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Genetics, linguistics and Early Slavs.
« : 07 Ноябрь 2014, 00:32:18 »
Подход принципиально отличается - рассматриваемыми временами. Я пишу свои предположения о временах совершенно доисторических для региона центральной и восточной Европы. Вы же пишите о раннем Средневековье ...

Who said that it is ok to discuss the relationship between the genetics and linguistics only when some selected prehistoric periods are considered, while it should not be allowed for some more recent times? On what basis are you suggesting that genetics could only correlate with linguistics in the Metal Ages (or earlier) but not in the first millennium AD?

Я предполагаю! что Z92 могли быть в период бронзы-железа говорящими на индоевропейских языках - это собственно совершенно не говорит ни о каком их положении и точной локализации в период железа-бронзы в регионе. Опять же "индоевропейцы в вакууме".

Does it mean that you consider it equally likely that those early members of clade Z92 lived in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia, America or Africa? If not, then you should accept that it is all about different levels of probability for each such location, and there is no need to suggest any “vacuum” when discussing the origin of Z92 . Once you accept that it is much more likely that those early Z92 people lived in Central-Eastern Europe (rather than in Iberia, Britain, Scandinavia or Anatolia), you shouldn’t be surprised that many people consider it also most likely that Z92 has initially expanded somewhere in a region encompassing modern Belarus, Northern Ukraine, Baltic states and NE Poland. We can even propose a much more precise location, if sufficiently supported by some archaeological data (and consistent with the modern geographical distribution of Z92).

Вы вообще знакомы с конструктивистским подходом в социологии? Те же "пражане", "пеньковцы -каким образом Вы увидали связь с селищами и городищами?

Are you suggesting that those dwellings were built by some ghosts and not by any real people? Or maybe you just disagree with the majority of archaeologists who seem to assume that each such archaeological culture was most likely corresponding to a distinctive group of people who were likely somehow related to each other.

Мало прочитать о том, что археологи нашли городище и увязали его с определенным названием племени - это просто не их функция, они могут копать - но не могут всей всей истории данного городища, его социальной стратификации, а про этническую принадлежность вообще особый вопрос.

It is obvious that you seem to confuse the names of the archeological cultures with the names of some historically attested tribes. “Penkovka” and “Prague” are not “tribes”. These are just conventional names used by specialists to describe a relatively uniform archaeological culture. In other words, those hypothetical “Prague” or “Penkovka” people lived in those settlements by definition.

It is of course obvious that not all members of a given archaeological culture were derived from the same ancestral group. Nevertheless, such genetic relationship between two members of the Prague culture is at least much more likely than any close genetic relationship between people from Penkovka and Przeworsk, or between people  from Prague and Jastorf.

Мягко сказать - это предположение подкрепленное на предположении - опирающееся на название из средневекового источника; при этом в источнике совершенно не поясняется того, что для Вас выглядит вдруг очевидным.  :)

You don’t say it explicitly, but I guess your objection is related mostly to the fact that people frequently associate Prague and Penkovka with some historically attested Slavic tribes, more specifically with Sclavenes and Ants, respectively. Is this indeed what you are trying to say?

As I said above, it is all about different levels of likelihood. You seem to believe that we can equally likely associate Penkovka with the Ants, Huns, Goths, Balts or even with the Appachees while most people consider it much more likely that Penkovka represented the ancient Ants rather than any other historically attested “tribe”. This is of course still a hypothesis but a relatively likely one, as it is simply most consistent with the available data.

Кто такие для Вас ранние славяне?

“Early Slavs” are usually defined as those ancient or Early Medieval people who spoke a so-called Common Slavic language, or a still undifferentiated language that was ancestral to all Slavic languages known today. Actually, “Early Slavic” and “Proto-Slavic” are both some basic terms used by the majority of linguists and historians, so if you consider using these terms to be unjustified, it is you who should explain why you question them.

I am perfectly aware that there is a small group of people who question the very existence of Proto-Slavic, Proto-Finno-Ugric, or any other “Proto-Language”, but this is still a tiny minority view among the modern linguists, so let’s keep a sense of proportion here.

Что побудило их вдруг к миграциям?

I don’t think anybody knows what was the exact reason, but this does not mean that such migrations have never took place, as they are not only suggested by the written sources but are also quite strongly supported by archaeology, linguistics and genetics.

Почему Вы решили что какая-либо группа осознавала свое унифицированное самосознание?

Do you know any tribe or nation that doesn’t use any name to self-identify themselves?

BTW, I have never suggested that they were calling themselves Prague, Korchak or Penkovka, if this is what you had in mind when asking this question.

2) Опять же вопрос - коррелирует как и на каком уровне? На какую глубину?
Вы имеете ввиду Y-хромосому или аутосомные маркеры под генетикой?

Both Y-DNA and autosomes can be useful in this respect.

Возможно и коррелирует часто/нечасто- опять же что это меняет?
А если много маркеров, которые "не вписываются" в корреляцию, то ими Вы просто пренебрегаете?

I am not saying that this kind of correlation is always perfect or that it can always be seen, as we know some examples when such correlation is missing. Nevertheless, in the majority of cases such correlation exists, so there is no need to ignore it. There is also no perfect correlation between some meteorological parameters, yet nobody uses this as an argument against producing the weather forecast.

П.П.С. Язык по изучению обществ находящихся по форме хозяйствования в мезолите демонстрирует не значительную важность смены языка или разговора на нескольких. Можно говорить на одном языке и считать себя разными этносами/группами/племенами (выберите любое). Это же обнаруживается и сегодня - много людей говорят на одной русском и/или английском и считают себя калмыками, евреями и т.д.

