THE 'BALKAN' GENE

[BARBARIAN]

the Macedonians lead the southern balkans in both the 'european' gene (HG I) and the 'balkan' gene (mutation I1b*), and have TWICE as much of the 'balkan' gene as do the greeks.

I1b* - THE BALKAN GENE - is also the single highest part of Macedonian HG I, making up 60%.

what this means is this gene was present since over 20,000 years ago in the north balkans. the greeks, as newcomers 4,000 years ago, have low levels of the BALKAN GENE. And the 20,000-year-old BALKAN GENE is DOMINATED by BALKAN 'slav-speakers'.


semino et al. excerpt:


A different scenario has to be envisioned for subhaplogroup
I1b*, which is the most frequent clade in eastern
Europe and the Balkans. It reaches its highest incidences
in Croatia (31%) and Bosnia (40%), encompassing almost
80%–90% of I (table 1). In western Europe, its
subclade I1b2 (M26) (fig. 1F) (Semino et al. 2000; Bosch
et al. 2001; Capelli et al. 2003; Maca-Meyer et al. 2003)
is found at a very low frequency (!5%), except in Sardinia
(41%), Castile (19%) (Flores et al., in press), Bearnais
(8%), and in the Basques (6%). Although subclade
I1b2 and the paragroup I1b* (the latter present at marginal
frequencies) co-occur west of the Italian Apennines,
only I1b* is present east of the Adriatic.


I1b* Y chromosomes
rapidly dissipate west of the Balkans—they are
virtually absent among Italians, Germans, French, and
Swiss (table 1; fig. 1E)—but extend eastward at notable
frequencies among Slavic-speaking populations. This
finding suggests that, similar to I1a, I1b* also may have
expanded from a glacial refuge area. However, this area
was most likely located in eastern Europe or the Balkans.



The high STR diversity of the I1b* lineages in Bosnia
supports the view that the P37 SNP might have been
present in the Balkan area before the LGM, as previously
proposed by Semino et al. (2000). Diversity h values
based on STR haplotypes for I1a are highest near Iberia
but vary substantially in different populations (table 2).
For I1b*, conversely, the highest h values are in the Balkan
populations—among Bosnians (0.93) and Croats
(0.85)—coinciding with the area of its frequency peak,
but equally high values were also observed for Czechs
and Slovaks (0.90). The lowest h values of I1b* were
detected among Turks (0.76) and in our Moldavian sample
(0.41).




...the I1a data in Scandinavia are consistent with
a post-LGM recolonization of northwestern Europe
from Franco-Cantabria, whereas the expansion of I1b*
in the east Adriatic–North Pontic continuum probably
reflects demographic processes that began in a refuge
area located in that region.



hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/AJHG_2004_v75_Semino.pdf

[Artemidoros]

Obviously the purpose of this post is to "prove" the Greeks are newcomers to the Balkans, therefore they do not belong there.
Well, the people of the northern Balkans have more Palaeolithic and less Neolithic ancestry than those of the south. So? Both the Neolothic and Palaeolithic were long before there were any Greeks or Slavs. How does it prove the Greeks came only 4,000 years ago? Come to think of it, it is not very flattering for you if true. Sod all happened in the Balkans for 20,000 years and civilization flourishes once the Greeks get there. I would like to believe that but I am not as simple as you. Neither is reality.

[BARBARIAN]

well, what about the 600 ad slav migration theory?

with this I1b* gene, the top 2 and 4 of the top 5 are balkan slav (Macedonia is 5th); and 7 of the top 10 and 10 of the 15 are slavic. With the top 2 and 4 of 5, this gene proves balkan. it has been there for 20,000 years. Macedonians have TWICE as much of it as the greeks.



here's the ranking (slav-speakers with the BALKAN GENE in caps)



01. BOSNIA 40
02. CROAT 31
03. Moldavia 24
04. SLOVENIA 20
05. MACEDON 18
06. RUSSIA 17
07. Romania 17
08. Albo 17
09. UKRAIN 16
10. BYELORUS 15
11. BULGAR 12
12. Hungar 11
13. POL 10
14. greek 08
15. CZESLO 07

[Artemidoros]

The Slav migration is not a theory, it is history. History of course is not one of your strong points, especially if it does not suit your agenda.
Palaeolithic markers have nothing to do with language, otherways the Hungarians would be a lot more Slavic than you. They have a lot more R1a.
Accept it, when casting your eyes on the distant peak of Olympus, when visiting the tombs of the Macedonian kings or sipping coffee in Thessaloniki you will always be in Greece. In my country. Deal with it.

