E-V13 in Bulgarian Iron Age

[Riverman]

@Alain: I was talking about the leitmotif of Walter Pohl et al. Regardless of what they touch, about what they write, be it Germanics or Avars, its always the same kind of Marxist inspired, revisionist intepretation of history. Other scholars have to beat them to accept, with irrefutable, hardest evidence, to what any normal human being with just common sense would have assumed in the first place. And they constantly criticise others for not accepting their point of view, yet when disproven themselves, they go on as if nothing happened. As if they wouldn't have been wrong about virtually everything before and they start again to defend the next element of their strictly ideological positioning. Unless you can beat them to accept it, with absolutely irrefutable evidence, they never give in and distort your words.

of course the Avars had an ethnicity, no question about it, but when they stepped into the Pannoic Plain, things changed over time and there are also genetic finds of Avars.

Well, when analysing the physical remains, it was clear that the rich burials being absolutely dominated by East Asian derived people. And now the genetic evidence points to that too:

A genetic study published in Scientific Reports in January 2020 examined the remains of twenty-six individuals buried at various elite Avar cemeteries in the Pannonian Basin dated to the 7th century AD.[50] The mtDNA of these Avars belonged mostly to East Asian haplogroups, while the Y-DNA was exclusively of East Asian origin and "strikingly homogenous", belonging to haplogroups N-M231 and Q-M242.[51] The evidence suggested that the Avars were a patrilineal and endogamous people who entered the Pannonian Basin through migrations from East Asia involving both men and women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannon...s#Anthropology

Of course there is an "Avar period Pannonian population" and there are "Avars in the narrower sense". But the vast majority of the former never became Avars, you see it in the remains, not just that they were clearly European derived with practically no admixture, but also in their settlements and grave goods. They were just local inhabitants under a new rule and the rulers were the Avar minority, to which ranks, over time, some rose too. But there was no large scale Avar identity which encompassed them all. Which is why "the Avars" disappear almost completely from the record after defeat, just like that, while many local Slavic (R1a), Germanic (I1) and Roman provincial lineages (like E1b guys) might have survived up to this time, or at least into the Hungarian period.
In the Hungarian period something similar happened, but the Hungarians were more numerous, started with the integration of the locals earlier, and of course they formed a real state and adopted a Christian, writing culture, with a sophisticated, German helped administration and state. This resulted in their ability to transform the majority of the population to a Hungarian identity over time, but even then it needed time.
The Avars never managed to do that, they always kept their warrior-pillager lifestyle, which just pressed the majority of the locals into submission, with more booty coming from raids abroad, as long as they were winning. Their tools to gain this superiority was the stirrup and excellent horsemanship, as well as the political and financial contacts to the East, especially the Byzantines.
When their opponents adapted and the support from allies was lost, they were losing their position as well and had no roots in the regions.

[Alain]

@Alain: I was talking about the leitmotif of Walter Pohl et al. Regardless of what they touch, about what they write, be it Germanics or Avars, its always the same kind of Marxist inspired, revisionist intepretation of history. Other scholars have to beat them to accept, with irrefutable, hardest evidence, to what any normal human being with just common sense would have assumed in the first place. And they constantly criticise others for not accepting their point of view, yet when disproven themselves, they go on as if nothing happened. As if they wouldn't have been wrong about virtually everything before and they start again to defend the next element of their strictly ideological positioning. Unless you can beat them to accept it, with absolutely irrefutable evidence, they never give in and distort your words.



Well, when analysing the physical remains, it was clear that the rich burials being absolutely dominated by East Asian derived people. And now the genetic evidence points to that too:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannon...s#Anthropology

Of course there is an "Avar period Pannonian population" and there are "Avars in the narrower sense". But the vast majority of the former never became Avars, you see it in the remains, not just that they were clearly European derived with practically no admixture, but also in their settlements and grave goods. They were just local inhabitants under a new rule and the rulers were the Avar minority, to which ranks, over time, some rose too. But there was no large scale Avar identity which encompassed them all. Which is why "the Avars" disappear almost completely from the record after defeat, just like that, while many local Slavic (R1a), Germanic (I1) and Roman provincial lineages (like E1b guys) might have survived up to this time, or at least into the Hungarian period.
In the Hungarian period something similar happened, but the Hungarians were more numerous, started with the integration of the locals earlier, and of course they formed a real state and adopted a Christian, writing culture, with a sophisticated, German helped administration and state. This resulted in their ability to transform the majority of the population to a Hungarian identity over time, but even then it needed time.
The Avars never managed to do that, they always kept their warrior-pillager lifestyle, which just pressed the majority of the locals into submission, with more booty coming from raids abroad, as long as they were winning. Their tools to gain this superiority was the stirrup and excellent horsemanship, as well as the political and financial contacts to the East, especially the Byzantines.
When their opponents adapted and the support from allies was lost, they were losing their position as well and had no roots in the regions.