You are right, but these are just some relatively rare exceptions from the general rule, so they don’t make this rule completely useless. It is still much more likely for the average citizens of Poland, Russia or America that their children will use the same language as their parents, and this was of course a much more stronger rule in the past than it is today (which is quite relevant for this discussion).

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Re: Genetics, linguistics and Early Slavs.
« Ответ #1 : 07 Ноябрь 2014, 20:34:12 »
Who said that it is ok to discuss the relationship between the genetics and linguistics only when some selected prehistoric periods are considered, while it should not be allowed for some more recent times? On what basis are you suggesting that genetics could only correlate with linguistics in the Metal Ages (or earlier) but not in the first millennium AD?
Well first of all the population in the middle Ages, and the high level of migration process (including nomadic people from the steppes), do not allow us to project them to the Bronze age.
Such are the realities of the region of Central Europe, has its own specificity - it is in AD there was a "public thoroughfare", which more or less settled only to the late The middle ages.
Does it mean that you consider it equally likely that those early members of clade Z92 lived in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia, America or Africa? If not, then you should accept that it is all about different levels of probability for each such location, and there is no need to suggest any “vacuum” when discussing the origin of Z92 . Once you accept that it is much more likely that those early Z92 people lived in Central-Eastern Europe (rather than in Iberia, Britain, Scandinavia or Anatolia), you shouldn’t be surprised that many people consider it also most likely that Z92 has initially expanded somewhere in a region encompassing modern Belarus, Northern Ukraine, Baltic states and NE Poland. We can even propose a much more precise location, if sufficiently supported by some archaeological data (and consistent with the modern geographical distribution of Z92).
Under vacuum you didn't need to understand it is the vacuum for Z92. You know they could not be strictly in isolation. We already know quite a lot of ancient DNA different periods(especcilally earlier times) and don't see that isolated groups are spread ...
Why do you think that it was differently and constantly in the Middle Ages?
And finally there is not a linguistic vacuum - I meant "Pre-Slavic" is another Indo-European. As Russian is another "Slavic". Now you
mix languages and haplogroups. And let me remind you that we speak about the middle Ages ...this is not the time of isolated groups of people farmming.
Are you suggesting that those dwellings were built by some ghosts and not by any real people? Or maybe you just disagree with the majority of archaeologists who seem to assume that each such archaeological culture was most likely corresponding to a distinctive group of people who were likely somehow related to each other.
No, I only write about the settlements and those settlements were not attributively as the native Slavonic language speaking.
Again what do you mean by talking about relationship? Can you provide some arguments of linguistic/genetic relationship of the various settlements and hillforts

(Prague, Kiev culture and so on)? There is a real reason to think that there were different groups of steppe origin and German, as well.
It is obvious that you seem to confuse the names of the archeological cultures with the names of some historically attested tribes. “Penkovka” and “Prague” are not “tribes”. These are just conventional names used by specialists to describe a relatively uniform archaeological culture. In other words, those hypothetical “Prague” or “Penkovka” people lived in those settlements by definition.

It is of course obvious that not all members of a given archaeological culture were derived from the same ancestral group. Nevertheless, such genetic relationship between two members of the Prague culture is at least much more likely than any close genetic relationship between people from Penkovka and Przeworsk, or between people  from Prague and Jastorf.
No, it's obvious that you're just misunderstood "the names of the tribes" - I of course don't mean the names of archaeological cultures - even could not imagine,

it can be understood by you. Archaeologists do not know how the people called themselves and were they of the same identification group (whether ethnic group, tribe and other) or not.

I'm not sure that between 2 members of the archaeological settlements necessarily related. Just not sure. Bring arguments - as in the middle Ages was already high migration activity.
But even if so, it changes nothing - we don't know what language they spoke, whether they have a common identity (this is a necessary condition in order to be called

"ethnic group" or "tribe"). And was their social stratification.
You don’t say it explicitly, but I guess your objection is related mostly to the fact that people frequently associate Prague and Penkovka with some historically attested Slavic tribes, more specifically with Sclavenes and Ants, respectively. Is this indeed what you are trying to say?

As I said above, it is all about different levels of likelihood. You seem to believe that we can equally likely associate Penkovka with the Ants, Huns, Goths, Balts or even with the Appachees while most people consider it much more likely that Penkovka represented the ancient Ants rather than any other historically attested “tribe”. This is of course still a hypothesis but a relatively likely one, as it is simply most consistent with the available data.
No, I don't want to say that. Moreover, we absolutely do not know who are the "Antes" and "Sklavins" - apply exactly the same criteria

far-fetched knowledge about them. This approach constructivists theory about the ethnic group. It's not just my opinion.
I don't want to associate them with "Apache". I am only pointing out that the settlement dwellers could be of any mixed origin in the time and anywhere you want.
This Is The Middle Ages ...
“Early Slavs” are usually defined as those ancient or Early Medieval people who spoke a so-called Common Slavic language, or a still undifferentiated language that was ancestral to all Slavic languages known today. Actually, “Early Slavic” and “Proto-Slavic” are both some basic terms used by the majority of linguists and historians, so if you consider using these terms to be unjustified, it is you who should explain why you question them.

I am perfectly aware that there is a small group of people who question the very existence of Proto-Slavic, Proto-Finno-Ugric, or any other “Proto-Language”, but this is still a tiny minority view among the modern linguists, so let’s keep a sense of proportion here.
But "early Slavs" is just a linguistic construction. This is the same as "early Russian" or "early Kazakhs". Do you belive that "russians" or "polish" began to spread from such a "small linguistic group"? It's a political construction and people assimiliation of elite groups (like all possible present groups with similar identification).
I don’t think anybody knows what was the exact reason, but this does not mean that such migrations have never took place, as they are not only suggested by the written sources but are also quite strongly supported by archaeology, linguistics and genetics.
To have the same identity - should be a group, which interested in it. No reason and no possibility for people living by small groups to assimilate others.

