Starodavni balkanski genomi razkrivajo, kako je nastala slovanska Evropa

Dragocena in težko pričakovana študija, ki z genetskega vidika osvetljuje etnogenezo sedanjih prebivalcev Balkana. Čeprav v študiji ni analizirane starodavne DNK prebivalcev na področju Slovenije od antike naprej, vključno s prvim tisočletjem našega štetja, lahko posredno sklepamo tudi na prednike velike večine današnjih Slovencev in Slovenk. Predvidevam, da je delež slovanskih prednikov od začetka 6. stoletja naprej med Slovenci in Slovenkami najmanj 60%, bolj verjetno pa (po moje) vsaj 70%.
Prispevek o tej študiji je objavljen na spodnji povezavi, prevod v slovenščino z nekaterimi pripadajočimi slikami pa pod angleško različico.

https://www.miragenews.com/ancient-balkan-genomes-uncover-formation-of-1146220/

Ancient Balkan genomes reveal how Slavic Europe was formed

146 individuals who inhabited the Balkan Peninsula during the first millennium have been analysed

  • RESEARCH

11/12/2023

Iñigo Olalde, Ikerbasque Research Fellow at the UPV/EHU and Ramón y Cajal Researcher. | Photo: Nuria González. UPV/EHU.

The University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) is participating in the first reconstruction of the genomic history of the first millennium of the Balkan Peninsula. The study has revealed that the Balkans was a frontier region of ancient Rome as cosmopolitan as the imperial centre, and that Slavic migration arriving in the Balkans from the 6th century onwards represents between 30% and 60% of the ancestry of the Balkan peoples today.

Iñigo Olalde, Ikerbasque Research Fellow at the UPV/EHU and Ramón y Cajal Researcher has, together with the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF) and Harvard University, led a study in which they have, for the first time, reconstructed the genomic history of the first millennium of the Balkan Peninsula. To do so, the team recovered and analysed the ancient genome of 146 individuals who inhabited present-day Croatia and Serbia during that period. The work, published in the prestigious journal Cell, depicts the Balkans as a global, cosmopolitan frontier of the Roman Empire and reconstructs the arrival of Slavic peoples in this region. 

For the first time, the team has identified three individuals of African origin who lived in the Balkans under Rome’s imperial rule. Furthermore, the research establishes that the migration of Slavic peoples from the 6th century onwards represented one of the biggest permanent demographic changes in the whole of Europe, the cultural influence of which continues to this day. 

The Roman Empire transformed the Balkans into a global region  

First the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire incorporated the Balkans and turned this border region into a crossroads of communications and a melting pot of cultures. This is confirmed by the study which reveals that immigrants from far away were attracted to the region by the economic vitality of the empire. 

Through the analysis of ancient DNA, the team was able to identify that, during Roman rule in the region, there was a large demographic influx from the Anatolian Peninsula (located in modern-day Turkey) that left a genetic imprint on the Balkan populations. Yet no trace of Italic ancestry has been observed in the genomes analysed. “These populations that had come from the East were fully integrated into the local Balkan society. At Viminacium, for example (one of the main cities of the Romans, located in present-day Serbia), we found an exceptionally rich sarcophagus in which a man of local descent and a woman of Anatolian descent had been buried,” said the lead author of the article Íñigo Olalde, Ikerbasque Research Fellow in the BIOMICs group at the UPV/EHU and research associate at Harvard University (he had previously been a “La Caixa Junior Leader” researcher in the IBE’s Palaeogenomics group). 

The team also revealed the sporadic long-distance mobility of three individuals of African descent to the Balkan Peninsula while under imperial rule. One of them was a teenager, whose genetic origins are to be found in the region of present-day Sudan, beyond the boundaries of the ancient Empire. “The isotopic analysis of the roots of his teeth revealed that in his childhood he had a seafood diet very different from that of the rest of the individuals analysed,” said Carles Lalueza-Fox, senior researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) and director of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona (MCNB). 

What is more, he had been buried with an oil lamp representing an iconography of the eagle, which is related to Jupiter, one of the most important gods for the Romans. Lalueza-Fox pointed out that “archaeological analysis of his grave reveals that he may have been part of the Roman military forces, so we would be talking about an immigrant who had travelled from a long way away to the Balkans in the 2nd century CE”. “This indicates to us a diverse, cosmopolitan Roman Empire, which embraced populations from far beyond the European continent.”  

The Roman Empire welcomed barbarian populations long before its fall 

The study identified a number of individuals of northern European and steppe ancestry who inhabited the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century at the height of the Roman occupation. Anthropological analysis of their skulls reveals that some of them were artificially deformed, a custom peculiar to certain populations of the steppes and the Huns, often referred to as “barbarians”. 