I try not to blame anyone, just it's disappointing that people, history, archeology and genetics use it for their political purposes. It is important to me that the truth just comes out and that all people get to know their and other history without any political tendency but unfortunately that doesn't always work, I know the paper from 2020, there is nothing wrong with it and of course everyone can make hypotheses, only if a scientific magazine refutes or agrees you have to look at it of course

[Hawk]

Riverman will be happy to read this paper: https://www.academia.edu/588112/Ritu..._of_Svilengrad

It looks like these E-V13 guys were newcomers there, from Carpathian-Pannonian plain.

[Norfern-Ostrobothnian]

CWC and Yamnaya look different.

But both R1b-M269 and R1a-M417 and related linages seem to have existed among hunter-fishers, for example concerning the Comb Ceramic R1a5-YP1272:

There's also I4436 with R1b1a1a
https://amtdb.org/records/I4436
And Tamula3 with R1
https://amtdb.org/records/Tamula3

[Johnny ola]

there were 14 samples from Thessaloniki and 6 samples from Athens

this image is showing that closest relatives to modern Bulgarians are probably Greeks ( and Macedonians of course )

I agree that northern greeks especially those from Macedonia and Thrace are closer to Bulgarians and N.Macedonians. But keep in mind that it depends the city/region. Those from Serres, Thessaloniki are more Slavic. Those from xalkidiki, katerini are not So Slavic.

[Moldovlah]

I agree that northern greeks especially those from Macedonia and Thrace are closer to Bulgarians and N.Macedonians. But keep in mind that it depends the city/region. Those from Serres, Thessaloniki are more Slavic. Those from xalkidiki, katerini are not So Slavic.

Yes they are.

Greek 1

Admix Results (sorted):

# Population Percent
1 East_Med 24.29
2 Baltic 20.2
3 West_Med 19.12
4 North_Atlantic 17.09
5 West_Asian 12.28
6 Red_Sea 5.47
7 Oceanian 0.99
8 South_Asian 0.55

Single Population Sharing:

# Population (source) Distance
1 Greek_Thessaly 4.7
2 Bulgarian 7.39
3 Romanian 9.95
4 Central_Greek 10.32
5 East_Sicilian 11.42
6 Italian_Abruzzo 11.81
7 West_Sicilian 12.88
8 Ashkenazi 12.94
9 Tuscan 13.66
10 Serbian 13.94
11 South_Italian 14.83
12 North_Italian 17.17
13 Moldavian 18.87
14 Algerian_Jewish 19.56
15 Italian_Jewish 19.92
16 Sephardic_Jewish 19.94
17 Croatian 21.98
18 Hungarian 22.25
19 Tunisian_Jewish 23.02
20 Libyan_Jewish 23.35

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 81.3% Bulgarian + 18.7% Samaritan @ 2.56
2 52.7% Croatian + 47.3% Cyprian @ 2.66
3 79.9% Central_Greek + 20.1% Lithuanian @ 2.78
4 77.6% Central_Greek + 22.4% Estonian_Polish @ 2.81
5 76.2% Central_Greek + 23.8% Southwest_Russian @ 2.89
6 74.2% East_Sicilian + 25.8% Southwest_Russian @ 2.89
7 74.3% East_Sicilian + 25.7% Ukrainian_Belgorod @ 2.91
8 77.4% Central_Greek + 22.6% Russian_Smolensk @ 2.93
9 82.2% Bulgarian + 17.8% Lebanese_Christian @ 2.93
10 78.1% East_Sicilian + 21.9% Lithuanian @ 2.95
11 78% Central_Greek + 22% Belorussian @ 2.97
12 75.5% East_Sicilian + 24.5% Russian_Smolensk @ 3.03
13 78.3% Bulgarian + 21.7% Cyprian @ 3.03
14 76.4% Central_Greek + 23.6% Ukrainian_Belgorod @ 3.04
15 75.7% East_Sicilian + 24.3% Estonian_Polish @ 3.05
16 78.6% Central_Greek + 21.4% Erzya @ 3.15
17 82.1% Bulgarian + 17.9% Bedouin @ 3.16
18 76.6% East_Sicilian + 23.4% Erzya @ 3.17
19 56.6% Moldavian + 43.4% Cyprian @ 3.17
20 80.3% Bulgarian + 19.7% Syrian @ 3.21