I am not saying that this kind of correlation is always perfect or that it can always be seen, as we know some examples when such correlation is missing. Nevertheless, in the majority of cases such correlation exists, so there is no need to ignore it. There is also no perfect correlation between some meteorological parameters, yet nobody uses this as an argument against producing the weather forecast.
ny language is changing each generation step, and people migrating with 1 km/yeahr is standart model to have after 500 yeahrs (just for instance) different languages and people who has different self-identification, bacause they had no time and no reasons for contacts in the group ... and even didn't know about each others without political institutes.
You are right, but these are just some relatively rare exceptions from the general rule, so they don’t make this rule completely useless. It is still much more likely for the average citizens of Poland, Russia or America that their children will use the same language as their parents, and this was of course a much more stronger rule in the past than it is today (which is quite relevant for this discussion).
Yes, a common language is reconstructed. But You must understand that language is not necessarily a marker of ethnic identity ...from one hand.
On the other hand for the rapid spread of the language in the vast territory, which is already inhabited by other tribes need a very powerful political institutions, which we have no information for that period.
If you think "early Slavs" are some very small group, then how do You explain further avalanche resettlement? Turns out they were sitting somewhere "in the forest"

then suddenly began to spread? And should be explanation not just for language, but their self-identification?
If they do not spread the unified consciousness means they were not a uniform group on any criteria means they cannot be called "Slavs" or "antes". We
see the wide autosomal and Y-diversity and can be concluded that there was significant assimilation.
But assimilation in a large area takes place only in the case of the presence of powerful political center, because otherwise the settlers will meet other groups and ethnic groups that will be for them, just a natural barrier. And goals of the group without a unifyed identification obviouslly does not exist.


P.S.And finally the Prague and Kievan caltures were degraded ...The Prague calture very close to the Avar coganate and is completelly destroued after the Avars destroyed.
How the dependent people with primitive culture may have assimilated others?

So, I only say that the linguistic Slavs and Genetic are may be of different origin. And it's not a first case in history. Or people with similar genetic origin had a different identification as it was also in history.
« Последнее редактирование: 08 Ноябрь 2014, 17:01:09 от Eugene »

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Re: Genetics, linguistics and Early Slavs.
« Ответ #2 : 10 Ноябрь 2014, 19:00:10 »
Well first of all the population in the middle Ages, and the high level of migration process (including nomadic people from the steppes), do not allow us to project them to the Bronze age.

There is an apparent inconsistency in your line of thinking, and you seem to be totally unaware of it. If there is indeed no possibility to deduce anything about the distant (or even not-so-distant) past based on the modern data (and some archaeological and historical sources), then how you were able to suggest that the early Z92 people spoke an IE language?

Let me put it straight. If you indeed believe that there is no way we can use any currently available data from different sources (including the genetic, linguistic, historic and archaeological data) to relatively reliably reconstruct at least some elements of the past, then you should not suggest your own scenarios for the linguistic associations of some haplogroups or clades (like you did in the case of Z92, and more recently in the case of the Avars and Huns as the potential “transmitters” of the Slavic language).


Such are the realities of the region of Central Europe, has its own specificity - it is in AD there was a "public thoroughfare", which more or less settled only to the late The middle ages.

I agree that the situation in Central Europe during the first millennium AD was relatively unstable, but is this enough to claim that this makes any attempts to reconstruct our distant past unreasonable? Definitely not, which is actually best demonstrated by your (somehow strange) attempts to interpret that Medieval history of Central Europe as a political dominance of the Avars who supposedly spread the Slavic language over the entire Central-Eastern Europe (though you don't provide any data that would support this hypothesis).

Under vacuum you didn't need to understand it is the vacuum for Z92. You know they could not be strictly in isolation. We already know quite a lot of ancient DNA different periods(especcilally earlier times) and don't see that isolated groups are spread ...

Firstly, I have never suggested that Z92 arose in any strongly isolated population, so I don’t know why you raise this point at all.

Secondly, I have also never suggested that archeological cultures should be understood as corresponding to some extremely homogenous groups of people who all belong to the same haplogroup or subclade (please read my previous post again). This is especially true for the relatively large populations of farmers. However, we should also keep in mind that a significant level of “Y-DNA homogeneity” is definitely possible for at least some societies that either underwent a sudden bottleneck/founder effect (like the Amerindians or Lusatian Sorbs) or show a strong patriarchal structure (like many nomadic tribes, among others).

Thirdly, it is not true that the aDNA data suggest any extremely intensive level of interbreeding between all migrating people and local populations, for example to the point when it would be totally impossible to differentiate between two neighboring groupings. On the contrary, there are many examples when there was a sufficient level of isolation to preserve the genetic differences between the neighboring populations over some long time periods. A good example is the apparent difference between the neighboring populations of farmers and hunter-gatherers in Northern Europe, even though some assimilation process has apparently took place there. Another good example is the genetic structure of the modern Poles and some of their non-Slavic neighbors or cohabitants (like Germans, Balts or Ashkenazi Jews). Despite over a millennium of very close relationship between these neighboring populations, we can quite easily identify a German, Polish, Lithuanian or Ashkenazi Y-DNA sample if composed of at least 20 (or maybe even much less) people.


Why do you think that it was differently and constantly in the Middle Ages?

Have I ever suggested anything like this? Please cite any of my statements in which I suggested any extreme stability for the Early Medieval populations? It seems that you are fighting the wrong person (or some illusive opponents who don’t really exist)…

Now you mix languages and haplogroups.

I do not mix them, I only correlate them, which is a huge difference. If you reject the commonly accepted fact that many languges (or many language families) correlate (to some significant extend) with some Y-DNA subclades (or haplogrops), this is like rejecting the real life only because it doesn’t fit your “ideal world” where all haplogroups are evenly mixed in every population and each such population is composed of bilingual or trilingual people who communicate with themselves using many different languages.