[BARBARIAN]

you know, even as a young kid when learning about the greek myths in school, i somehow always got a sense that greece ended at olympus. must be a Macedonian thing...


here's a bit more. not genetics but couple it with the genetic report...




uh huh.....maybe the Macedonian gentry hired greek tutors? this could account for the different dialects. at any rate, if the Macedonians were a greek tribe presumably they'd all speak and write in one dialect

"...the publication of the 4th - and early 3rd - century inscriptions from the tumulus at vergina ...revealed some tendencies toward doric greek. recent unpublished surveys of epigraphical materials from the villages near veria offer some examples of aeolic greek. thus within an area of a few miles exist examples of standard attic plus 2 other greek dialects..."

borza, 'shadow of olympus', pg 93




"that is, how were the Macedonians perceived in their own time? both herodotus and thucydides describe the Macedonians as foreigners, a distinct people living outside the frontiers of the greek city-states...e badian concluded that...they were generally perceived in their own time by Greeks and themselves not to be greek.38 badian shows that, until quite late, the Macedonians as a people were excluded from panhellenic festivals in which only greeks were permitted to participate, that the attempts of their kings to participate met objections from the greeks, that contemporary greek literature offers numerous examples of greek contempt for the Macedonians as barbarians, and that to the extend that Macedonian kings kings participated in panhellenic or bilateral arrangements with greeks, they did so as individuals.

no single argument is conclusive, but the case builds in quality as it grows in quantity of evidence, and in the end is persuavise.39"


38. 'greeks and Macedonians.' ...badian's purpose...was to analyze greek and Macedonian perceptions of one another. the judgement that the Macedonians neither considered themselves greek nor were so considered by their neighbors is shared by hammond, history of greece, 534-35

39. it is indicative of the strength of badian's case that his critics have succeeded only in nit-picking...

ibid, pg 95-6

[Artemidoros]

BARBARIAN said:

you know, even as a young kid when learning about the greek myths in school, i somehow always got a sense that greece ended at olympus. must be a Macedonian thing...

Must have something to do with the kind of "history" you were taught. It's a communist Yugoslav thing.

here's a bit more. not genetics but couple it with the genetic report...

Sure, you start with genetics and when the "experiment" does not work out you switch to achaeology. May I remind you it was archaeology you were running away from?

uh huh.....maybe the Macedonian gentry hired greek tutors? this could account for the different dialects. at any rate, if the Macedonians were a greek tribe presumably they'd all speak and write in one dialect

"...the publication of the 4th - and early 3rd - century inscriptions from the tumulus at vergina ...revealed some tendencies toward doric greek. recent unpublished surveys of epigraphical materials from the villages near veria offer some examples of aeolic greek. thus within an area of a few miles exist examples of standard attic plus 2 other greek dialects..."

borza, 'shadow of olympus', pg 93

Who is the idiot that does not know there were Attic speakers on the Macedonian coast? Do you want me to enumerate the Athenian colonies there? Who doesn't know the Upper Macedonians were linguistically Dorian? Who doesn't know that the Macedonians proper spoke a dialect that was likely in between Dorian and Aeolian? That Hellanicus in the 5th c. BC wrote that Macedon was a son of Aeolus? That most Greeks did not speak a pure form of one of the four main dialects but mixtures of more than one?
Eugene Borza and you. Go read up and come back with a stronger argument.

"that is, how were the Macedonians perceived in their own time? both herodotus and thucydides describe the Macedonians as foreigners, a distinct people living outside the frontiers of the greek city-states...e badian concluded that...they were generally perceived in their own time by Greeks and themselves not to be greek.38 badian shows that, until quite late, the Macedonians as a people were excluded from panhellenic festivals in which only greeks were permitted to participate, that the attempts of their kings to participate met objections from the greeks, that contemporary greek literature offers numerous examples of greek contempt for the Macedonians as barbarians, and that to the extend that Macedonian kings kings participated in panhellenic or bilateral arrangements with greeks, they did so as individuals.

no single argument is conclusive, but the case builds in quality as it grows in quantity of evidence, and in the end is persuavise.39"


38. 'greeks and Macedonians.' ...badian's purpose...was to analyze greek and Macedonian perceptions of one another. the judgement that the Macedonians neither considered themselves greek nor were so considered by their neighbors is shared by hammond, history of greece, 534-35

39. it is indicative of the strength of badian's case that his critics have succeeded only in nit-picking...

ibid, pg 95-6

Who is this guy who does not know what Herodotus wrote about the Macedonians? It is not Badian who said it. Badian has at least indirectly admitted defeat. Here is Badian for you:

This paper does not propose to bring up the much-debated old question of whether the ancient question of whether the ancient Macedonians "were Greeks." From the anthropological point of view, if suitably reworded, it could no doubt be answered; I suspect that, to the anthropologist, remains found in the areas of ancient Greece, Macedonia, and surrounding parts would not show significant differences.
(...)
From the linguistic point of view, again, if suitably reworded (i.e, "Did the ancient Macedonians speak a form of Ancient Greek?"), the question seems to me at present unanswerable for the period down to Alexander the Great.
(...)
What is of greater historical interest is the question of how Greeks and Macedonians were perceived by each other. We have now become accustomed to regarding Macedonians as "Northern Greeks" and, in extreme cases, to hearing Alexander's conquest described as in essence Greek conquests. The former certainly became true, in Greek consciousness in the course of the Hellenistic age; the latter may be argued to be true ex post facto.

