Was M-170 present in ancient Greek populations?

[byz]

I was reading the article, "Clinal patterns of human Y chromosomal diversity in continental Italy and Greece are dominated by drift and founder effects", and I noticed that the Reggio Calabrian sample had neither M-170 nor R1a. Reggio Calabria was colonised by both ancient and medieval Greek speakers. In the mainland Greek samples, M-170 reaches high proportions - as high as 36.0 in Serrai, and the average for R1a is about 11.7 (though the average is pulled up substantially by it's higher proportions in two regions - 20.0 in Kardhitsa, and 25.0 in Thessaloniki). Both the Greek and Reggio Calabrian samples, however have roughly the same proportion of neolithic markers (J, J2, etc). I'm quite sure that the small amount of R1a represents Slavic lineages in Greece, but what about M-170, specifically Eu7? Does it likely represent Arvanitic lineages? Or is it simply that the specific Greek-speaking groups that colonised Reggio Calabria didn't have it, whilst other Greek speaking peoples did? The average for M-170 for mainland Greece in this paper is 18.2. In Semino's paper, however, it's only 7.9 - which is the more reliable statistic?

[Dean]

Ti kaneis, BYZ!

As we do not yet know what Y DNA haplogroups ancient Greeks had, it seems certain that ancient Greeks were of J and E lineages, because modern Greeks are of these lineages as are modern peoples of ancient Greek colonies, i.e. southern Italians and western Turks. It's not far-fetched to assume that some ancient Greeks carried I-M170 lineages, particularly in northern ancient Greece. I-M170's origin, in the northwest Balkans, is near Greece, and Classical Greece was not long ago, in anthropological time, which means that populations were relatively complex.

The old-school belief, which seems to be related to the belief that Indo-European language or languages originated north of Greece, is that Greeks invaded the Greek peninsula from somewhere north of Greece. One assertion, made by a major commercial population DNA testing company, was that Achaeans came to Greece from southwest Russia. This seems ludicrous, especially because as you note, R1a is rare or absent in southern Italy (Reggio Calabria).

Where did the Greeks originate? We've read about Pelasgians, with whom Greeks may have mixed. What about paleolithic Mediterranean peoples of the Greek peninsula? I get the impression, when I look at some Greeks, particularly from southern Peloponnesus, that they have lived there since time immemorial.

[Gus Morea]

I suspect most Greeks never actually came from anywhere; most must be "home grown." One can say they came from elsewhere in the sense that they descend from earlier cultural/racial units that converged in the Balkans, but this occured before Greeks even "evolved," so to speak, as a single cultural/racial entity.

dean said:

Ti kaneis, BYZ!
Where did the Greeks originate? We've read about Pelasgians, with whom Greeks may have mixed. What about paleolithic Mediterranean peoples of the Greek peninsula? I get the impression, when I look at some Greeks, particularly from southern Peloponnesus, that they have lived there since time immemorial.

[byz]

dean said:

Ti kaneis, BYZ!

As we do not yet know what Y DNA haplogroups ancient Greeks had, it seems certain that ancient Greeks were of J and E lineages, because modern Greeks are of these lineages as are modern peoples of ancient Greek colonies, i.e. southern Italians and western Turks. It's not far-fetched to assume that some ancient Greeks carried I-M170 lineages, particularly in northern ancient Greece. I-M170's origin, in the northwest Balkans, is near Greece, and Classical Greece was not long ago, in anthropological time, which means that populations were relatively complex.

The old-school belief, which seems to be related to the belief that Indo-European language or languages originated north of Greece, is that Greeks invaded the Greek peninsula from somewhere north of Greece. One assertion, made by a major commercial population DNA testing company, was that Achaeans came to Greece from southwest Russia. This seems ludicrous, especially because as you note, R1a is rare or absent in southern Italy (Reggio Calabria).

Where did the Greeks originate? We've read about Pelasgians, with whom Greeks may have mixed. What about paleolithic Mediterranean peoples of the Greek peninsula? I get the impression, when I look at some Greeks, particularly from southern Peloponnesus, that they have lived there since time immemorial.

Hey Dean! How have you been?

Yeah, E and J do seem like the most likely candidates - but it's really hard to say whether or not I-M170 was present in similar proportions in the ancient Greek world as it is in the modern. It has clearly been present in the Balkans from an early date. I don't think that the Achaens came from northern Europe - it's my opinion that they came from somewhere in the Near East - probably Anatolia or the Fertile Crescent. What is your opinion on EU18? It's proportion is relatively high as well - something like 22% - do you reckon it represents assimilated Paleolithic natives (perhaps some of the earliest Pelasgians), Roman colonists, both - or something else altogether? I wish someone would do a systematic comparison of extracted ancient DNA, and modern DNA to bring some more clarity to the subject! It can get quite frustating, like you're scrounging around in the dust for clues, lolz. BTW, speaking of southern Peleponnesians - have any tests been done to compare Maniotes to Tsakonians?