Let me also stress that all above does not mean that I suggest any “homogenous” population to represent the “pure Slavic ethnicity” or anything like this. If you read my posts carefully, you will notice that I definitely assume that such hypothetical “Proto-Slavic population” was almost certainly composed of people of different ancestry and representing different Y-DNA haplogroups. However, this does not mean that such hypothetical “Proto-Slavic” population was equally likely to have included just any Y-DNA haplogroup (like A, B, C,, D, etc,). Also, those haplogroups or subclades could have been more strongly associated with some specific geographical locations within the “Proto-Slavic homeland” or even with some specific social status within the proto-Slavic society, although the latter would be extremely difficult to determine.


No, I only write about the settlements and those settlements were not attributively as the native Slavonic language speaking.

I guess you mean that you simply don’t know whether they spoke Slavic or not, but you cannot rule out that they could have spoken an Early Slavic language. In case you absolutely reject this possibility, please let me know on which ground you assume this.

Also, if Prague and Penkovka were unlikely to speak Slavic (in your opinion), then where was (or could have been) the Early Slavic language spoken about 500 AD?


Again what do you mean by talking about relationship?

In this particular case (i.e. when talking about Prague and Penkovka), I’m talking about the potential cultural, linguistic and genetic relationship.

Can you provide some arguments of linguistic/genetic relationship of the various settlements and hillforts (Prague, Kiev culture and so on)?

Here are some most important data that (when taken together) suggest quite strongly that Prague, Kolochin, Penkovka and Kiev represented some linguistically and genetically related populations.

1) The linguistic data suggest that Slavic is only about 1500 years old, which means that all known Slavic languages have evolved from a common ancestral language (Proto-Slavic) that was most likely spoken about 500 AD. Slavic is an IE language that is most closely related to the Baltic languages, so they all are supposed to form a common Balto-Slavic branch within the large Indo-European family of languages. Balto-Slavic is believed to have split into Pre-Baltic and Pre-Slavic about 1500 BC (or between 1000 BC and 2000 BC). In fact, many linguists consider Balto-Slavic to split into three independent sublineages (if counting only the attested ones): West Baltic, East Baltic and Slavic. In such case, one could consider Slavic simply a Baltic language. The apparent relationship between Slavic, East Baltic and West Baltic suggests that these three subfamilies have likely originated somewhere close to each other, most likely in a region encompassing today’s Belarus, as this would best fit the subsequent distribution of all those descending languages (and is also consistent with the extent of the Early Baltic hydronymy).

2) As mentioned above, the Slavic family of languages seems to be relatively young (only 15000 years), and thus is unlikely to have been widely spread before 500 AD. This is in perfect agreement with the fact that the Slavic languages are not attested before the second half of the first millennium AD, which, in turn, is consistent with the above assumption that Proto-Slavic was spoken in a relatively small region somewhere in Central-Eastern Europe.

3) The reconstructed Proto-Slavic does not show any significant amount of borrowings from Celtic, which suggests that it was unlikely to have been spoken in the Danubian and Carpathian regions, nor in (South) Poland. Additionally, the ancient written sources indicate that Proto-Slavic was very unlikely to have been spoken west of the Vistula river (where only some different Germanic-speaking or Celtic-speaking tribes are reported) nor in any region well known to the Romans or Greeks.

4) Since about 250 AD, most of the Ukraine (including its Southern part), Moldova and a large part of the Carpathian region were occupied by the Goths and their allies (commonly associated with the Chernyakhov culture, at least when the Ukraine is concerned). Since  about 375 AD, the Goths (and some of their allies) started migrating west and south-west, yet nothing indicates that this migrating population included any Slavic-speaking subgroupings. However, Proto-Slavic shows a large number of linguistic borrowings from Germanic languages, including both Gothic and non-Gothic dialects. This suggests that the Proto-Slavs were close neighbors of the Goths and maybe of some other (non-Gothic) Germanic people.

5) Proto-Slavic shows some borrowings from the Iranic languages, which suggests some early contacts with the steppe people (Scythians, Sarmatians).

6) When taken together, all above suggests that the most likely homeland of the Proto-Slavs could have been located somewhere in the region encompassing Southern Belarus and North-Western Ukraine, as this is actually the only location that is consistent with all above data. Importantly, this location corresponds to the Zarubintsy culture (300 BC – 100 AD), showing both some local roots (mostly Milograd-Pidhirtsy and Chernoles) and strong influences from the West (Jastof-derived?, Bastarnae?) and North-West (Pomeranian culture). The Zarubintsy culture was partially destroyed after being affected by some climate changes and the Sarmatian invasions (hence early borrowings from Iranic?), while the Post-Zarubintsy horizon included many local groupings, with some of them “united” within the relatively large Kiev culture. Kiev culture had very intensive contacts with Chernyakhov, which perfectly fits the above-mentioned hypothetical contacts between the Proto-Slavic and Gothic.

7) After Chernyakhov started to disappear (by the end of the 4th cent. AD), which perfectly coincides with the westward migrations of the Goths and the arrival of the Huns, Kiev has been gradually transformed into two or three descending cultures (this is best described by Terpilovsky, so I am sure you all know much more about it than I do). The continuity between Kiev and the descending cultures of Kolochin and Penkovka seems to be relatively secure in the light of the archaeological data, while it is much more difficult to reconstruct the exact origin of the third group, known as Korchak (frequently equated with its hypothetical later variant named Prague).

8 ) The geographical distribution of Penkovka fits nearly perfectly the distribution of the Antes, as reported by Jordanes (i.e. along the curve of the Black Sea, from the Dniester to the Dnieper), while the slightly later appearance of the Antes at the lower Danube is consistent with the southward expansion of the Penkovka-related culture Ipotesti-Candesti (which was likely a result of migrating south and assimilating some local populations).

