# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Memelland Lithuanians similarity map

## Tomenable

Similarity map of Lithuanians from Memelland (sample size = 43) to other populations:





Samples are from Urnikyte 2019: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45746-3

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## Tomenable

For comparison South Auksztota clearly shows significant Polish-Belarusian admixture:
(it is closest to Podlaskie Voivodeship, but this region is not shown in the map below):

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## Joey37

The second group is more similar to Belarusians than to their fellow Lithuanians. As well as Russians and Central Poles. Also it appears that Slovenians are more similar to the northern Slavic core than their fellow South Slavs.

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## matty74

Is this today?

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## Tomenable

> The second group is more similar to Belarusians than to their fellow Lithuanians.


When I checked each of these 67 samples from South Aukstaitija individually, I found that 23 of them are more similar to fellow Lithuanians (especially from West Aukstaitija), while the remaining 44 are more similar to Slavic populations. Most likely these samples include Polish minority in Lithuania.

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## Dagne

Cool, very interesting, Tomenable. 
Aukstaitija is "Highlanders" and Zemaitija - "Lowlanders".
Can you get Y DNR from data files?

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## Dagne

> Similarity map of Lithuanians from Memelland (sample size = 43) to other populations:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Samples are from Urnikyte 2019: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45746-3


Well, it should be noted that almost entire population of Memel and the east Prussia (West Zemaitija) were fully cleansed by the Soviets. In Klaipeda (Memel) city itself out of 200,000 there were 28 civilians who remained in the city when the Red Army took over Memel. All the fishers from the Baltic Sea villages along the Lithuanian coast went to Siberian Gulags several years after the WWII, irrespectively if they were of Lithuanian or German origins. In the Curonian Spit (Neringa), half of which belongs to Lithuania and half to Kaliningrad Oblast, there are no locals too. In Kaliningrad oblast (Former East Prussia) soviets changed not only the people, but names of villages, cities, rivers, lakes, everything...

With regard to Lithuanian part of the East Prussia/Little Lithuania (Western Zemaitija) Lithuanians from other regions were moving to Klaipeda as well as "Soviet people" from all over USSR. In Kaliningrad Oblast it was even worse - the entire population is made up of new soviet settlers, who have absolutely to connection to this land, moreover, it was a crime to be of local origin under the soviet rule - all locals had to be arrested and sentenced to labor camps in Siberia as criminals. Besides, they could never return home - if such people managed to remain alive after serving ten or fifteen years in labour camps, they were banned from returning to their homeland and could only settle in the Russian/Belorussian part of the USSR.

In this respect, I am not sure how the researchers found out who were the original local population of the Western Zemaitija. Perhaps they were asking of individual family stories and selected those who managed to survive Siberian gulags and came back? Or returned from the West? I can only wonder.

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## Lukas

> Well, it should be noted that almost entire population of Memel and the east Prussia (West Zemaitija) were fully cleansed by the Soviets. In Klaipeda (Memel) city itself out of 200,000 there were 28 civilians who remained in the city when the Red Army took over Memel. All the fishers from the Baltic Sea villages along the Lithuanian coast went to Siberian Gulags several years after the WWII, irrespectively if they were of Lithuanian or German origins. In the Curonian Spit (Neringa), half of which belongs to Lithuania and half to Kaliningrad Oblast, there are no locals too. In Kaliningrad oblast (Former East Prussia) soviets changed not only the people, but names of villages, cities, rivers, lakes, everything...
> 
> With regard to Lithuanian part of the East Prussia/Little Lithuania (Western Zemaitija) Lithuanians from other regions were moving to Klaipeda as well as "Soviet people" from all over USSR. In Kaliningrad Oblast it was even worse - the entire population is made up of new soviet settlers, who have absolutely to connection to this land, moreover, it was a crime to be of local origin under the soviet rule - all locals had to be arrested and sentenced to labor camps in Siberia as criminals. Besides, they could never return home - if such people managed to remain alive after serving ten or fifteen years in labour camps, they were banned from returning to their homeland and could only settle in the Russian/Belorussian part of the USSR.
> 
> In this respect, I am not sure how the researchers found out who were the original local population of the Western Zemaitija. Perhaps they were asking of individual family stories and selected those who managed to survive Siberian gulags and came back? Or returned from the West? I can only wonder.


Good point. It seems most if not all Memelland samples used in this study were just second or third generation of new Lithuanian settlers there.