faq.macedonia.org/history/badian.html

So, racially (which is what is of interest in a genetics thread) he admits he has no case. Linguistically, in spite of early evidence he refuses to acknowledge, he has to admit that the Macedonians spoke Greek from the time of Alexander onwards. What does he argue about? Perception. Since he does not like the perception of the Macedonian royals and has no evidence of the ordinary Macedonians perception, he focuses on the perception of the City State Greeks, where opinion was divided.
Let me use a 19th c. example to show you why I think it is BS. If you look Bulgarian, speak Bulgarian and say you are Bulgarian, I will accept you are Bulgarian. I don't care what the perception of others is (eg Serbs). Perception can be influenced by many factors, especially politics That is why you have for centuries been called Bulgarians. All of a sudden your perception has changed. Well, I don't give a shit. You are still Bulgarian to me.

[Sandwich]

Just a reminder that Borza, the other author most quoted on FYROM propaganda sites has also finally admitted defeat … His interpretation of Hammond's dating is weak, but that's a debate for a history thread.

First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments) that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable.

We have suspected from literary sources for some time that the Macedonian court had become highly hellenized. at least by the time of King Archelaus at the end of the fifth century B.C. And now the recent remarkable discoveries of Greek archaeologists working at Vergina and elsewhere confirm the cultural debt owed by the Macedonian gentry to the Greeks who lived in the south. There can be no remaining doubt about the degree to which at least some Macedonians on the highest levels shared a version of Greek culture.

Makedonika 1995 (pp.149-58) by Eugene Borza

[Siafu X]

i read somwhere upper caste indians had alot of Eastern European DNA hmmm...possiblity??

[wendland]

Artemidoros, gene haplotypes don't say anything about languages, or belonging to a linguistic group. So, the Greeks could be genetically more neolithic, that's genetically still 10,000 years.
Also, the Sorbs are linguistically Slavs, but have more in common with the surrounding Germans-- both genetically and culturally. Macedonians are Slavs but have more in common with other Balkan people than with Poles or Sorbs, for example. And, look at the Irish, so high in the "Basque haplotype" yet the vast majority are English speakers today, not much to do with Basque.

[Polako]

wendland said:

Artemidoros, gene haplotypes don't say anything about languages, or belonging to a linguistic group. So, the Greeks could be genetically more neolithic, that's genetically still 10,000 years.
Also, the Sorbs are linguistically Slavs, but have more in common with the surrounding Germans-- both genetically and culturally. Macedonians are Slavs but have more in common with other Balkan people than with Poles or Sorbs, for example. And, look at the Irish, so high in the "Basque haplotype" yet the vast majority are English speakers today, not much to do with Basque.

Ok, two points after reading this thread...

Hungarians don't have more R1a1 than most Slavic speakers. One early study with a low sample found that they had something like 60% of R1a1, but since then that has proved to be wrong.

Secondly, Sorbs in East Germany have a lot more R1a1 than surrounding Germans. In this respect they are more similar to Poles.

[wendland]

The Sorbs do have more R1a than the surrounding Germans, but the surrounding East Germans already have more R1a than the West Germans; there isn't a RADICAL difference from the Sorbs, also the Poles are not at all far away from the Sorbs geographically so it makes absolute sense. What WOULD be unusual is if the Sorbs were closer to the Bulgarians (for example).

[wendland]

Also, virtually the entire rural population of Lusatia was still Sorb speaking just 200 years ago. Today it is overwhelmingly German. Those rural Lusatian Germans are basically ex-Sorbs, and thus shouldn't even be different from the Sorbs. I don't know if a study has been done comparing haplotype frequency of the rural Lusatian Germans with Sorbs.

[Polako]

wendland said:

Also, virtually the entire rural population of Lusatia was still Sorb speaking just 200 years ago. Today it is overwhelmingly German. Those rural Lusatian Germans are basically ex-Sorbs, and thus shouldn't even be different from the Sorbs. I don't know if a study has been done comparing haplotype frequency of the rural Lusatian Germans with Sorbs.

East Germans show a frequency of R1a1 in the order of about 30%.

Sorbs and Poles show a frequency of well over 50%.

[wendland]

Makes sense, especially if you include ALL of East Germany (apart from Lusatia), what is the R1a1 frequency for West Germany?

[Polako]

wendland said:

Makes sense, especially if you include ALL of East Germany (apart from Lusatia), what is the R1a1 frequency for West Germany?

Varies from about 6% to 20%.