9) The distribution of Korchak (or Korchak-Prague) is, on the other hand, consistent with the distribution of the historically attested Sclavenes (Sklaveni) who were described in ancient sources as dwelling NE of the Carpathian range, before expanding west (towards the upper Vistula). The Prague culture is attested as expanding from NW Ukraine to to SE Poland, and then through Moravia to Bohemia and Lusatia. In the NW Poland, a slightly different culture (strongly influenced by the Prague, as suggested by some archaeologists) is then formed that crosses the Oder and expands towards the Lower Elbe river.

10) Importantly, both Sclavenes and Antes are reported in ancient sources (Prokopius) as using the same language and being a part of the same larger ethnos (Jordanes, Prokopius), which, again, perfectly fits their identification as some Early Slavic-speaking people. Importantly, the territory occupied by the Sclavenes is Slavic-speaking ever since (with no significant population exchange), so there is little doubt that those Sclavenes (and consequently the Prague culture) were also Slavic-speaking and represented a relatively large subgroup of the Early Slavs that expanded west. Intriguingly, the distribution of Prague fits (nearly exactly) the distribution of R1a-L260 (with the highest frequencies in SE Poland, Bohemia and among the Lusatian Sorbs), which indicates that this subclade (about 2000-2500 years old) constituted an important part of the expanding Prague culture, although it definitely included some other haplogrpups/subclades.


There is a real reason to think that there were different groups of steppe origin and German, as well.

I am not sure if I understand this correctly, so please let me know whether you indeed consider it more likely that Prague and Penkovka were speaking some Germanic dialect or some “steppe” language (Iranic, Turkic, Finno-Ugric?).

If Prague people spoke some Germanic language before expanding to Poland, Moravia, Bohemia and Lusatia (roughly between 500-700 AD), then when have all those regions adopted Slavic? There was no subsequent invasion from the East or South to Poland, Polabia, Lusatia or Bohemia, so what could be the reason that those Germanic-speaking people (according to your scenario) adopted Slavic? Was the Slavic language brought in by the invading Avars (starting from the second half of the 6th cent.)? If so, how this Avar-derived Slavic language spread to Belarus, Masovia, Pomerania, Greater Poland, Polabia and Lusatia, where there is not a single trace of any Avar dominance? When would such Avar-derived Slavic language got so many loanwards from Gothic? How would it be possible that the language brought in by the steppe people from the North-Caucasian region was most closely related to West Batic and East Baltic and not to any Iranian or Turkic language? Why the number of the Iranian loanwords in Proto-Slavic is much lower than the number of Germanic (including Gothic) loanwards?

Of course, all above questions remain valid if one assumes that Prague spoke an unknown steppe language (like you seem to suggest above, without showing any data that would support it).


I'm not sure that between 2 members of the archaeological settlements necessarily related. Just not sure.

You don’t need to be absolutely sure about it. How many times do I need to repeat that this is just a question of probability. For example, we cannot be sure (in 100%) that each two Poles are more closely related to each other than one of them is to some Belarusians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovaks, Lithuanians or Germans. However, this doesn’t mean that the Poles do not constitute a population that is (genetically) different from all above-mentioned populations and this can be confirmed by a statistical analysis of sufficiently large samples from each such country. Consequently, the probability that two Poles are more closely related to each other is significantly higher than when comparing a random Pole and a random member of any neighboring country (population).

The same could be most likely said about Penkovka and Prague. These cultures were probably quite closely related to each other (let’s say closer than the modern Czechs and Poles), but it doesn’t mean that they could not have constituted separate populations (even if partially overlapping).


Bring arguments - as in the middle Ages was already high migration activity.

This  extremely high migration activities during the Great Migration Period (and in the Early Middle Ages) is exactly what makes the hypothesis about the expansion/migration of the Early Slavs more likely than any Hunnic or Avar elite dominance that imposed the Slavic language on the subdued local populations.

But even if so, it changes nothing - we don't know what language they spoke,

Again, you seem to not understand that you don’t need to be 100% sure about something to assume that it is the most likely option, especially after eliminating most of the remaining options as being highly unlikely for some reasons (like in the case of the Prague culture speaking a Germanic or steppe language).

As shown above, we have some indirect evidences showing that people representing Prague and Penkovka spoke the same language, and since the regions occupied by Prague were Slavic-speaking ever since, there is practically no other option than Prague being a Slavic-speaking culture/population. Most importantly, you haven’t provided any scenario that would be more likely than the above hypothesis nor you haven’t delivered any strong argument in favour of Prague being a non-Slavic speaking culture.


whether they have a common identity (this is a necessary condition in order to be called "ethnic group" or "tribe").

It is highly unlikely for any expanding group of people (or for a group strongly involved in some conflicts with their neighbors, which is a very likely option for Kiev) to not have any name used for self-identification. It seems most likely that in this particular case this self-identifying name was simply Slavs (or any similar form, related to the attested forms Sclavenes, Sklaveni, Stavanoi), which does not exclude any other names used for some smaller subgrouping/tribes.

And was their social stratification.

According to both the ancient sources and archaeological data, the Early Slavic community was not strongly stratified, but I don’t think this is relevant to the very existence of the Early Slavs, unless one assumes that only some strongly stratified populations can form tribes or initiate migrations, which is definitely not true. Such very strong social stratification within a tribe makes it sometimes more easy to fight enemy or move to some new locations, but this is not something that would be required for initiating a migration, especially when it is directed to some recently emptied territories, like it was the case for the Western Slavs.