Greek 2

Admix Results (sorted):

# Population Percent
1 East_Med 34.7
2 West_Med 18.21
3 West_Asian 16.7
4 North_Atlantic 14.48
5 Baltic 12.29
6 Red_Sea 2.36
7 South_Asian 1.13
8 Oceanian 0.12

Single Population Sharing:

# Population (source) Distance
1 Central_Greek 6.79
2 Ashkenazi 7.07
3 East_Sicilian 7.62
4 South_Italian 8.29
5 Italian_Abruzzo 10.3
6 Greek_Thessaly 10.81
7 West_Sicilian 11.35
8 Italian_Jewish 11.81
9 Sephardic_Jewish 11.98
10 Algerian_Jewish 12.28
11 Cyprian 14.17
12 Tunisian_Jewish 14.84
13 Libyan_Jewish 15.75
14 Tuscan 16.6
15 Lebanese_Muslim 17.4
16 Bulgarian 17.96
17 Turkish 18.15
18 Syrian 19.31
19 Lebanese_Druze 20.31
20 Romanian 20.42

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 66.5% Greek_Thessaly + 33.5% Lebanese_Druze @ 3.99
2 56.3% Cyprian + 43.7% Bulgarian @ 4.25
3 59.7% Cyprian + 40.3% Romanian @ 4.35
4 70.6% Cyprian + 29.4% Hungarian @ 4.45
5 64.3% Cyprian + 35.7% Serbian @ 4.51
6 87.4% Ashkenazi + 12.6% Abhkasian @ 4.68
7 73.4% Cyprian + 26.6% East_German @ 4.69
8 86% Ashkenazi + 14% Adygei @ 4.73
9 86.8% Ashkenazi + 13.2% Georgian @ 4.73
10 72.2% Cyprian + 27.8% Austrian @ 4.79
11 53.3% Bulgarian + 46.7% Lebanese_Druze @ 4.79
12 74.9% Cyprian + 25.1% South_Polish @ 4.8
13 57.9% Greek_Thessaly + 42.1% Cyprian @ 4.8
14 87% Ashkenazi + 13% Lezgin @ 4.83
15 87.2% Ashkenazi + 12.8% North_Ossetian @ 4.89
16 87% Ashkenazi + 13% Chechen @ 4.91
17 71.2% Cyprian + 28.8% Croatian @ 4.95
18 84.8% Ashkenazi + 15.2% Kumyk @ 4.95
19 78.2% Cyprian + 21.8% Southwest_Finnish @ 4.97
20 86.6% Ashkenazi + 13.4% Balkar @ 5.03

1/2 Greek 1/2 Polish

Admix Results (sorted):

# Population Percent
1 Baltic 34.97
2 North_Atlantic 22
3 West_Med 17.13
4 East_Med 16.42
5 West_Asian 5.22
6 Red_Sea 2.45
7 East_Asian 1.33
8 Amerindian 0.48

Single Population Sharing:

# Population (source) Distance
1 Moldavian 7.53
2 Croatian 8.44
3 Serbian 9.04
4 Romanian 11.02
5 Bulgarian 11.76
6 Hungarian 11.9
7 Ukrainian_Lviv 13.38
8 Ukrainian 14.03
9 South_Polish 14.47
10 Austrian 15.95
11 East_German 16.35
12 Southwest_Russian 16.77
13 Polish 17.28
14 Ukrainian_Belgorod 17.37
15 Russian_Smolensk 18.69
16 Estonian_Polish 18.77
17 Belorussian 19.51
18 Greek_Thessaly 19.62
19 Kargopol_Russian 21.11
20 Erzya 22.13