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## matty74

Weren't a lot of the old Memelland settlers after the 1500's-1600's from the Salzburg area? Or was that a different area of Old Prussia? There obviously was a great influx of Lithuanian/Baltic peoples as well, especially after the Great Plagues depopulated much of the province.

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## Tomenable

Karl Andree, "Polen: in geographischer, geschichtlicher und culturhistorischer Hinsicht" (Leipzig 1831), wrote that there were 200,000 ethnic Lithuanians in East Prussia. I think the samples used in this study are descendants of those Lithuanians (it would be stupid of them if they didn't control for genealogy of the people they tested):

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_x...YAAJ/page/n227

https://books.google.pl/books?id=xgUEAAAAYAAJ&pg=P218






> In Klaipeda (Memel) *city itself* (...)


But the city itself was majority German, unlike the countryside around which was majority Lithuanian.

August von Haxthausen in his 1839 book, gives the following numbers based on 1837 population data:

*County Memel in year 1837:*

City Memel - 8100 Germans, 22 Poles, 912 Lithuanians
Countryside - 8340 Germans, 5 Poles, 23284 Lithuanians
TOTAL - 16440 Germans, 27 Poles, 24196 Lithuanians



Obviously Germans were deported to Germany after WW2, but many of the local Lithuanians stayed.

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## Dagne

> Obviously Germans were deported to Germany after WW2, but many of the local Lithuanians stayed.


Well, it is not that simple - by 1960 (compared to the overall prewar population) there were 5% of the original populations - irrespective of ethnic backgrounds - who managed to remain, 6% managed to return from Siberian Gulags, and the rest (about 90%) were killed or escaped to the West. After the IIWW, the Soviets carried out multiple cleansing operations in the Klaipeda Region. The Soviets were especially fierce, because they considered it to be the first true German land and the locals had to be punished for what Nazi did in Russia, irrespective of who they were and what they did during the war.

The Soviet Criminal Code included a crime which was named as being of "bourgeois-nationalistic" views. Deportations were carried in waves and sometimes almost entire villages with their families had been strip of everything they had and exiled. Even if they wanted to return, they could not come to their homes, as they were taken by others. Besides, during 1958-59 everyone who had German citizenship could repatriate to Germany (and everyone had it in the Klaipeda region, as Nazi Germany annexed the region in 1939 and everyone became German citizen).

The local dialect, which is quite distinctive from the neighbouring Zemaiciai dialect (or from the standard Lithuanian) as well as culture of the Memel-land region are fully gone now, unlike in other regions.

Overall, I do not want to state that the research is not reliable, it is only that it is much more difficult to find locals here compared to other regions. 

By the way, can one find Y haplogroups of different regions in Lithuania among the data files?

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## Dagne

On second thought, the researchers named the region Western Zemaiciai, which, in fact, is like saying that the region no longer is of Memelland Lithuanian origins (former Prussian tribes plus original German settlers)but rather a region populated after the IIWW with the settlers from the neighbouring Zemaiciai regions. Then sampling would not be a problem.

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## Tomenable

> no longer is of Memelland Lithuanian origins (former Prussian tribes


On what basis do you claim continuity between Memelland Lithuanians and original tribes there (Skalvians)? 

Let's not forget that in the 1200s during the Prussian Crusade, Teutonic Knights depopulated areas along the Memel River (they expelled most of surviving Prussians from those areas to Sambia) and this territory became known as "Grosse Wildnis" ("Great Wilderness").

Only later (especially in the 1400s-1500s) this area were re-populated again by settlers coming from Lithuania.

I think this area had been only sparsely populated by remnants of Skalvians when Lithuanian settlers came:

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

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

Die Grosse Wildniss ca. 1300, these areas were almost uninhabited at that time, re-settled until the 1500s:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9Fe_Wildnis






> can one find Y haplogroups of different regions in Lithuania among the data files?


There is this old 2004 study which had data about Y haplogroups by region, including Memelland:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...7.2003.00119.x

https://www.semanticscholar.org/pape...72d434d4dfe8fa

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/655...34d4dfe8fa.pdf

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## Tomenable

By the way Memelland was part of Lithuania between 1923 and March 1939:

https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=161

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_G...m_to_Lithuania

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## Dagne

A part of East Prussia (Lithuania minor) was inhabited by a mixture of Baltic tribes. It is true that Skalviai, Narduviai, Suduviai, Jotvingiai cannot be found in a "pure form" now. Skalviai for instance mixed with Zemaiciai. My grandfather came from Skalviai territory for instance and spoke Zemaiciai dialect. 