Additionally, some archaeologists and historians postulate that it was the egalitarian character of the Early Slavic society that made this social model attractive for the members of the much more "civilized" (though degradating) societies, in which the people from the lower strata were strongly oppressed by the dominant elite. I am not sure if this was indeed the case, but it is worth noting that your "elite dominance model" is not the only option that is considered by the researchers.


But "early Slavs" is just a linguistic construction. This is the same as "early Russian" or "early Kazakhs". Do you belive that "russians" or "polish" began to spread from such a "small linguistic group"?

Yes, the Early Poles could have been a group of similar size (regarding both the territory and the population) when compared to those hypothetical Early Slavs at the initial stage of their development. However, there are some important differences when comparing the Early Poles with the Early Slavs (or Proto-Slavs). Firstly, the Early Poles did not significantly expand into any distant regions of Europe, so there was no chance for the Early Polish language (or the Old Polish language) to split into many separate daughter languages (although modern Polish is of course very different from the Early Polish). In other words, while we can equate Early Slavic with Proto-Slavic, there is actually no such thing like Proto-Polish, because we have only one Polish language. Secondly, the Old Polish language has been formed as a result of political unification, which additionally reduced any tendencies to evolve into separate languages, although I wouldn’t exclude that Proto-Slavic has also been a result of some unification of some very closely related dialects used by different clans/tribes, which could have resulted in creating a relatively large and quite unified Proto-Slavic community, represented for example by the Kiev culture.


  It's a political construction and people assimiliation of elite groups (like all possible present groups with similar identification).

You seem to have a very simplified view on this question. Firstly, although politics may certainly affect languages,  different dialects/languages can evolve and split without being influenced by any political processes. You don’t need any political institutions for some groups of people to split and migrate to distant region where a separate language is formed. Secondly, it is certainly not true that it is always the elite group that imposes a language change on the entire population. We know many examples when it was the other way around, see for example the Franks, Longobards, Bulgars or Russians/Varangians.


To have the same identity - should be a group, which interested in it. No reason and no possibility for people living by small groups to assimilate others.

Taking over somebody’s land and assimilating other people is definitely not the only reason why people require self-identity. Much more frequently, such self-identity is formed when we simply need to defend ourselves against the foreign enemy. This was also a much more likely reason in the case of the Early Slavs, especially when assuming their potentially difficult relationship with the neighboring Goths, which could not only induce the development of some very strong self-identity but could also be a likely reason for starting the unification process, as mentioned above.

Yes, a common language is reconstructed. But You must understand that language is not necessarily a marker of ethnic identity ...from one hand.

I agree that separate languages are not required for separate ethnic identities to exist, but it simply doesn’t change the fact that in the vast majority of cases such ethnic identity is very strongly associated with a separate language. Even in those rare cases when different ethnic groups use the same language (as a first language!) there is a strong tendency to either differentiate the languages (like in the case of the Croatians and Serbs) or to assimilate one group by the other (like in the case of the Lusatian Sorbs who speak German).


On the other hand for the rapid spread of the language in the vast territory, which is already inhabited by other tribes need a very powerful political institutions, which we have no information for that period. If you think "early Slavs" are some very small group, then how do You explain further avalanche resettlement? Turns out they were sitting somewhere "in the forest"

In most cases, the Early Slavs have migrated to the regions that have been nearly emptied after the former inhabitants (mostly some Germanic tribes, including the Goths, Vandals and different Suebian tribes, like Quadi and Marcomani) went west and/or south, so this made the westward expansion of the Early Slavs relatively easy. For the southward expansion (i.e. towards the Balkans), it wouldn’t be probably so successful if not connected to the expansion of the Avars.

If they do not spread the unified consciousness means they were not a uniform group on any criteria means they cannot be called "Slavs" or "antes".

Firstly, we have enough data to strongly suspect that they were calling themselves “Slaves” or “Antes” (as this is what the ancient sources suggest). Secondly, it is not really important how they called themselves, as long as we are aware what the name “Slavs” means to us (and in this case it means that they were very likely to have spoken an Early Slavic language).

BTW, since the Hungarians call themselves Magyars, does it mean that the Hungarians do not exist?

Also, if some Polish-speaking peasants in the 12th, 15th or 18th century were not aware that they spoke a Slavic language (or that they were Slavs) does it mean that they indeed weren’t Slavs or that the Slavs did not exist at that time?


We see the wide autosomal and Y-diversity and can be concluded that there was significant assimilation.
But assimilation in a large area takes place only in the case of the presence of powerful political center, because otherwise the settlers will meet other groups and ethnic groups that will be for them, just a natural barrier.

I have already explained this above.


P.S.And finally the Prague and Kievan caltures were degraded ...The Prague calture very close to the Avar coganate and is completelly destroued after the Avars destroyed.

What you wrote above is simply not true. The Prague-derived cultures in Poland, Bohemia and Lusatia have never been destroyed by the Avars. Also, both Prague and some Prague-derived cultures (like Sukowo-Dziedzice) show apparent continuity in all occupied regions, and instead of being “destroyed” by the Avars they simply evolved into the local Slavic cultures (first pagan and then Christian), which shows no trace of any foreign invasion (if not counting the German/Saxon expansion from the west, especially in the Polabia region).

As for the Danubian region and the Balkan territories, those Slavs were indeed subdued to the Avars, but this was not related to any annihilation of their ethnicity. By contrast, this was rather a kind of a “forced political alliance” that actually helped the Slaves conquer some Balkan territories, and it was the Slaves who survived this period of difficult co-existence (while the Avars eventually disappeared, after being weakened by the Slavic revolts and by the conflict with the Franks).



How the dependent people with primitive culture may have assimilated others?

There are numerous examples of invaders adopting the language (and the culture) of the much more numerous subdued population, and I have already mentioned some of them. Let me only remind the Turkic Bulgars and the Nordic Varangians adopting the language/culture of the conquered Slavic populations.

