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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2023 20:42:33 GMT
Fig 5. Time slices from the emerging hot spot analysis for selected areas: a) Eastern part of the study area from 450 CE to 650 CE; b) central part of the study area from before 600 CE to after 750 CE (authors E.L. and B.Š; open access raw data sources used: EU-DEM v1.1, OpenStreetMap, . doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274687.g005With the second tool, a migration upstream of the Sava river after c. 675 CE was documented. Between c. 600 and 675 CE, there was a gradual decline in hot spots along the Sava, but between c. 675 and 750 CE there was a reversal of that trend (Fig 5B; S2 Appendix). This trend reversal alone could be explained by other causes than migration. The evidence for migration was provided by the time series clustering, which showed a sudden and complete shift in material culture: the number of Late Antiquity sites diminishes dramatically and at the same time Early Medieval sites start appearing (Fig 3). This shift has long been known in archaeology as the transition from fortified hilltop settlements to unfortified lowland settlements, e.g., [70], which determines the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. On the basis of this data, a comment can be made on the size of the migrations. Overall, hot spots interpreted as resulting from the first migration account for only 4% of all hot spots in c. 500 CE, which indicates a relatively small founder population. However, by c. 700 CE, 59% of hot spots can be interpreted as resulting directly or indirectly from both migrations. Although this is a very rough estimate, far from giving a direct indication of the actual number of people involved, it is the best available and by far the most tangible to date, cf., [3, 4, 37, 73–76]. As such, it is an invaluable foundation for explaining acculturation processes following migrations, which, however, are not the subject of this article.
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Post by Admin on Sept 22, 2023 18:41:33 GMT
5. Discussion 5.1. Archaeology Our data thus testifies to two migrations: The first upstream of the Mura and Drava rivers after c. 500 CE, and the second before c. 700 CE upstream of the Sava river. This is an important discovery, but it does not shed light on who the migrants were. Based on the archaeological [77–80]) and historiographical [17, 20, 22] context, we can hypothesize that they were Early Slavs. But this hypothesis inherits all the weaknesses of the existing ones, which are based on the controversial presence of archaeological assemblages of Prague Culture and scant written sources.
The hypothesis may, however, be considered the null hypothesis that can be tested with the consilience principle. The new archaeological evidence for two separate migrations allows us to correlate it with interpretations from the linguistics and genetics of modern populations. These two fields of science use completely different data sources and methods than archaeology and have recently made significant advances in understanding Slavic migrations.
5.2. Linguistics Let us first take a look at linguistics. While a language or dialect may be tied to any number of identities within a given period, a shared linguistic innovation requires a linguistic community, for which the term "founder population" has been proposed [6, 54].
Modern Slovenian, which is spoken today in the southern part of the research area, belongs to the South Slavic clade, according to the traditional classification of the Slavic languages [81]. There are, however, considerable linguistic similarities between the Slovenian and the West Slavic lects. These similarities were explained either by the existence of a specific link between Slovenian and West Slavic or by a mixed South and West Slavic origin of Slovenian [82–86].
Specific ties between Slovenian and South Slavic on the one hand and West Slavic on the other have recently been demonstrated with a series of phylogenetic NeighborNet networks. The analysis concluded that Slovenian seems to be almost equally close to the West and South Slavic, but distant from the East Slavic, "thus supporting the putative mixed nature of Modern Slovenian" [87]. It is the latter interpretation that interests us.
In conclusion of the above cited analysis further studies of Slovenian dialects are proposed in order to clarify the position of Slovenian among the Slavic languages. One of such study examined the diatopic distribution and semantic development of *gъlčěti as the primary neutral verb meaning ’to speak’. It was carried from an emergent dialect of Slavic and is now widespread in present-day central Russia, central Bulgaria, and in Slovenia along the Mura and Drava rivers. Of interest is the hypothesis of possible relationships between the "early Slavic speakers who spoke dialects in which *gъlčěti played a central role as a verb of speech" and those who did not within modern Slovenia, i.e. the southern part of our study area. The hypothesis states that this dichotomy, together with the -ny- || -nǫ- isogloss, "can be viewed as inherited pre-migration cleavages" [53], that is, "the dialects of Slavic brought to the subalpine area… differed (amongst themselves)" ([6]; translated from the Slovenian by B.Š.; the subalpine area mentioned corresponds approximately to our study region). Since "shared linguistic innovation presupposes a community" ([6]; translated from the Slovenian by B.Š.), it follows that heterogeneous dialects presuppose heterogeneous communities or founder populations.