Overall, people have a tendency to remain where they are, even if they change their language. I am not sure about big desertification theory - how could all people be killed/ or otherwise disappear? Peasants would hide in forests and the forest provide people with food (hunting/fishing,gathering) So it is never that all people die from starvation even if their harvest perishes. Presumable there were reduction in population especially compared to densely populated Germany, but Lithuania is also described in the medieval text as a territory of forest and swamps where one travels weeks without meeting any people. Simply there would not have been enough people from the mainland Lithuania to spread out in such large territories of where Baltic speaking people lived in the XVI and XVII c. 

We know that some Prussian speaking people remained until the XVII century. The rest, after the establishment of the Prussian Kingdom in 1701, were the so called lietuvninkai or Prussia's Lithuanians (Minor Lithuanians) - they were presumably a mixture Baltic speaking peoples, and they spoke a distinct dialect, had a distinct culture, habits etc, as other ethno-linguistic groups in the mainland Lithuania (Zemaiciai or Aukstaiciai, Dzukai or Suvalkieciai). Kursiai, for instance, as individual group can be distinguished by XVIc and later they also assimilate with Zemaiciai or Latvian Ziemgaliai or Liviai (fino-ugric peoples). So I don't think there was a massive migration from mainland (Zemaiciai, Aukstaiciai, Suvalkieciai or Dzukai) that came to live in the East Prussia, and it is more likely that Minor Lithuanians were by large descendants of the former Baltic tribes who lived in those territories (Eastern Prussians and Western Jotvingiai). 

Lietuvninkai are distinguished by language (toponymies, hydronymes). For example lietuvninkai (Minor Lithuanian) dialect have different use diphthongs compared to Suvalkieciai or Zemaiciai dialects. So through place names one can can distinguish if a name is of Minor Lithuania or Zemaiciai origins. The area where they lived kept decreasing because of plagues, germanisation, but still Prussia's Lithuanians - "lietuvninkai" lived there, and they were similar and yet different from the mainland Lithuanian groups.

I wanted to show two maps, but could not copy them here directly. One is the area where lietuvninkai lived before XVIIIc (before the plague and the Great Germanisation).

The are in purple is the largest limits of their presence, and the red, orange and other lines - the area according to different researchers.


The second map is about language distribution in XVII c 
blue - old Prussians, 
green - Lietuvninkai,
brownish green - Kursiai (in the Curonian Spit)
yellow - equally shares of German and Lietuvninkai speaking people
grey green - Germans majority
mixture green-yellow Lietuvninkai majority, Germans minority
mixture green-red - equally Lietuvninkai and Mozurians, Germans minority
red - Mozurians and Lietuvninkai in majority and Germans minority

So you see, from a Lithuanian point of view, Western Zemaiciai is different from Minor Lithuanians (Lietuvninkai/Memelland people). It would have been nice to get their genetic make up and compare to other Lithuanian regions, unfortunately, they were almost fully wiped out during the WWII.

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## Tomenable

*Dagne,

*


> We know that some Prussian speaking people remained until the XVII century.


Even until the early XVIII century. But they lived in Sambia Peninsula, not in Lithuania Minor.

Lithuania Minor emerged in former Nadrovia & Skalovia, which were depopulated in the 1200s:






> I am not sure about big desertification theory - how could all people be killed/or otherwise disappear?


It was a Medieval ethnic cleansing carried out by the Teutonic Order. Teutonic chroniclers such as Peter von Dusburg and Nicholas von Jeroshin wrote about that. Most of the population of Skalovia fled to Lithuania or were massacred. Remnants were expelled to Sambia Peninsula. This is how "Great Wilderness" was created.

For example here something about it: http://prusowie.pl/dane/WHERE_ARE_YOU_PRUSAI.pdf

"(...) In 1249 the Teutonic Knights invaded Sasinia and Galindia, preparing for the attack on the richest but not accepting subjugation Sambia and on the way invading other Prus lands, Nadrovia and Skalovia. The German chronicler Nicholas von Jeroshin wrote of their exploits thus They murdered so many unbaptised that many of them drowned in their own blood. They seized men and women in their hideouts. When they were ready to depart, the stone god of the Skalovians (...) gathered a great host of his warriors and pursued the forces of the brothers. When the master learned of this, he sent strong forces on one wing and remained in hiding until the Skalovians came near to attack. Then the brothers jumped out of the trap, killed many and forced the rest to flee. Both from Skalovia and from Nadrovia an exodus of people [refugees] went to Lithuania, leaving behind them an uninhabited space, which the jungle eagerly took into its domain. (...)"