BTW, the consensus view is that the Avars were a confederation of some Turkic tribes, and you haven’t provided any data that would strongly indicate that the original language of the Avars (or Huns) was Slavic, or that they played a major role in spreading the Early Slavic language to Europe (especially to Polabia, Poland, Bohemia, Belarus and Russia).


So, I only say that the linguistic Slavs and Genetic are may be of different origin. And it's not a first case in history. Or people with similar genetic origin had a different identification as it was also in history.

You are apparently not aware of some recent publications that clearly demonstrate a very recent common genetic origin of all Slavic populations. More specifically, these studies show that all Slavic populations are much more closely related to each other than it is observed, for example, for the Germanic-speaking or Romance-speaking populations. Importantly, this common autosomal ancestry can be traced back to a period between 500 BC and 500 AD (or 1500-2500 years ago).

Here are two figure from a recent paper that demonstrates a relatively recent demographic and territorial expansion of the Common Slavic population. More specifically, these figures show that the West Slavs (like Poles or Czechs) have much more shared genetic ancestry (dated to about 2000 years ago) with the Southern Slavs (including the Slovenians, Serbs Croats and Bulgars) or with the Eastern Slavs (including the Ukrainians and Russians) than with their much closer German neighbors. Similarly, the West Balkan Slavs (like Slovenians, Croats and Serbs) share much more (relatively recent) common ancestry with the West Slavs and East Slavs than with their Italian neighbors.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4PX1XNnBVtrZUhJWnp0dUY3YkE/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4PX1XNnBVtrekZ1eHVtNG9DRmM/view?usp=sharing
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001555&representation=PDF

Apart from those autosomal results, you seem to completely ignore the Y-DNA data that clearly suggest a sudden (and extremely fast) expansion of at least several Y-DNA subclades that show apparent association with nearly all Slavic-speaking subpopulation, while showing very low frequency in most of the neighboring non-Slavic countries (except for some regions that were known to have been occupied by the Slavs in the past, like Hungary, Moldova or Romania).

If the development of the Slavic languages was not associated with the demographic expansion and intensive migration of the Early Slavic population that was formed nearly 2000 years ago, than how would you explain the fact that about 20 million members of haplogroup I2a-Din (with the vast majority of them being Eastern, Southern and Western Slavs) share just one common ancestor who lived only 2000-2500 years ago.

How would you explain the fact that more than 95% of about 20 million members of haplogroups R1a-L1029 and R1a-L260 are some Western, Eastern and Southern Slavs who share just two common ancestors living only about 2500-2000 years?

A very similar sudden expansion is seen for all three major subclades of R1a-Y33, a clade showing significant presence among the West, East and South Slavs. I should also mention R1a-YP569 that seems to be specifically associated with the East Slavic expansion (together with the “Pan-Slavic” subclades I2a-Din, R1a-L1029 and R1a-Y2902. Let me also add R1a-Y2613 and R1a-P278.2 that show similar “nearly exclusive” association with the Slavs (if not counting the Hungarians and some neighboring German populations, which perfectly reflects the known Slavic history of these regions). Importantly, all above-mentioned clades are about 2000-2500 years old, which suggests that all of them were represented in the Early Slavic population before it started expanding in different directions starting from about 400-500 AD.

Are you at least ready to admit that if some future aDNA studies on archaeological remains dated to 300 BC – 400 AD will show no R1a-M458 and I2a-Din (I could also mention some additional subclades of R1a mentioned above) in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and the Balkans, while finding these Y-DNA subclades in Southern Belarus and/or Northern Ukraine, this will finally demonstrate that the Early Slavic-speaking population was represented by some extremely quickly expanding groupings migrating west, south-west and east from the Dnieper-Pripyat region?

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Re: Genetics, linguistics and Early Slavs.
« Ответ #3 : 10 Ноябрь 2014, 23:34:24 »
There is an apparent inconsistency in your line of thinking, and you seem to be totally unaware of it. If there is indeed no possibility to deduce anything about the distant (or even not-so-distant) past based on the modern data (and some archaeological and historical sources), then how you were able to suggest that the early Z92 people spoke an IE language?
Let me put it straight. If you indeed believe that there is no way we can use any currently available data from different sources (including the genetic, linguistic, historic and archaeological data) to relatively reliably reconstruct at least some elements of the past, then you should not suggest your own scenarios for the linguistic associations of some haplogroups or clades (like you did in the case of Z92, and more recently in the case of the Avars and Huns as the potential “transmitters” of the Slavic language).

Acctually all you are talking about information is available from the school program. I do not undergo any doubts of the histirical facts. But just to wnat to say about the prehistorical genetic distributaion of any autosomal and most Y-cromosome lines and components in Europe.
I don't suggest the Z92 were spoke on a language IE, I just suppose. And acctually see no significant meaning of that, at all.

I agree that the situation in Central Europe during the first millennium AD was relatively unstable, but is this enough to claim that this makes any attempts to reconstruct our distant past unreasonable? Definitely not, which is actually best demonstrated by your (somehow strange) attempts to interpret that Medieval history of Central Europe as a political dominance of the Avars who supposedly spread the Slavic language over the entire Central-Eastern Europe (though you don't provide any data that would support this hypothesis).
Not just Avars, but the Huns are also candidates. I mean that the Avars and Huns were mostly of eastern and central european origin, or just could be.