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 65.7% Estonian_Polish + 34.3% Algerian_Jewish @ 4.41
2 72.4% Ukrainian + 27.6% Algerian_Jewish @ 4.49
3 59.8% Lithuanian + 40.2% Algerian_Jewish @ 4.49
4 51.2% Estonian_Polish + 48.8% Greek_Thessaly @ 4.61
5 67.7% Ukrainian + 32.3% Ashkenazi @ 4.7
6 55.1% Greek_Thessaly + 44.9% Lithuanian @ 4.73
7 66% Estonian_Polish + 34% Italian_Jewish @ 4.85
8 72.7% Ukrainian + 27.3% Italian_Jewish @ 4.87
9 65.9% Russian_Smolensk + 34.1% Algerian_Jewish @ 4.89
10 50.2% Belorussian + 49.8% Greek_Thessaly @ 4.94
11 60.5% Estonian_Polish + 39.5% Ashkenazi @ 4.95
12 60.1% Lithuanian + 39.9% Italian_Jewish @ 4.98
13 64.9% Belorussian + 35.1% Algerian_Jewish @ 4.98
14 62.9% Estonian_Polish + 37.1% South_Italian @ 5.05
15 60.1% Estonian_Polish + 39.9% East_Sicilian @ 5.06
16 54.3% Lithuanian + 45.7% Ashkenazi @ 5.13
17 59.2% Estonian_Polish + 40.8% Central_Greek @ 5.13
18 63.1% Bulgarian + 36.9% Estonian_Polish @ 5.19
19 59.2% Ukrainian + 40.8% Greek_Thessaly @ 5.22
20 51.3% Russian_Smolensk + 48.7% Greek_Thessaly @ 5.25

Montenegrin

Admix Results (sorted):

# Population Percent
1 Baltic 28.86
2 North_Atlantic 24.07
3 West_Med 19.44
4 East_Med 15.53
5 West_Asian 7.3
6 Red_Sea 2.98
7 Northeast_African 1.35
8 Amerindian 0.47

Single Population Sharing:

# Population (source) Distance
1 Serbian 5.09
2 Romanian 6.27
3 Bulgarian 7.65
4 Moldavian 8.08
5 Croatian 10.01
6 Hungarian 11.04
7 Austrian 13.9
8 East_German 15.13
9 Greek_Thessaly 15.27
10 Ukrainian_Lviv 16.44
11 South_Polish 17.31
12 Ukrainian 17.58
13 North_Italian 17.76
14 West_German 19.12
15 Tuscan 19.15
16 French 19.65
17 South_Dutch 20.43
18 Polish 20.55
19 Portuguese 21.06
20 Southwest_Russian 21.08

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 76.7% Croatian + 23.3% Algerian_Jewish @ 3.24
2 70.4% Croatian + 29.6% West_Sicilian @ 3.42
3 56.4% Ukrainian + 43.6% West_Sicilian @ 3.44
4 61.3% Croatian + 38.7% Greek_Thessaly @ 3.47
5 77.1% Croatian + 22.9% Italian_Jewish @ 3.59
6 71.3% Croatian + 28.7% East_Sicilian @ 3.64
7 57.7% Greek_Thessaly + 42.3% Polish @ 3.7
8 73.9% Croatian + 26.1% South_Italian @ 3.72
9 58.2% Ukrainian_Lviv + 41.8% West_Sicilian @ 3.8
10 53.7% Greek_Thessaly + 46.3% Ukrainian @ 3.84
11 52.5% Polish + 47.5% West_Sicilian @ 3.85
12 55.6% West_Sicilian + 44.4% Lithuanian @ 3.86
13 50.5% West_Sicilian + 49.5% Estonian_Polish @ 3.89
14 70.6% Croatian + 29.4% Central_Greek @ 3.93
15 67.1% Croatian + 32.9% Tuscan @ 3.96
16 79.2% Croatian + 20.8% Libyan_Jewish @ 4
17 72.8% Croatian + 27.2% Ashkenazi @ 4.02
18 77.5% Croatian + 22.5% Sephardic_Jewish @ 4.02
19 50.1% West_Sicilian + 49.9% Russian_Smolensk @ 4.02
20 52% Greek_Thessaly + 48% Ukrainian_Lviv @ 4.04

[Alain]

The Avars seem to have had an almost pure, mostly East Asian derived upper class and below that commoners of different, especially Slavic, but also Pannonian "Roman" and Germanic ancestry. The people below them were oftentimes used like cattle and the Slavs pretty much hated the Avars for this, as is evident from the fact that a major reason for many Slavic expansions was that they tried to evade and fled from the Avars, as well as that there were numerous uprisings against their rule. In battle the Avars often used the Slavic foot soldiers as cannon fodder, putting them in the first ranks to lure the enemy and to take its missiles, to bind them in melee, before they themselves attacked with their elite cavalry units in a shock attack. The Avars were in Central Europe among the first to use stirrups:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirrup

One of the first Slavic empires was founded with the help of a Frankish merchant, called Samo, who subsequently defeated both the Avars and the Franks with the united Slavic army of his rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samo%27s_Empire

The bad relationship between Avars and Slavs also explains, in part, why "the Avars" largely disappear after their military defeat, namely because the Slavs were glad that they got rid of them, because they were regularly used as cannon fodder, pressed, pillaged and even raped by the Avars, which is all written down in the historical records of the Avar rule. And again, this was an important factor for the many Slavic tribes to move, because they wanted to get away from the Avars, beyond their reach.

