A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations.
More On Article
- Maximizing efficiency in sedimentary ancient DNA analysis: a novel extract pooling approach
- Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Late Antiquity in Dalmatia: Paleogenetic, Dietary, and Population Studies of the Hvar Radošević burial site
- Human dispersal and plant processing in the Pacific 55 000–50 000 years ago.
- Roman Cuisine: A Vegan and Organic Feast? Our Kinderuni Session on Ancient Diets
- Program for Conference on Methodological Innovations in P-XRF-Studies released!
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.