These findings support historical and archaeological research and point to the presence of individuals from outside the borders of the Empire, beyond the Danube, long before the fall of the Western Empire. “The borders of the Empire were much more diffuse than the borders of today’s nation states. The Danube served as a geographical boundary of the Empire but acted as a communication route and was highly permeable to the movement of people,” said Pablo Carrión, IBE researcher and co-lead author of the study. 

Slavic populations altered the demographics of the Balkan region 

Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and in particular from the 6th century onwards, the study reveals the large-scale arrival in the Balkans of individuals genetically similar to the modern Slavic-speaking populations of Eastern Europe. Their genetic footprint represents between 30% and 60% of the ancestry of today’s Balkan peoples, which constitutes one of the largest permanent demographic shifts anywhere in Europe during the period of the Great Migrations. 

Although the study detects the sporadic arrival of individuals from Eastern Europe during earlier periods, it is from the 6th century onwards that a strong migratory surge can be observed. “According to our ancient DNA analysis, this arrival of Slavic-speaking populations in the Balkans took place across several generations and involved entire family groups including both men and women,” explained Carrión. 

The study also identifies that the establishment of Slavic populations in the Balkans was bigger in the north, with a genetic contribution of 50-60% in present-day Serbia, and gradually smaller towards the south, with a genetic representation of 30-40% in mainland Greece and up to 20% in the Aegean islands. “Their genetic legacy is visible not only in today’s Balkan Slavic-speaking populations, but also in other groups that include regions where Slavic languages are not currently spoken, such as Romania and Greece,” said David Reich, a researcher at Harvard University in whose lab the recovery and sequencing of the ancient DNA was carried out. 

Coordination and cooperation to rewrite Balkan history 

The 1991 war in Yugoslavia led to the separation of the Balkan peoples into the various countries that currently make up the region, and its consequences persist to this day. However, researchers from across the region have collaborated on the study. “Croatian and Serbian researchers have been collaborating on the study. This is a great example of cooperation, given the recent history of the Balkan Peninsula. At the same time, this type of work is an example of how objective genomic data can contribute towards leaving behind social and political problems linked to collective identities that have been based on epic narratives of the past,” said Lalueza-Fox. 

The team developed a de novo genetic database of the Serbian population in order to reconstruct the history of the Balkans. “We were faced with the situation in which there was no genomic database of the current Serbian population. In order to construct it and use it as a comparative reference in this study, we had to look for people who called themselves Serbs on the basis of certain shared cultural traits, even if they lived in other countries such as Montenegro or North Macedonia,” said Miodrag Grbic, lecturer at the University of Western Ontario and visiting lecturer at the University of La Rioja. 

Despite the question of identity, marked by the more recent history of the Balkans, the genomes of the Croatians and Serbians analysed speak of a heritage shared in equal measure between Slavic and Mediterranean populations. 

As Lalueza-Fox pointed out, “we believe that, together with archaeological data and historical records, the analysis of ancient DNA can contribute towards the reconstruction of the history of the Balkan peoples and the formation of the so-called Slavic peoples of southern Europe.” 

“The image that emerges is not one of division, but of a shared history. The Iron Age people inhabiting the Balkan region were similarly affected by migrations during the time of the Roman Empire and by Slavic migrations later on. Together, these influences gave rise to the genetic profile of the modern Balkans, regardless of national borders,” concluded Grbic.  

Additional information 

The study was led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), and Harvard University, with the participation of the UPV/EHU, the University of Western Ontario and the University of La Rioja (UR).

bibliographic reference

Starodavni balkanski genomi razkrivajo, kako je nastala slovanska Evropa

Analiziranih je bilo 146 posameznikov, ki so v prvem tisočletju naseljevali Balkanski polotok

Slika: Geografska lokacija arheoloških najdišč, kjer so bili najdeni posamezniki, analizirani v tej študiji. Zahvala: Iñigou Olaldeju in Pablu Carriónu.

Univerza v Baskiji (UPV/EHU) sodeluje pri prvi rekonstrukciji genomske zgodovine prvega tisočletja Balkanskega polotoka. Študija je razkrila, da je bil Balkan obmejna regija starega Rima, tako kozmopolitsko kot imperialno središče, in da slovanska migracija, ki prihaja na Balkan od 6. stoletja dalje, predstavlja med 30 % in 60 % prednikov današnjih balkanskih ljudstev.

Slika: Deleži prednikov, povezanih z vzhodno Evropo (v črni barvi), v sedanjih balkanskih in egejskih populacijah. Zahvala: Iñigou Olaldeju in Pablu Carriónu.