I do not mix them, I only correlate them, which is a huge difference. Let me also stress that all above does not mean that I suggest any “homogenous” population to represent the “pre Slavic ethnicity” or anything like this. If you read my posts carefully, you will notice that I definitely assume that such hypothetical “Proto-Slavic population” was almost certainly composed of people of different ancestry and representing different Y-DNA haplogroups. However, this does not mean that such hypothetical “Proto-Slavic” population was equally likely to have included just any Y-DNA haplogroup (like A, B, C,, D, etc,).
OK. But the correlation is just often be cosidering like a strong association :)
So, the simplification of a hard and manyfactor process will be considering like a one/two line distribution were "early".
The YDNA haplo C, that you have mention was found many time in Europe. Why don't you see possibility to be in so-called pre-Slav group? Or just a ditributed line may be mentioned?

I guess you mean that you simply don’t know whether they spoke Slavic or not...
Also, if Prague and Penkovka were unlikely to speak Slavic (in your opinion), then where was (or could have been) the Early Slavic language spoken about 500 AD?
You should know, that I just learning the history and want to see some arguments for complicated process. I don't persist on any version ...
The Prague could Slavic speaking - or not. I don't know and just want to say, that the culture was degraded. And the neighbor Avars could be of the same or similar origin (may be just partially). The "young Slavic" and the not so spread common mythology between Slavs, also suggests the language was mostly for interacting between groups in the region.

As mentioned above, the Slavic family of languages seems to be relatively young (only 15000 years), and thus is unlikely to have been widely spread before 500 AD. This is in perfect agreement with the fact that the Slavic languages are not attested before the second half of the first millennium AD
Yes, aree with all the well-known facts.


I am not sure if I understand this correctly, so please let me know whether you indeed consider it more likely that Prague and Penkovka were speaking some Germanic dialect or some “steppe” language (Iranic, Turkic, Finno-Ugric?).
Not, not really. As I mentioned above I suggest that the Prague could be speaking on Slavic, but the culture degraded. So it's possible that the neighbours Avars could also speack on Slavic and even be similar origin (at leat partially)

According to both the ancient sources and archaeological data, the Early Slavic community was not strongly stratified, but I don’t think this is relevant to the very existence of the Early Slavs, unless one assumes that only some strongly stratified populations can form tribes or initiate migrations, which is definitely not true.

Such very strong social stratification within a tribe makes it sometimes more easy to fight enemy or move to some new locations, but this is not something that would be required for initiating a migration, especially when it is directed to some recently emptied territories, like it was the case for the Western Slavs.

Additionally, some archaeologists and historians postulate that it was the egalitarian character of the Early Slavic society that made this social model attractive for the members of the much more "civilized" (though degradating) societies, in which the people from the lower strata were strongly oppressed by the dominant elite. I am not sure if this was indeed the case, but it is worth noting that your "elite dominance model" is not the only option that is considered by the researchers.
I think it's relevant about the stratification, because The constructive method in Theory of ethnos says.
We see the Y-chromosome difference including in R1a haplogroup. So, the territories were not empty? So, the others were assimilated, but no rich mythology left. So, just language was spread?- OK, but is the reason? They left identification and saved language?

Firstly, although politics may certainly affect languages,  different dialects/languages can evolve and split without being influenced by any political processes. You don’t need any political institutions for some groups of people to split and migrate to distant region where a separate language is formed. Secondly, it is certainly not true that it is always the elite group that imposes a language change on the entire population. We know many examples when it was the other way around, see for example the Franks, Longobards, Bulgars or Russians/Varangians.

There are numerous examples of invaders adopting the language (and the culture) of the much more numerous subdued population, and I have already mentioned some of them. Let me only remind the Turkic Bulgars and the Nordic Varangians adopting the language/culture of the conquered Slavic populations.

BTW, the consensus view is that the Avars were a confederation of some Turkic tribes, and you haven’t provided any data that would strongly indicate that the original language of the Avars (or Huns) was Slavic, or that they played a major role in spreading the Early Slavic language to Europe (especially to Polabia, Poland, Bohemia, Belarus and Russia).
Yes, of course It's what I'm talking about, that the language is not a barrier at all.
So, without elite we have mostly the continuum af languages, bacause of no reason for unification. And just neighbour groups have linguistic contacts. So, the groups do not have similar identification, even no need.


Taking over somebody’s land and assimilating other people is definitely not the only reason why people require self-identity. Much more frequently, such self-identity is formed when we simply need to defend ourselves against the foreign enemy. This was also a much more likely reason in the case of the Early Slavs, especially when assuming their potentially difficult relationship with the neighboring Goths, which could not only induce the development of some very strong self-identity but could also be a likely reason for starting the unification process, as mentioned above.
If they didn't have a unifyed identification they would not to defent all from one enemy. As you see in history some Slavs were against others ...


P.S.And finally the Prague and Kievan caltures were degraded ...The Prague calture very close to the Avar coganate and is completelly destroued after the Avars destroyed.
What you wrote above is simply not true. The Prague-derived cultures in Poland, Bohemia and Lusatia have never been destroyed by the Avars.
I didn't mean by Avars. Just said after Avars. So in the same or close times.


P.S. Thanks for the conversation, but don't see any reason to proceed. All of mentioned by you Is well-known and if you have all questions closed - that's good for you :)

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Re: Genetics, linguistics and Early Slavs.
« Ответ #4 : 11 Ноябрь 2014, 01:30:13 »
P.S. Thanks for the conversation, but don't see any reason to proceed. All of mentioned by you Is well-known and if you have all questions closed - that's good for you :)

I don't know all the answers to the questions related to the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, so it is obvious that I am open to any alternative scenarios, but only as long as such scenarios are consistent with most of those commonly accepted facts that you said you knew 'from the school program". Thus, if I criticize someone's view is not because of my dogmatic approach (like following just one specific "school of thinking" in sociology/ethnology), but because that criticized view is either intrinsically inconsistent (illogical) or very strongly contradicted by the available data.
   
BTW, the semantic difference between "suggesting" and "supposing" is not strong enough to justify your aggressive reaction to any "suggestions" that are not consistent with your "suppositions".

 

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