Genetics of Modern Greeks

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Dahoi

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Hello, I want to know how much of the modern greek genome is derived from ancient greeks. I asked myself this question because greeks mixed with many populations such as slavs, ancient anatolians, albanians, vlachs etc. Could anyone provide me models for modern greeks?
 
Dahoi said:
Bronze age, continental Greek regions.
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We have very few samples and from few places.
Besides that, I don't think that specific bronze age populations are useful to model most respective modern european populations let alone greeks who were constantly absorbing populations from the places they were expanding to.
For a proper modeling we need hellenistic and late antiquity samples up until the time just before the slavic invasions/expansions imho. Nowadays there are many "roman" samples with east mediterranean profiles that they may fit the bill but they are not from the greek mainland or their ancestry is unknown.
 
lacreme said:
We have very few samples and from few places.
Besides that, I don't think that specific bronze age populations are useful to model most respective modern european populations let alone greeks who were constantly absorbing populations from the places they were expanding to.
For a proper modeling we need hellenistic and late antiquity samples up until the time just before the slavic invasions/expansions imho. Nowadays there are many "roman" samples with east mediterranean profiles that they may fit the bill but they are not from the greek mainland or their ancestry is unknown.
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I know of a set of female bones from about 500AD that were dug up from a garden in Tyheron, Evros, Greece. They are probably gathering dust in some drawer in the Ephorate of Archeaology for Macedonia/Thrace. Yes I know that's not really mainland Greece but Northern/Northeastern Greece. I don't know whether DNA can be extracted from the bones or not.
 
Basically from my understanding modern Greeks =bronze age Greeks +anatolian/levantines+slavs.Its not easy to measure vlach and arvanite ancestry in greeks because these populations also carry somewhat the same dna (paleo Balkan,slavic and some anatolian) a rough guess would be that the average greek mainlander has 40-60% of bronze age greek ancestry 10-30% slavic and the rest anatolian.Althrough some theorise that the Anatolian componet has been present in Greece since the Iron age so theoretically you could count it as part of the ancient greek dna but we can't be sure until we get some dna from this era
 
Bill7 said:
Basically from my understanding modern Greeks =bronze age Greeks +anatolian/levantines+slavs.Its not easy to measure vlach and arvanite ancestry in greeks because these populations also carry somewhat the same dna (paleo Balkan,slavic and some anatolian) a rough guess would be that the average greek mainlander has 40-60% of bronze age greek ancestry 10-30% slavic and the rest anatolian.Althrough some theorise that the Anatolian componet has been present in Greece since the Iron age so theoretically you could count it as part of the ancient greek dna but we can't be sure until we get some dna from this era
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Depending on the populations used and the area tested, the Anatolian component can be as high or higher than the slavic component (at the expense of the bronze age percentage) in much of the mainland. Even Albanians can score up to 20-25% Anatolian and they don't have Anatolian rich subpopulations as we have (the Aegean islanders, inner Anatolian, Pontic Greeks ) to admix with.
 
Bill7 said:
Basically from my understanding modern Greeks =bronze age Greeks +anatolian/levantines+slavs.Its not easy to measure vlach and arvanite ancestry in greeks because these populations also carry somewhat the same dna (paleo Balkan,slavic and some anatolian) a rough guess would be that the average greek mainlander has 40-60% of bronze age greek ancestry 10-30% slavic and the rest anatolian.Althrough some theorise that the Anatolian componet has been present in Greece since the Iron age so theoretically you could count it as part of the ancient greek dna but we can't be sure until we get some dna from this era.
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Modern greeks must have albanian and aromanian admixture, otherwise the major presence of ev13 among greeks wouldnt be explained ( not all ev13 comes from albanians or aromanians, some might have been present in iron age greeks due to daco-thracian admixture)
 