Iñigo Olalde , raziskovalec Ikerbasque na UPV/EHU in raziskovalec Ramón y Cajal je skupaj z Inštitutom za evolucijsko biologijo (IBE: CSIC-UPF) in univerzo Harvard vodil študijo, v kateri so prvič rekonstruirali genomsko zgodovino prvega tisočletja Balkanskega polotoka. Da bi to naredili, je ekipa analizirala starodavni genom 146 posameznikov, ki so v tem obdobju naseljevali današnjo Hrvaško in Srbijo. Delo, objavljeno v prestižni reviji Cell, prikazuje Balkan kot globalno, kozmopolitsko mejo Rimskega imperija in rekonstruira prihod slovanskih ljudstev na ta prostor. 

Ekipa je prvič identificirala tri posameznike afriškega porekla, ki so živeli na Balkanu pod imperialno vlado Rima. Poleg tega raziskava ugotavlja, da je preseljevanje slovanskih ljudstev od 6. stoletja dalje predstavljalo eno največjih trajnih demografskih sprememb v vsej Evropi, katere kulturni vpliv traja še danes. 

Rimsko cesarstvo je Balkan spremenilo v globalno regijo
  

Najprej Rimska republika in nato Rimsko cesarstvo sta vase vključila Balkan in to obmejno regijo spremenila v stičišče komunikacij in talilni lonec kultur. To potrjuje študija, ki razkriva, da je priseljence od daleč v regijo pritegnila gospodarska vitalnost imperija. 

Z analizo starodavne DNK je ekipa uspela ugotoviti, da je med rimsko vladavino v regiji prišlo do velikega demografskega priliva z Anatolskega polotoka (ki se nahaja v današnji Turčiji), ki je pustil genetski pečat na balkanskem prebivalstvu. Vendar pa v analiziranih genomih ni bilo opaziti sledi italskega porekla. »Ta populacija, ki je prišla z vzhoda, je bila popolnoma integrirana v lokalno balkansko družbo. V Viminacijumu, na primer (eno glavnih mest Rimljanov, ki se nahaja v današnji Srbiji), smo našli izjemno bogat sarkofag, v katerem sta bila pokopana moški lokalnega rodu in ženska anatolskega rodu,« je povedal voditelj in avtor članka, Íñigo Olalde, Ikerbasque Research Fellow v skupini BIOMICs na UPV/EHU in znanstveni sodelavec na Univerzi Harvard (prej je bil raziskovalec “La Caixa Junior Leader” v skupini IBE’s Palaeogenomics). 

Ekipa je razkrila tudi občasno mobilnost na dolge razdalje treh posameznikov afriškega porekla na Balkanski polotok, medtem ko je bil pod imperialno oblastjo. Eden od njih je bil najstnik, katerega genetski izvor najdemo na območju današnjega Sudana, onstran meja starodavnega cesarstva. “Izotopska analiza korenin njegovih zob je razkrila, da se je v otroštvu prehranjeval z morsko hrano, ki se je zelo razlikovala od prehrane preostalih analiziranih posameznikov,” je povedal Carles Lalueza-Fox, višji raziskovalec na Inštitutu za evolucijsko biologijo (IBE) in direktor Muzeja naravoslovja v Barceloni (MCNB). 

Še več, pokopan je bil z oljenko, ki je predstavljala ikonografijo orla, ki je povezan z Jupitrom, enim najpomembnejših bogov za Rimljane. Lalueza-Fox je poudarila, da “arheološka analiza njegovega groba razkriva, da je morda bil del rimskih vojaških sil, tako da bi lahko govorili o priseljencu, ki je pripotoval od daleč na Balkan v 2. stoletju našega štetja.” . “To nam kaže na raznolik, kozmopolitski Rimski imperij, ki je zajemal prebivalstvo daleč onkraj evropske celine.”  

Slika: Predstavitev balkanske genetske skupine iz prvega tisočletja našega štetja. Zahvala: Pablu Carriónu in Iñigou Olaldeju.

Rimsko cesarstvo je sprejelo barbarsko populacijo že dolgo pred svojim padcem 


Študija je identificirala številne posameznike severnoevropskega in stepskega porekla, ki so naselili Balkanski polotok v 3. stoletju na vrhuncu rimske okupacije. Antropološka analiza njihovih lobanj razkriva, da so bile nekatere od njih umetno deformirane, kar je značilno za nekatere populacije step in Hunov, ki jih pogosto imenujejo “barbari”. 

