My favorite funfact from high school history class in Slovenia is that the reason we have such good records of how Slavs migrated into the area is that we can track when churches stopped sending regular reports back to Rome. Slavs come into the area, sack the church, church goes dark.
It’s a shame early Slavs didn’t have writing. When we got Christianized later, it destroyed much of our older culture and it would be cool to know more about those roots. We know the eastern slavs had vampires and werewolves, did we? We know old folk tales mention faeries and kings sleeping in caves for centuries and even the Greek Argonauts, but it’s all very fragmented. It would be nice to know more.
A lot of our (Slovenian, probably Croatian) folk tales mix with even older tales from the celts who used to live in the area. It’s all very fascinating and largely lost because first the Romanization of the Celts and later the Christianization of the Slavs were both quite aggressive.
This confirms what I already knew, as a millennial Croat. But I have some older relatives who could stand to read this. Unfortunately none of them can read english.
Not the centuries specifically, more the fact that the whole region has always been, and still is, a melting pot of people from all surrounding regions.
A lot of the older generation are trying to emphasize our differences and even make wild claims that I won't repeat here. Those borders were drawn by people who are very similar.
Nothing new here. Basically the genetics, matches the historical accounts. We know (by historical accounts) that the slavic immigration started in the end of the 6th century, after the death of Justinian the Great, where the successors lost territories and few battles and could properly defend the frontier. (avar wars).
Also, after the Justinian plague (541–549 AD) a lot of the local population was decimated, hence the new slavic arrivals found it easier/space to move to the country side (initially as a trickle of immigration in the late 6th century, then eventually as settlers/invaders later in the early 7th century).
No, the genetic factor itself is something new here, and interesting even to this reader with an academic background in a related field. Florin Curta (a very respected scholar overall) has held out against the mainstream view of a Slavic migration into the Balkans on the basis of a supposed lack of archaeological evidence. So, I suspect that many scholars, as soon as they learn of this news about the ancient DNA, will immediately think “Hmm, I wonder what Curta has to say to that.”
The amount of division in the Balkans -- especially in the last 20-30 years -- has never made much sense to me, given how close culturally and ethnically most of the population is. This only confirms that the fragmentation of the region is driven more from the creation of 'national myths' than on genetic differences between different groups of people.
> This only confirms that the fragmentation of the region is driven more from the creation of 'national myths' than on genetic differences
Always has been. You think there was such a thing as “French” a thousand years ago? Are people from Munich really that different than Vienna? Do folks in Geneva really differ deeply from people in Lyon?
Europe is very small. From Kyev, capital of Ukraine, to Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, it’s about the same distance as San Francisco to Los Angeles. Yet it crosses 3 countries.
Kings and governments come and go, but the people stay. My great grandma, for example, lived in 4 different countries without leaving her village.
Kyev, capital of Ukraine, to Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, it’s about the same distance as San Francisco to Los Angeles.
One is a bit over 500 km and the other is about 1300 km. It's not meaningfully 'about the same distance'. It's an enourmous distance to hit only three European countries, though, you can do this in much less time/distance driving around nearby Trieste or Bratislava.
Huh you’re right. Maybe I was remembering border to border air distance. Was looking this up a few years ago when friends were asking how far Ukraine was from my family.
Here’s a more fun context instead: after college I went on a roadtrip and covered 13 countries in about 4000 miles.
The UK is fairly small but has very different accents in different regions. Genetic history and accents both come from how far people travel, as far as I know, so as long as people don't go far they can remain separate.
Doesn’t have to be large groups to be different groups. That seems like a fallacious argument.
Empirically/anecdotally I bet quite a few people could with 90%+ accuracy pick a (third-generation) Iberian vs Frank vs Polack vs Scandi out of a lineup just by physical features
Alternatively take a reasonably deep look at American (North or South) indigenous tribal societies- the empirical history is thinner there but similar conclusions
Someone posted a photo of eight Italian soccer players all wearing the same uniform and said “there is no meaningful difference between northern and southern Italians, try to tell them apart.”
I guessed, and got 7 of 8 correct. (The one I missed was Sardinian)
Europe is not just the "European Union". I know many don't like Russia at the moment, but its western part is Europe. Same for Ukraine, also not part of the European Union, but it's part of Europe (the continent).
In the context of European "genetics" keeping Russia and Ukraine out of Europe is basically non-sense considering the Slavs kind of come from there :)
For a more accurate reference point, the EU's area is about 4.2 million km and the contiguous USA (so without Alaska etc) is about 8 million, so the EU is about half the area of the contiguous US.
Europe is 10 million km - why to skip some countries just because they are not part of a "political" union?
This article is about analysing the genetics of people living in Europe, so the entire continent must be considered and "historically" Europe extends until west Russia.
If you consider only the European Union, you kind of exclude the British, who share a lot with the rest of the continent.
To match the guy I was replying to, and because the USA is primarily a political, not geographical construct so it makes sense to compare it to another political construct in the EU.
Genetic differences don't account for all differences between people. For a long time the Balkans were a borderlands between empires, and that often tends to introduce differences in culture, religion, and identity.