Another excerpt: "(...) To be conquered there only remained the last Prusai lands, Nadrovia and Skalovia. There the Knights showed of what they were made of, carrying out mass murdering, abduction into slavery, horse and cattle stealing as well as setting on fire everything which could not be stolen. Most of the Prusai population which survived fled to Lithuania, leaving behind scortched earth. In spite of this the pacification of Nadrovia took over two years. No less trouble did the Knights have with the conqest of Skalovia, torturing and cutting into pieces men, abducting women and children, and burning Prusai forts and settlements, including Ragneta, Ramiga and Labiau. On the conquered Prusai forts - writes the expert on the history of the conquest of Prusia, Slawomir Klec Pilewski - after earlier strengthening, the Knights installed their garrisons not only to control the conquered territory, but also to continue expeditions to Lithuania. (...)"

Many Old Prussian refugees fled to Lithuania and Poland (especially Masovia) during the Crusade.

But I think those refugees dispersed all over and mixed with the locals, quickly getting assimilated.




> Peasants would hide in forests and the forest provide people with food (hunting/fishing,gathering)


Even that was not possible. The region was not peaceful, it was a constant frontline between the Ordensstaat and Lithuania. Teutonic Order built a number of castles and forts inside of the "Great Wilderness", and their troops were controlling that land. If they found any vagabond peasants, they either killed them or deported them to Sambia Peninsula, where a "reservation" for these tribes was established (similar to Indian reservations in the USA today). It is there - in Sambia - where Old Prussian language survived until the 1700s.




> The rest, after the establishment of the Prussian Kingdom in 1701, were the so called Lietuvninkai or Prussia's Lithuanians (Minor Lithuanians) - they were presumably a mixture Baltic speaking peoples, and they spoke a distinct dialect, had a distinct culture, habits etc, as other ethno-linguistic groups in the mainland Lithuania (Zemaiciai or Aukstaiciai, Dzukai or Suvalkieciai). Kursiai, for instance, as individual group can be distinguished by XVIc and later they also assimilate with Zemaiciai or Latvian Ziemgaliai or Liviai (fino-ugric peoples). So I don't think there was a massive migration from mainland (Zemaiciai, Aukstaiciai, Suvalkieciai or Dzukai) that came to live in the East Prussia, and it is more likely that Minor Lithuanians were by large descendants of the former Baltic tribes who lived in those territories (Eastern Prussians and Western Jotvingiai).


But a migration (it didn't have to be "massive" - a few dozen thousand settlers would be enough as the founding population) is recorded in sources. And before that migration the region was almost uninhabited according to sources and archeology. The Lietuvininkai were in my opinion mostly descended from those settlers (they started coming shortly before year 1400 AD). They spoke a dialect of Lithuanian, an East Baltic language. They did not speak West Baltic Old Prussian, which was still spoken in Sambia at that time.

A distinct dialect would emerge in situ after the end of colonization, irrespective of where the settlers came from. Just because they developed their own local dialect doesn't mean that it was due to assimilation of Prussian remnants. But I'm not actually saying that they did not assimilate any Old Prussian remnants at all - just that the majority of their ancestry was from settlers who came from Lithuania Proper.

Maybe small settlements survived dispersed around the "Great Wilderness", but there has to be a reason why they started speaking Lithuanian - immigration of Lithuanians to their territory.

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## Tomenable

Here is what one German user wrote on Historum about the Great Wilderness (before Lithuania Minor):

*Quote:*

"This is an accepted map of the East-Prussian settlement history:



^^^
All that is white in this map - for instance Samogitia - was inhabited. The rest is the Great Wilderness round 1400.

You can see a few settlement islands like Insterburg and Tilsit in the middle of nowhere. 

Round the castles you could find the "Lischken" of the remaning Old Prussians in 1400.

Historischer Atlas des Preuenlands 
Die Besiedlung der Groen Wildnis 
The Tilsit area island
http://hostarea.de/show.php/334189_ragnit04.45.jpg.html

The definite evidence of the existence of Old Prussians (and Lithuanians) would be tax registers. These tax registers prove that the territory of what became Prussian-Lithuania later was uninhabited round 1400 - except for some bee-collectors, hunters etc., and the settlements islands I mentioned."