Therefore, the linguistic interpretations imply that the southern part of the region under study was originally populated by two founder populations that spoke two heterogeneous Slavic dialects. One, using *gъlčěti, populated areas along the rivers Mura and Drava, the other one populated areas further west.
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Post by Admin on Sept 23, 2023 19:50:55 GMT
5.3. Genetic history Second, let us turn to genetic history. This scientific field attempts to reconstruct human evolution and the history of human populations using genetic information obtained from either modern or ancient DNA [88]. DNA has been described as a document containing "messages from the past" [89] and is a proven tool in prehistoric archaeology, e.g., [90–93]. However, there are significant obstacles to the use of modern DNA when it comes to Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. For example, the historical population-level information that this method reflects is complex and overlapping and should not be understood as representing a direct correspondence between population history and social history [94, 95]. For the study of this time period, ancient DNA or ancient genomic DNA data are more appropriate, e.g., [96, 97]. However, ancient DNA data are not available in sufficient quantity to study the expansion of Slavic speakers.
Regardless of the methodological shortcomings, it is agreed that the results of genetic studies on modern DNA are indisputable in terms of providing information on genetic proximity and can contribute to hypotheses about human population history, including Late Antiquity and Early Mediaeval migrations [94, 97–99].
The most complete study of modern DNA pertaining to the expansion of Slavic speakers examined all ethnic groups living today who speak Balto-Slavic languages, as well as their neighbors. It concluded that the genetic diversity of today’s Slavs was predominantly formed in situ (i.e., the substrate genetic components in the settled areas prevail), with marked differences between West and East Slavs on the one hand and South Slavs on the other. However, there is genetic affinity showing a common ancestry (i.e., a homogeneous genetic substrate inherited from the ancestral population) among the Slavs, which probably demonstrates the historical dispersion of a once uniform population [87, 100]. This was recently confirmed in a review article, which concluded, that the migration of Slavs was accompanied by active assimilation of indigenous European populations [101].
Looking more closely at the region under study, the variability of the microsatellite loci of the Y chromosome is telling. It shows that the inhabitants of present-day Slovenia are far removed from all other South Slavic populations [87]. When this was first discovered in an earlier study it was interpreted to "suggests that at least two different migration waves of the Slavs may have reached the Balkans in the early Middle Ages" [102].
Considering only the modern Slovenian population, there is one possible ancestral haplogroup for all Slovenian populations which has the highest frequency along the Mura and Drava rivers. This could indicate that the origin of this ancestral haplogroup was in this area and that it later spread westward [103].
Thus, population genetic studies show that the southern part of the study region was possibly settled by two separate migrations. The earlier one took place along the Mura and Drava rivers; the later one was to the west of that area.
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Post by Admin on Sept 24, 2023 19:59:15 GMT
5.4. Consilience Interpretations from three scientific fields, using completely different data sets and methods, shows a consilience or convergence of evidence. Archaeological, linguistic, and genetic evidence suggests, with varying degrees of certainty, that there were two separate migrations to the southern part of the region under study: The earlier one along the Mura and Drava rivers, and the later one, which archaeology can locate along the Sava river. Archaeology and genetics suggest that acculturation was the predominant post-migration process. Linguistics and genetics indicate that the migrants were Slavs. In particular, linguistics indicates that the migrants were speakers of Slavic, and genetics confirms that they had a homogeneous genetic substrate inherited from a single ancestral population common only to ethnic groups speaking Slavic today.