I've driven by car from Bucharest to Methoni (at the South-Western tip of the Peloponnese) this past autumn and early on during the trip I started counting the battle-places I was passing by: Giurgiu and the 1812 war between Tsarist Russia and the Ottomans, Pleven and the 1878 war between the same Tsarist Russia and the Ottomans, driving down towards Thessaloniki I was thinking about the cemeteries of Western WW1 soldiers located nearby, I spent my night somewhere between Kozani and Ioannina, in Northern Greece, which had been a very active front in the Greek Civil War, next day I passed close to Missolonghi, passed on the magnificent bridge at Patras close to where the Lepanto battle had taken place, and then on to the Peloponnese and Methoni itself. But not before passing close to the ancient Old Navarino castle nearby Pylos, the same Pylos where the naval Battle of Pylos took place during the Peloponnesian War, shortly followed by the Battle of Sphacteria. And Methoni itself was the location of three battles [1] involving the Venetians and the Ottomans.
And then, on my way back, I visited the exceptional Mystras Archeological Site [2], seeing Western Gothic architecture as a part of the Byzantine/East-Roman complex, in the middle of the Peloponnese, was really a very cool experience, highly recommend it.
Btw, speaking of the Slavs and the Southern Peloponnese and Mystras, the nearby mountains had been inhabited by this Slavic tribe back in the day, the Melingoi [3], I hadn't know that before physically visiting those places
> The Melingoi or Milingoi (Greek: Μηλιγγοί) were a Slavic tribe that settled in the Peloponnese in southern Greece during the Middle Ages.
The other regions of Europe don’t include that big of a timespan, from 400-500 BCE to the contemporary era. The only exception is the Italian peninsula and its Northern region (the Po Plain). That’s what also made a guy like Byron to fight and die at Missolonghi, doing it on some desolate field in Northern France or present-day Belgium would have meant nothing for him.
My apologies, will take a break from commenting as to better understand the guidelines. However, it would be great if there was higher tolerance for calling content such as this out. The article at hand and research behind it do nothing more but to perpetuate a false image of east europe being a monobloc of cultures, ethnicities, and genetic structures. Defending that while censoring critique is far from ideal.
The moderation point here is in no way "defending that", nor was this the issue with your comments. The issue is that when people get into the frame of "calling out", they're already usually over the line into flamewar. That has nothing to do with this particular topic, as the second link in my reply makes clear (as the topic of that previous flamewar was unrelated).
If you want to provide thoughtful critique, answering bad information with better information and bad arguments with better arguments, in a respectful and curious way, that's of course fine. If you call names, or take swipes, or post flamebait or high-dudgeon rhetoric, that's going to lead to getting moderated and/or penalized and/or eventually banned, regardless of the topic.
> perpetuate a false image of east europe being a monobloc of cultures
I don't really agree with that claim at all. It's pretty obvious the article is talking about the migration of Slavic people which was a relatively monolithic group at the time. Seems that you just pulled a few words from the article for the sake of outrage.
The article didn’t say “race” at all. Its wording tries to simplify, for a mass audience, the research that found at this Balkan site DNA that is mainly associated with sites in the east of Europe. Across archaeology and linguistics, there has been an archaeogenetics revolution in the last 15 years or so that enables tracing historical migrations like never before.
I don’t know why you think “attracted to the wealth Rome invested in its frontier zone” is a wording that implies jobseekers. It can obviously mean opportunities for pillaging, which peoples of the Eurasian steppe did for centuries. It can mean making use of convenient infrastructure left behind when the Roman military retreated from certain holdings.
Unfortunately none of that is passed on to said audience, as can been in comments that claim ancient europe followed burial or genetic patterns aligned with a cold war era political classification of the region.
It would be comical if not tragic that we actually fund people producing such “research”. I am less and less surprised that some think we can replace them with chat bots given how low quality the output is.
Your posts here are so incoherent, it’s not clear what you are complaining about. Is it the term "Eastern European"? That isn’t a “Cold War-era classification” at all. The use of “Eastern European” in the archaeology and linguistics of the region goes back to the term Osteuropa in the foundational 19th-century literature.
If you lack any familiarity with this field enough to know that, then it would be wise to refrain from making pronouncements on the worthiness of this research. Also, the HN submission is a pop-sci article created by that university’s PR, it is not the actual research. The actual research can be found in the mentioned journal.
People of ex-Yugoslavia have a slightly amusing trait that they overestimate importance of their local history and its impact on the world history. You'd think Abraham Lincoln was picked to be the US president by a commitee from village of Crapski 113km southeast of Zagreb. This excessive pride in obscure, embelished and unimportant historical events is probably one of the reasons for animosity between peoples of the area. If they were half as smart as they think they are, they'd be long united and speaking the same language, like wiser nations such as Germans, French or Italians. But they're not, hence the hatred.
I am not sure what you mean by "started", the region was at the intersection of big empires that fought each other and the people there were caught in the middle trying to survive by chosing the least worse of the empires.
I would say the conflicts are started in the capitals of the big empires/powers.
There is an extremely nationalist and warmongering rethoric coming from official Belgrade for decades now. I don't see how foreign capitals have anything to do with that.
That history causes the feelings Seribans have, I can see why they are frustrated, but I agree politicians usually use this to gain more votes instead of finding a way to look forward.
It’s a shame early Slavs didn’t have writing. When we got Christianized later, it destroyed much of our older culture and it would be cool to know more about those roots. We know the eastern slavs had vampires and werewolves, did we? We know old folk tales mention faeries and kings sleeping in caves for centuries and even the Greek Argonauts, but it’s all very fragmented. It would be nice to know more.
A lot of our (Slovenian, probably Croatian) folk tales mix with even older tales from the celts who used to live in the area. It’s all very fascinating and largely lost because first the Romanization of the Celts and later the Christianization of the Slavs were both quite aggressive.
Another funfact: The oldest wooden wheel was found in my home town -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana_Marshes_Wheel