Basically from my understanding modern Greeks =bronze age Greeks +anatolian/levantines+slavs.Its not easy to measure vlach and arvanite ancestry in greeks because these populations also carry somewhat the same dna (paleo Balkan,slavic and some anatolian) a rough guess would be that the average greek mainlander has 40-60% of bronze age greek ancestry 10-30% slavic and the rest anatolian.Althrough some theorise that the Anatolian componet has been present in Greece since the Iron age so theoretically you could count as part of the ancient greek dna but we can't be sure until we get some dna from this era
Dahoi said:
Modern greeks must have albanian and aromanian admixture, otherwise the major presence of ev13 among greeks wouldnt be explained ( not all ev13 comes from albanians or aromanians, some might have been present in iron age greeks due to daco-thracian admixture)
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I agree with you but its not easy to get an accurate % of how much ancestry the average greek has from these populations because arvanites and vlachs cluster with other greek populations and carry similar dna components
 
Bill7 said:
Basically from my understanding modern Greeks =bronze age Greeks +anatolian/levantines+slavs.Its not easy to measure vlach and arvanite ancestry in greeks because these populations also carry somewhat the same dna (paleo Balkan,slavic and some anatolian) a rough guess would be that the average greek mainlander has 40-60% of bronze age greek ancestry 10-30% slavic and the rest anatolian.Althrough some theorise that the Anatolian componet has been present in Greece since the Iron age so theoretically you could count as part of the ancient greek dna but we can't be sure until we get some dna from this era

I agree with you but its not easy to get an accurate % of how much ancestry the average greek has from these populations because arvanites and vlachs cluster with other greek populations and carry similar dna components
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I dont think it is that difficult to calculate the albanian+vlach ancestry in modern Greeks.The Roman Era Greek Profile seems to be Dodecanese or/and Cypriot like,which in the 6th century was impacted by Slavic invasions.These populations(Albanians/Vlachs) and maybe South Slavs brought the majority of the Balkanic admixture,we Greeks have today.
 
Thucydides enjoyer said:
I dont think it is that difficult to calculate the albanian+vlach ancestry in modern Greeks.The Roman Era Greek Profile seems to be Dodecanese or/and Cypriot like,which in the 6th century was impacted by Slavic invasions.These populations(Albanians/Vlachs) and maybe South Slavs brought the majority of the Balkanic admixture,we Greeks have today.
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And from what populations do Roman Era Greeks descend from?
 
Dahoi said:
Modern greeks must have albanian and aromanian admixture, otherwise the major presence of ev13 among greeks wouldnt be explained ( not all ev13 comes from albanians or aromanians, some might have been present in iron age greeks due to daco-thracian admixture)
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This is from the link that I send above, they model Albanian admixture using Albanian medieval samples.
 

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All we can say with certainty is that the native populations have dominated in the Aegean regions.

Estimating Albanian and Vlach ancestry can be tricky, because they also absorbed a lot of native populations. I.e. Arvanites hail from a region which during the Bronze Age and Iron Age fell under the Greek sphere. And then shifted between Greek and paleo-Balkan cultural spheres several times. It’s only a historical coincidence that these people were to become South Albanians rather than North Greeks. After that, some Albanians migrated south and were absorbed by the Greeks. So how do we calculate non Greek admixture in this case? It’s a bit tricky, given the genetic similarities.

Something similar applies to Vlach populations who are more similar to other populations in the region they inhabit, rather than to each other. I.e. a Vlach from Greece is more similar to Greeks rather than a Vlach from Serbia. So the original Vlach biological element has been largely diluted.

Then there is the additional Anatolian admixture in modern Greeks compared to BA Greeks. But Ancient Greeks after the IA probably had this admixture to begin with. Because Anatolia was part of Ancient Greece.

So that leaves us with the Slavs. These people were not native in the region and they are probably responsible for some degree of genetic discontinuity between modern Greeks and say Classical Greeks. But also note that they have had a genetic impact on other populations as well. Vlachs and Albanians i.e. could have had substantial Slavic ancestry as well.

In order to calculate the degree of Slavic admixture in modern Greeks we would need Hellenistic Greek samples. Or even Early Byzantine samples of Greeks from different regions. At this point of time we don’t have that.