Based on consilience, we can define the immigrants who arrived in the Eastern Alps between c. 500 and c. 700 CE with by far the highest reliability to date. They were speakers of Slavic and shared a specific “Slavic” ancestry. Our archaeological analysis places these migrations in space and time with some precision (Fig 5).
6. Conclusions The aim of this article was to test the hybrid hypothesis of Slavic migration using archaeological data, with the Alpine Slavs as a case study. The term “migration” in the title was deliberately chosen to be somewhat provocative, as modern historiography and archaeology of the Early Middle Ages tend to downplay the role of physical migrations.
We used selected machine learning methods to analyze an archaeological data set that can be described as Deep Data. Specifically, we used two methods: Time series clustering and a modified emerging hot spot analysis. The former method is directly suitable for archaeology without modification, whereas the latter required two archaeology-specific modifications: The archaeological trend map and the multiscale emerging hot spot analysis.
The results have provided us with an overwhelming quality and quantity of new information. In this article, we have focused on confirming two separate migrations of the Alpine Slavs. Based on the convergence of evidence from archaeology, linguistics, and population genetics, we define the immigrants as Alpine Slavs who were speakers of Slavic and shared specific “Slavic” ancestry. Two founder populations migrated to the Eastern Alps: The first after c. 500 and the second before c. 700 CE.
The identities and ethnicity of the migrants (as defined by modern historiography) are, in our view, beyond the scope of archaeology. The acculturation processes that took place after the migration will be discussed elsewhere. From the available evidence, however, it is clear that the crucial process was cultural spread sensu Heather [18]. We envisage that the number of migrating people was relatively small and more akin to a small group infiltration than a mass migration. The movement itself was a part of it, but the processes that took place afterwards were historically the most important.
Thus, we have achieved the aim of the article, which was to prove the validity of the hybrid hypothesis of Slavic migration with archaeological data. The migration of the Alpine Slavs was a combination of movement of people, cultural diffusion, and language diffusion, all occurring simultaneously. This clearly refutes the hypothesis that only the cultural model or even only the language spread.
While this paper focused on a specific question related to the migration of Slavs, the methods we developed, borrowing and adapting from a variety of disciplines, can be applied to archaeological studies of any period, anywhere that suitable data is available. We hope that these advances will be used beneficially by other scholars and establish a new, practical approach to add to the archaeological arsenal of methodologies.
In the field of machine learning in archaeology and the digital humanities in general, we hope to have shown that, in addition to Big Data, Deep Data also holds great potential.
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Post by Admin on Dec 25, 2023 6:34:16 GMT
Genetic admixture and language shift in the medieval Volga-Oka interfluve Summary The Volga-Oka interfluve in northwestern Russia has an intriguing history of population influx and language shift during the Common Era. Today, most inhabitants of the region speak Russian, but until medieval times, northwestern Russia was inhabited by Uralic-speaking peoples.1,2,3 A gradual shift to Slavic languages started in the second half of the first millennium with the expansion of Slavic tribes, which led to the foundation of the Kievan Rus’ state in the late 9th century CE. The medieval Rus’ was multicultural and multilingual—historical records suggest that its northern regions comprised Slavic and Uralic peoples ruled by Scandinavian settlers.4,5,6 In the 10th–11th centuries, the introduction of Christianity and Cyrillic literature raised the prestige status of Slavic, driving a language shift from Uralic to Slavic.3 This eventually led to the disappearance of the Uralic languages from northwestern Russia. Here, we study a 1,500-year time transect of 30 ancient genomes and stable isotope values from the Suzdal region in the Volga-Oka interfluve. We describe a previously unsampled local Iron Age population and a gradual genetic turnover in the following centuries. Our time transect captures the population shift associated with the spread of Slavic languages and illustrates the ethnically mixed state of medieval Suzdal principality, eventually leading to the formation of the admixed but fully Slavic-speaking population that inhabits the area today. We also observe genetic outliers that highlight the importance of the Suzdal region in medieval times as a hub of long-reaching contacts via trade and warfare. Graphical abstract www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982222018267
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