[Dean]

byz said:

dean said:

Hey Dean! How have you been?

Yeah, E and J do seem like the most likely candidates - but it's really hard to say whether or not I-M170 was present in similar proportions in the ancient Greek world as it is in the modern. It has clearly been present in the Balkans from an early date. I don't think that the Achaens came from northern Europe - it's my opinion that they came from somewhere in the Near East - probably Anatolia or the Fertile Crescent. What is your opinion on EU18? It's proportion is relatively high as well - something like 22% - do you reckon it represents assimilated Paleolithic natives (perhaps some of the earliest Pelasgians), Roman colonists, both - or something else altogether? I wish someone would do a systematic comparison of extracted ancient DNA, and modern DNA to bring some more clarity to the subject! It can get quite frustating, like you're scrounging around in the dust for clues, lolz. BTW, speaking of southern Peleponnesians - have any tests been done to compare Maniotes to Tsakonians?

I'm doing well, BYZ. I just got my DSL internet connection, so I'm flying through the internet, whereas before I was crawling with dial-up.

In regards to EU 18 (old nomenclature), haplogroup R1b, I believe there is an eastern branch of this haplogroup that Dienekes posted in his anthropology blog. I believe he did a comparison between haplogroups in Greece and found that R1b correlates with J and E, whereas R1a and I do not.

Dienekes recently posted in his anthropology blog a study of dental material of ancient Athenians; the study's goal was to determine what caused the deaths of Athenians during the plague of the Peloponnesian war. It was found, I believe, that typhus caused the deaths. Perhaps the DNA from this study is good enough to analyze for haplogroups.

I agree with you about the frustration of DNA analysis; I would like to know how I am similar or different from males of my haplogroup, I1b, whose frequency is present in modern Greeks, but at lower values than other European populations. A next step for researches should be comparing similar haplogroups/haplotypes of people from diverse ethnic groups with autosomal DNA studies to find similarities/differences.

If I remember correctly, your haplogroup is R1b. If this is the case, have you taken a subclade test to determine your subclade? There is a Greek DNA project affiliated with FamilyTreeDNA, which I have joined. I will get you the link to the web site.

www.greekdnaproject.net

As far as I know, there has yet been no study of Tsakonians and Maniates. I have seen some pictures of Tsakonians, and some in my family look like some of them. Tsakonians, who are from eastern Arcadia, are not far from my family's villages, and although there is a mountain chain that separates eastern Arcadia from central Arcadia, it's possible that there might be admixture between these people.

[Dean]

kdh said:

I suspect most Greeks never actually came from anywhere; most must be "home grown." One can say they came from elsewhere in the sense that they descend from earlier cultural/racial units that converged in the Balkans, but this occured before Greeks even "evolved," so to speak, as a single cultural/racial entity.

What about the linguistic difference between Greek and Pelasgian? I'm not sure much is known about the Pelasgian language. I keep reading that Greeks invaded the Greek peninsula around 2000 BCE, from the north. This may be a fallacious assumption that since Greek is an Indo-European languange branch, Indo-European originated somewhere north of Greece. Theories now suggest that Indo-European originated in Anatolia.

I've also read that the Greek invaders were male-centered as opposed to female-centered, where their culture and gods were male-dominated rather than female-dominated. I read somewhere that the Olympics were based on rituals that pre-Greeks used to honor female goddesses. I've found no further information on this, however. I also read that Greeks in one way shared a cultural similarity of more northern people via bards singing the praises of warlords--e.g. Homer and the Trojan war. This information I saw or read only once, and nothing to my knowledge corroborates this.

[byz]

Hey Dean -

Actually, I don't know my Y haplogroup - my fathers line isn't Greek, so it's not really relevant to Greek anthropology. You're on the right track, though - my father has a Scottish and Irish background - so it's very likely to be R1b. That's fascinating that R1b in Greece correlates with E and J. I always thought that R1b was a truly paleolithic marker. E, J and R1b make up the majority of Y chromosome markers in Greece, I think - something like 70%. That study using ancient Athenian DNA samples would have been perfect - I suppose the researchers didn't think that ancient to modern comparison had any purpose for their study.