Te ugotovitve podpirajo zgodovinske in arheološke raziskave ter kažejo na prisotnost posameznikov izven meja cesarstva, onkraj Donave, veliko pred padcem zahodnega cesarstva. »Meje imperija so bile veliko bolj razpršene kot meje današnjih nacionalnih držav. Donava je služila kot geografsko mejo imperija, vendar je delovala kot komunikacijska pot in je bila zelo prepustna za gibanje ljudi,« je povedal Pablo Carrión, raziskovalec IBE in so-avtor študije. 

Slovansko prebivalstvo je spremenilo demografijo balkanske regije 


Po padcu Zahodnega rimskega cesarstva, zlasti od 6. stoletja naprej, študija razkriva obsežni prihod na Balkan posameznikov, ki so genetsko podobni sodobnemu slovansko govorečemu prebivalstvu vzhodne Evrope. Njihov genetski odtis predstavlja med 30 % in 60 % prednikov današnjih balkanskih ljudstev, kar predstavlja enega največjih trajnih demografskih premikov kjer koli v Evropi v obdobju velikih preseljevanj. 

Čeprav študija zazna sporadičen prihod posameznikov iz vzhodne Evrope v prejšnjih obdobjih, je od 6. stoletja naprej mogoče opaziti močan migracijski val. “Glede na našo analizo starodavne DNK je ta prihod slovansko govorečega prebivalstva na Balkan potekal skozi več generacij in je vključeval celotne družinske skupine, vključno z moškimi in ženskami,” je pojasnil Carrión. 

Študija tudi ugotavlja, da je bila uveljavitev slovanskega prebivalstva na Balkanu večja na severu, z genetskim prispevkom 50-60 % v današnji Srbiji, in postopoma manjša proti jugu, z genetsko zastopanostjo 30-40 % v celinski Grčiji in do 20 % na Egejskih otokih. “Njihova genetska zapuščina ni vidna samo v današnjem balkanskem slovansko govorečem prebivalstvu, ampak tudi v drugih skupinah, ki vključujejo regije, kjer se slovanski jeziki trenutno ne govorijo, kot sta Romunija in Grčija,” je dejal David Reich, raziskovalec na univerzi Harvard, v katerega laboratoriju je bila izvedena obnovitev in sekvenciranje starodavne DNK. 

Koordinacija in sodelovanje za ponovno pisanje balkanske zgodovine 

Vojna v Jugoslaviji leta 1991 je povzročila ločitev balkanskih narodov na različne države, ki trenutno sestavljajo regijo, njene posledice pa trajajo še danes. Vendar pa so pri študiji sodelovali raziskovalci iz vse regije. »Pri študiji sodelujejo hrvaški in srbski raziskovalci. To je odličen primer sodelovanja glede na novejšo zgodovino Balkanskega polotoka. Hkrati je takšno delo primer, kako lahko objektivni genomski podatki prispevajo k odpravljanju družbenih in političnih problemov, povezanih s kolektivnimi identitetami, ki so temeljile na epskih pripovedih preteklosti,« je dejal Lalueza-Fox. 

Ekipa je razvila novo genetsko podatkovno bazo srbskega prebivalstva, da bi rekonstruirala zgodovino Balkana. »Soočili smo se s situacijo, ko ni bilo genomske baze trenutnega srbskega prebivalstva. Da bi ga sestavili in uporabili kot primerjalno referenco v tej študiji, smo morali poiskati ljudi, ki so se imenovali Srbi na podlagi določenih skupnih kulturnih lastnosti, tudi če so živeli v drugih državah, kot sta Črna Gora ali Severna Makedonija,« je povedal Miodrag Grbić, predavatelj na University of Western Ontario in gostujoči predavatelj na University of La Rioja. 

Kljub vprašanju identitete, ki ga zaznamuje novejša zgodovina Balkana, analizirani genomi Hrvatov in Srbov govorijo o dediščini, ki si jo v enaki meri delita slovansko in sredozemsko prebivalstvo. 

Kot je poudarila Lalueza-Fox, »verjamemo, da lahko skupaj z arheološkimi podatki in zgodovinskimi zapisi analiza starodavne DNK prispeva k rekonstrukciji zgodovine balkanskih narodov in oblikovanju tako imenovanih slovanskih narodov južne Evrope.« 

»Podoba, ki se pojavi, ni podoba delitve, ampak skupne zgodovine. Železnodobne ljudi, ki so živeli na območju Balkana, so podobno prizadele selitve v času rimskega imperija in kasneje slovanske selitve. Skupaj so ti vplivi ustvarili genetski profil sodobnega Balkana, ne glede na državne meje,” je zaključil Grbić.  

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