=====

This user also claimed there is no linguistic evidence that Lietuvninkai dialect was influenced by Old Prussian.

*Quote:*

"There is also a strong linguistic argument:

If Old Prussians and Lithuanians had lived together in villages situated in this territory before the date of arrival of Lithuanians accepted by historians (that is, after the Treaty of Melno in 1422), then the Old Prussian language would have impacted the Prussian-Lithuanian language that is documented in the 16th century. The fact is: we find no Old Prussian substrat or adstrat, instead this Prussian-Lithuanian language abounds in Slavisms: ruthenisms and polonisms wherever you look.

A few examples:

sermon: KOZONIS (Polish KAZANIE) 
pulpit: KOZELNYCZIA (Polish KAZALNICA) 
building: BUDAWONE (Polish BUDOWA) 
(biblical)/ship: AKRUTAS (Polish OKRET) 
order(-liness): DAWADAS (Polish DOWOD) 
pious: NOBAZNAS (Polish NABOZNY) 
prophet: PARAKAS (Polish PROROK) 
free: WALNAS (Polish WOLNY) Freiheit/liberty: WALNYBE 
army: WAISKAS (Polish: WOJSKO)

WEEKDAYS.
1. panedelis <- понедельник [panedelnik] <- по (before) + неделя (week) 
2. utarnikas <- вторник [vtornik] <- второй (second) 
3. sereda <- Belarusian cяpэдa [syareda] 
4. ketwergas with k- instead of č- seems non Slavic, but in Russian четверг [četverg] 
5. petnyčia <- пятница [pyatnitsa/petnica] <- пять (five) 
6. subata <- суббота [subota] 
7. nedelia <- неделя [nedelya] (week)"

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## Tomenable

The main wave of Lithuanian immigration to East Prussia took place after the Treaty of Melno in 1422:

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

That immigration was a long process, new Lithuanian settlers kept coming until ca. year 1550 or later.

*EDIT:*

Some Old Prussians (Skalovians, Nadrovians), but not many, lived there in Lischken. He admitted this:

_You can see a few settlement islands like Insterburg and Tilsit in the middle of nowhere._
_Round the castles you could find the "Lischken" of the remaning Old Prussians in 1400._

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## Dagne

The mainstream opinion of the Lithuanian scientists is that along with the processes as you described, the Lithuanian Minor population were mainly from Jotvingiai (Jacwiez in Polish, right?) and East Prussians.



this is from wiki. https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotvin...:Mapa_prus.svg

Jotvingiai were very powerful tribe and they spread even beyond the XIII c territories as in map but also within current Lithuania (earlier). This summer I spend some holiday time in Aukštadvaris, which is 49 km from Vilnius (direct line on map). In Aukštadvaris national park there is a complex of Jotvingiai kurgans and numerous burials, which according to archeological excavations was an important centre of religious worship (same as Wygry in current Poland) 

So you see, logically people who migrated might have been the same Jotvingiai from the neighbouring regions.

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## Dagne

> Here is what one German user wrote on Historum about the Great Wilderness (before Lithuania Minor):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://hostarea.de/show.php/334189_ragnit04.45.jpg.html
> 
> Sorry I can't make this link work...
> 
> ...



I am not sure if this analysis can tell anything apart from that there was a strong Polonisation and Germanisation in the Lithuanian Minor. Spoken language changes really quickly. In should be taken into consideration that Lietuvininkai (and before that Jotvingiai/Other Old Prussian tribes) were on the lowest social ladder and if anyone from them received any education it was in German and/or Polish from the very primary level. No wonder that words of these language penetrated spoken lietuvninkai/prussian/jotvingian languages rather than vice versa. Jotvingians/Prussians/Zemaiciai/Lithuanians had never had their statehood to protect their identity and language. (Lithuania was a state, but its elite language was Polish/Ruthenian, so again the incentive was to switch to slavic speaking language which was used everywhere in the public domain.) 

The written Lithuanian language was recorded in Prussia, for the purpose of using it in Lutheran churches. The first book was printed in XVI c and the first Lithuanian grammar in XVIIc only. Overall, Lithuanian language was barely used because of germanisation policy in Germany/Prussia whereas as I mentioned mainland Lithuanian elites spoke Polish/Ruthenian/Russian until the XXc and the Lithuanian language/script was looked down or even fully banned in the mainland Lithuania. 