That being said, the BA Greek element is still the most dominant in Greeks. And given the additional Anatolian element is mostly ancient, it doesn’t leave too much space for very high percentages of medieval admixture. It will vary from region to region as well.
 
Not an expert on Greeks but it might be that the Anatolian profile became de facto the main Greek profile after the Roman period. More testing is needed on Early Medieval Greeks but I doubt the Mycenean profile managed to survive post Antiquity.
 
One mistake i have seen people making on Anatolian autosomal, is by taking an LBA-EIA Balkan G25 sample and a Roman time Anatolian mixed sample and directly comparing them, not good IMO. If u take a LBA-EIA Balkan sample in the model add an Anatolian EIA sample to get the approximate admixture, that's how G25 works the best.

Catastrophizing and going into extremes is not good IMO, Anatolia as much as Balkans is suspectible to migrations, especially during Justinian plague, the population of Anatolia and Thrace was the most suspectible.
 
Dianatomia said:
All we can say with certainty is that the native populations have dominated in the Aegean regions.

Estimating Albanian and Vlach ancestry can be tricky, because they also absorbed a lot of native populations. I.e. Arvanites hail from a region which during the Bronze Age and Iron Age fell under the Greek sphere. And then shifted between Greek and paleo-Balkan cultural spheres several times. It’s only a historical coincidence that these people were to become South Albanians rather than North Greeks. After that, some Albanians migrated south and were absorbed by the Greeks. So how do we calculate non Greek admixture in this case? It’s a bit tricky, given the genetic similarities.

Something similar applies to Vlach populations who are more similar to other populations in the region they inhabit, rather than to each other. I.e. a Vlach from Greece is more similar to Greeks rather than a Vlach from Serbia. So the original Vlach biological element has been largely diluted.

Then there is the additional Anatolian admixture in modern Greeks compared to BA Greeks. But Ancient Greeks after the IA probably had this admixture to begin with. Because Anatolia was part of Ancient Greece.

So that leaves us with the Slavs. These people were not native in the region and they are probably responsible for some degree of genetic discontinuity between modern Greeks and say Classical Greeks. But also note that they have had a genetic impact on other populations as well. Vlachs and Albanians i.e. could have had substantial Slavic ancestry as well.

In order to calculate the degree of Slavic admixture in modern Greeks we would need Hellenistic Greek samples. Or even Early Byzantine samples of Greeks from different regions. At this point of time we don’t have that.

That being said, the BA Greek element is still the most dominant in Greeks. And given the additional Anatolian element is mostly ancient, it doesn’t leave too much space for very high percentages of medieval admixture. It will vary from region to region as well.
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Albanians dont have a lot of greek dna, this could be easly said by looking into their y-dna so the moment when Arvanites recived greek admixture was when they came in Greece and mixed with the native Greek population, in the same time, the native Greek population also recived Albanian admixture through mixing with Arvanites. The reson why Vlachs are similar with the neighbouring populations is due to mixing with them. Vlachs recived admixture from the neighbouring populations while in the same time neighbouring populations recived Vlach admixture.
 
Dahoi said:
Albanians dont have a lot of greek dna, this could be easly said by looking into their y-dna so the moment when Arvanites recived greek admixture was when they came in Greece and mixed with the native Greek population, in the same time, the native Greek population also recived Albanian admixture through mixing with Arvanites. The reson why Vlachs are similar with the neighbouring populations is due to mixing with them. Vlachs recived admixture from the neighbouring populations while in the same time neighbouring populations recived Vlach admixture.
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Since we are talking about autosomal admixture the ydna is not that relevant.
Besides, Ydna is not the be-all and end-all. While it's very useful for finding out about migration patterns and mayyybe ethnic affiliation but for specific subclades, it can easily be influenced by any kind of events (disease, expansion, founder effects).
Albanians and Vlachs and basically almost all populations across the globe didn't appear out of thin air... They absorbed everyone in their sphere of influence during their expansion that didn't die out, move out or retained a different ethnic identity.
Basically what Dianatomia wrote.
 
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