A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations.
More On Article
- The bioarchaeology of tobacco use: An exploratory study of nicotine and cotinine detection in tooth dentine.
- Buca della Iena and Grotta del Capriolo: New chronological, lithic, and faunal analyses of two late Mousterian sites in Central Italy
- New Publication by HEAS Member Offers New Insights into Ancient Roman Settlement Patterns in Austria
- Home is where my villa is: a machine learning-based predictive suitability map for Roman features in Northern Noricum (ca. 50–500 CE/Lower Austria/AUT)
- HEAS Keynote with Necmi Karul Takes Place in Vienna
Olalde, I., Carrión, P., Mikić, I., Rohland, N., Mallick, S., Lazaridis, I., Mah, M., Korać, M., Golubović, S., Petković, S., Miladinović-Radmilović, N., Vulović, D., Alihodžić, T., Ash, A., Baeta, M., Bartík, J., Bedić, Ž., Bilić, M., Bonsall, C., Bunčić, M., Bužanić, D., Carić, M., Čataj, L., Cvetko, M., Drnić, I., Dugonjić, A., Đukić, A., Đukić, K., Farkaš, Z., Jelínek, P., Jovanovic, M., Kaić, I., Kalafatić, H., Krmpotić, M., Krznar, S., Leleković, T., M. de Pancorbo, M., Matijević, V., Milošević Zakić, B., Osterholtz, A.J., Paige, J.M., Tresić Pavičić, D., Premužić, Z., Rajić Šikanjić, P., Rapan Papeša, A., Paraman, L., Sanader, M., Radovanović, I., Roksandic, M., Šefčáková, A., Stefanović, S., Teschler-Nicola, M., Tončinić, D., Zagorc, B., Callan, K., Candilio, F., Cheronet, O., Fernandes, D., Kearns, A., Lawson, A.M., Mandl, K., Wagner, A., Zalzala, F., Zettl, A., Tomanović, Ž., Keckarević, D., Novak, M., Harper, K., McCormick, M., Pinhasi, R., Grbić, M., Lalueza-Fox, C., Reich, D., 2023. A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations. Cell 186, 5472-5485.e5479.
The rise and fall of the Roman Empire was a socio-political process with enormous ramifications for human
history. The Middle Danube was a crucial frontier and a crossroads for population and cultural movement.
Here, we present genome-wide data from 136 Balkan individuals dated to the 1st millennium CE. Despite
extensive militarization and cultural influence, we find little ancestry contribution from peoples of Italic
descent. However, we trace a large-scale influx of people of Anatolian ancestry during the Imperial period.
Between ~250 and 550 CE, we detect migrants with ancestry from Central/Northern Europe and the Steppe,
confirming that ‘‘barbarian’’ migrations were propelled by ethnically diverse confederations. Following the
end of Roman control, we detect the large-scale arrival of individuals who were genetically similar to modern
Eastern European Slavic-speaking populations, who contributed 30%–60% of the ancestry of Balkan people,
representing one of the largest permanent demographic changes anywhere in Europe during the Migration
Period.