So there must have been really great pressure to use foreign words and "turn into educated person" losing their language and ethnicity. And a person would easily loose their language in a generation or two. After the national movement in XIXc things started to change. For instance, my Grandfather who was born in 1903, in Smalininkai was a free peasant and spoke Zemaiciu dialect (Skalvian territory). However, he had to learn primary school education in Russian (reading Russian Cyrillic script), as there were no other options at the time. In spite of that he wanted to stick to his being Zemaitis. There were really only the peasants who spoke Lithuanian at the time of national rebirth during XIXc. Even a person who wrote Lithuanian National Item did not speak a word of Lithuanian during his childhood and youth, studied in Warsaw and only during his mature years got into national movement, learned Lithuanian and "wrote a National Item for Lithuanians", which is used until now. 

The full ban of the Lithuanian books, which were printed only in Lithuania Minor, was lifted only in 1904, before that it was a crime to have a book written in Lithuanian in the mainland Lithuania. By the way, Zemaiciai themselves also often think they are separate people from Lithuanians (difference in language is definitely more that between Czechs and Slovaks). 

Place names, however, change really slowly, and are a better indicator of origins. For instance Wygry in Poland. Does the word mean anything to you? For me Wygry is Vingriai - something with goes in curves/sinuous. As Jot-vingiai - go (on a horse) in bends.

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## matty74

Interesting German version of the town name. I think I twisted my tongue in a knot trying to say it.

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## Dagne

:) Smala is tar, so Smalininkai is a place where people make tar. Easy. But I like Germans very much for keeping the original names... 
In East Prussia, the Curonian Spit the Baltic place names remained for 700 years - like Pilkopa or Pilkopiai (grey dunes) in German Pillkoppen, however, Russians changed everything just after one year ... and Pilkopiai became _Морское ...
_

Just for you curiosity how linguist distinguish origins from place names, for instance, Pillkoppen would be

_Pilakōpō_ In Prussian
_Pilkupe_ In Curonian
_Pilkopa_ In Lithuanian

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## Tomenable

> When I checked each of these 67 samples from South Aukstaitija individually, I found that 23 of them are more similar to fellow Lithuanians (especially from West Aukstaitija), while the remaining 44 are more similar to Slavic populations. Most likely these samples include Polish minority


^^^
I revised it to about 40 samples with Slavic influences and 28 Balts (and 5 of these 28 have minor Slavic):

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...outh-Lithuania

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## Dagne

I was reading an interesting study on Lithuanian genetics (Doctoral Thesis by Alina Urnikyte dated 2018 12), 
http://epublications.vu.lt/object/el...2/33050072.pdf
AN EVALUATION OF THE GENETICSTRUCTURE AND EVOLUTIONARYFORCES OF THE LITHUANIANPOPULATION ACCORDINGTO HIGH-DENSITY GENOTYPINGDATA: PAST AND FUTURESUMMARY OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
LIETUVOS POPULIACIJOS GENETINĖSSTRUKTŪROS IR EVOLIUCINIŲVEIKSNIŲ ANALIZĖ, REMIANTISPLATAUS MASTO GENOTIPAVIMODUOMENIMIS: PRAEITIS IR DABARTIS


One of the conclusions is that:

"Indo-Europeans, which had arrived in the Lithuanian territory during the Neolithic period, contributed to the formation of different Baltic tribes and may have had an important influence on the genetic variation and differences of Lithuanians".

I am not sure if I understand that correctly, do they mean that differences in Aukstaiciai and Zemaiciai could be due to different type/numbers of Indo-Europeans settling within those territories?

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## Dagne

Lithuanian ethnolinguistic groups.jpg 


This is PCA of Lithuanian ethnolinguistic groups from this doctoral thesis.

According to this PCA Western Zemaiciai (who live in the territory of Memelland), plot somewhere in the middle among other Lithuanians.

North Zemaiciai (NZ in the PCA, blue stars), should be moving towards the direction of Finns, because they had most chances of mixing with Baltic Finnic people like Livonians. But they are not really... they stay in the West, some go South, some North ... (the Finns are somewhere East North)

South Aukstaiciai (SA in the PCA, purple diamonds) are more shifted towards CEU (Utah residents of Northern and Western Europe) which is expected, the Slavic people of neighbouring regions should be in that direction, too, more or less, probably. 

It is a pity that the author compared Lithuanians to so very few other populations, it would be interesting to locate distances between Lithuanians and other different peoples, for instance, which direction would the Polish people be located, or to compare distances between Lithuanians and Poles from different regions in Poland.

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