iranians and Caucasian populations; and a second branch composed of Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, as well as North Africans, Ethiopians, Saudis, and Bedouins."

So Cypriots do show some degree of affinity with Armenians - which IMO is some degree of gene flow in the Fertile Crescent axis. These were also the last remaining Levantine regions to still adhere to Christianity until fairly recently.

Also I believe Cypriots and Cappadocian Greeks affinity is the result of both shared Greek admixture and Anatolian admixture, while indeed Cypriots seem to have significant Levantine admixture as well (observed both autosomally and uniparentally by Heraclides et al. 2017).