There is also a second theory about Samo's origins. Today, other interpretations are more secondary, but they are quite numerous. So, contrary to the information in the Fredegar Chronicle, Samo is seen as a Slav, mainly due to some information in the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (see below the section on the geographical location). Recently, the word Samo has sometimes been viewed as an old Slavic title: Samo should mean “master” or “autocrat”, especially since “samo-” means “self-” in Slavic languages. But there are also already outdated views that Samo is an abbreviation of the Slavic name Samoslav. So some of them cannot exactly determine their origin, despite the Frankish ban, they delivered weapons to the Slavs, almost like a negotiator

[Riverman]

I try not to blame anyone, just it's disappointing that people, history, archeology and genetics use it for their political purposes. It is important to me that the truth just comes out and that all people get to know their and other history without any political tendency but unfortunately that doesn't always work, I know the paper from 2020, there is nothing wrong with it and of course everyone can make hypotheses, only if a scientific magazine refutes or agrees you have to look at it of course

The paper is, overall, excellent work, especially the analysis of the burial ground, with the admixture proportions, the publication of the raw data, the reconstructed family networks, migration patterns (strontium analyses included) and the general interpretation. But I know where Pohl and his team is coming from and what he himself said in the past, about any kind of verfication of his own theories based biological analyses, be it physical classification and measurements, or genetic analyses. He was not searching for the truth, because truth seekers use any method which migt be able to verify or falsify their claims, what he refused for a very, very long time, and even dissuaded people from doing so. There were many like him in history and prehistory around, most with a rather Marxist view on history, which were quite "sceptical" about any usage of biological methods and refused to cooperate with geneticists. There are still more than enough of these around in academia, and he was one of them. So in a way, he improved, but only to keep his hands on the results and put his opinion into it.
His ideas of "Lombards" being an invented label for a gentes, which copied Roman ways and could have used any other label, without any real ancestral and cultural connection of importance to Northern Europe is just ridiculous. But he always made such absurd claims, that's just the leitmotif of the "Vienna School".

@Hawk: Yes, fits into the general picture. Especially this quotation is interesting:

Metal objects are rare in the Svilengrad pit complex. Among them figures an inter-esting iron instrument classified as a trunnion axe. Its shape allows its identification as a chisel of type III 1 C (Wesse). The distribution of this type is dated the period between the eleventh and seventh/sixth century BC and encompasses the western Balkans and the Carpathian basin; single finds are known from Slovenia and Middle Dnepr region.33 The finds of iron trunnion axes/chisels in Bulgarian territory are limited and mainly without clear provenance. Most of them were found in North Bulgaria. Only three samples are known south of the Haemus Mountains: from Omarchevo, Ada tepe and Dositeevo.

[Alain]

The paper is, overall, excellent work, especially the analysis of the burial ground, with the admixture proportions, the publication of the raw data, the reconstructed family networks, migration patterns (strontium analyses included) and the general interpretation. But I know where Pohl and his team is coming from and what he himself said in the past, about any kind of verfication of his own theories based biological analyses, be it physical classification and measurements, or genetic analyses. He was not searching for the truth, because truth seekers use any method which migt be able to verify or falsify their claims, what he refused for a very, very long time, and even dissuaded people from doing so. There were many like him in history and prehistory around, most with a rather Marxist view on history, which were quite "sceptical" about any usage of biological methods and refused to cooperate with geneticists. There are still more than enough of these around in academia, and he was one of them. So in a way, he improved, but only to keep his hands on the results and put his opinion into it.
His ideas of "Lombards" being an invented label for a gentes, which copied Roman ways and could have used any other label, without any real ancestral and cultural connection of importance to Northern Europe is just ridiculous. But he always made such absurd claims, that's just the leitmotif of the "Vienna School".

@Hawk: Yes, fits into the general picture. Especially this quotation is interesting:

I can still imagine that there will still be some genetic investigations about the Avars so far there have been three (three papers), clearly the origin is East Asian but mixed individuals were found in some Hungarian graves, which probably heralds the later phase of the Avar period. The Lombards were an Elbe-Germanic tribe and had an influence on what is now northern Italy, as the name "Lombardy" reveals

[Riverman]

Nobody claims they didn't mix with locals, actually I was quoting the chronicles which claimed they did, but first look at which way (by force quite often) and secondly that doesn't make the idea of an "Avar amalgamation" more true. There were just different ethnicities in the (true) Avar sphere of influence.