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Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Albanians
Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, Aris Aristodemou, David Wesolowski, Alexandros Heraclides
doi: doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790
Abstract
The origins of the Albanian people have vexed linguists and historians for centuries, as Albanians first appear in the historical record in the 11th century CE, while their language is one of the most enigmatic branches of the Indo-European family. To identify the populations that contributed to the ancestry of Albanians, we undertake a genomic transect of the Balkans over the last 8000 years, where we analyse more than 6000 previously published ancient genomes using state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools and algorithms that quantify spatiotemporal human mobility. We find that modern Albanians descend from Roman era western Balkan populations, with additional admixture from Slavic-related groups. Remarkably, Albanian paternal ancestry shows continuity from Bronze Age Balkan populations, including those known as Illyrians. Our results provide an unprecedented understanding of the historical and demographic processes that led to the formation of modern Albanians and help locate the area where the Albanian language developed.
Introduction
During the Iron Age (1100 BCE–150 CE), the Balkans were characterised by remarkable cultural, linguistic, and genetic heterogeneity (1–6). In the western Balkans, “Celtic” cultures such as Hallstatt and La Tène, interacted for centuries with local groups referred to as the “Illyrians” and “Dalmatians” (7, 8). Deep in the Balkan heartland, heterogenous populations named by classical authors as “Dacians”, “Dardanians”, “Moesians”, and “Paeonians” (1, 7–9) bordered nomadic cultures from the Pontic-Caspian steppe known as the “Scythians” (10), while the southeastern part of the peninsula was inhabited by “Thracians” and “Greeks” (2, 11). Balkan peoples also expanded beyond the confines of the peninsula, with “Messapians” migrating to southeast Italy at least since 600 BCE (12). The linguistic and cultural diversity of the Balkans was considerably homogenised during the Hellenistic (2, 9), Roman (9, 13–15), and especially the Migration Period, when Germanic and Slavic-speaking groups massively settled in the region (2, 3, 16, 17). These events ultimately led to the extinction of all palaeo-Balkan languages except Greek and Albanian. The latter is one of the most enigmatic branches of the Indo-European language family, having vexed linguists for more than two centuries (2, 18, 19).
Tracing the origins of Albanians and their language is challenging for several reasons. Only a handful of historical sources comment on the ethnic and linguistic composition of the southwest Balkans during the transition from classical antiquity to Medieval times (500-1000 CE) (20–22), and none of them mention an Albanian-speaking population from the territory of modern Albania. Speakers of Slavic languages are reported to have inhabited what is now southern Albania in the 8th century CE (15, 21), where the frequency of Slavic toponyms also peaks (23), while the same region is characterised by the presence of Greek-speakers at least since the Medieval period (24). The urbanised Medieval populations of the northwest, referred to by contemporary historians as the Romani/Ῥωμᾶνοι (20), are thought to have spoken a variant of vulgar Latin known as West Balkan Romance (14, 15, 25) that persisted at least until the 13th century CE (26). The demographic and linguistic situation in the mountainous interior is unknown, and it is only in the 11th century CE that Albanians appear in the historical record (22), while the earliest surviving written document of their language dates to 1462 CE (27).
A number of linguistic hypotheses have attempted to identify the affinities of the Albanian language and to locate the region where it developed, yet no definitive conclusions have been drawn. The most prominent, mutually exclusive hypotheses can be divided into those arguing for a local west Balkan origin from an Illyrian (28, 29) or Messapic background (19, 30, 31) [which may or may not have been distinct languages (7, 30, 32)], and those proposing a non-local origin from a Daco-Moesian-Thracian background (2, 19, 33) or an unattested Balkan language, whose speakers entered Albania from the central-east Balkans sometime after 400 CE (15, 32, 34, 35). The validity of these hypotheses, although hotly debated, is hard to test, as these ancient languages are poorly recorded, being known only from fragmentary inscriptions, toponyms, and a handful of historical sources (2, 7, 36). Furthermore, all of the ethnonyms of ancient Balkan peoples, such as “Illyrian” and “Thracian”, are likely artificial labels that were coined by ancient and modern authors (37), and may include several related languages with largely obscure geographical limits, intelligibility, and emic identities of their speakers (8, 9, 32). The most recent linguistic hypotheses propose a sister-group relationship of Albanian to Greek or to the Greek-Armenian clade (18, 38, 39), which firmly places the origin of the language in the Balkans but does not pinpoint the location of the proto-Albanian homeland within the peninsula and its potential affiliation to historically attested populations.
Archaeological data on Albania’s Medieval cultures are also inconclusive, especially for the Komani-Kruja complex (ca. 600-800 CE), which has been interpreted as the cultural expression of either a Romanised population (local or intrusive) (8, 40, 41) or an indigenous Albanian-speaking group (42).
Due to the challenges associated with linking archaeological, literary, and linguistic evidence, an archaeogenetic approach may offer novel insights into the origin of the Albanians, their biological relationships to ancient people, and the affinities of their language. Although gene flow is not always accompanied by language shifts [as in the case of Basque (43) and Etruscan (44)], migration is one of the primary vectors of cultural change (45, 46), of which language dissemination is a frequent outcome (3, 17, 47–49). Recent years have witnessed a surge in the palaeogenomic sampling of the Balkan peninsula (3–6, 11, 16), yet the resulting datasets have not been mined to help us understand how migration led to the emergence and spread of new material cultures, communities, and languages in the territory of modern Albania.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790v1.full
Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, Aris Aristodemou, David Wesolowski, Alexandros Heraclides
doi: doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790
Abstract
The origins of the Albanian people have vexed linguists and historians for centuries, as Albanians first appear in the historical record in the 11th century CE, while their language is one of the most enigmatic branches of the Indo-European family. To identify the populations that contributed to the ancestry of Albanians, we undertake a genomic transect of the Balkans over the last 8000 years, where we analyse more than 6000 previously published ancient genomes using state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools and algorithms that quantify spatiotemporal human mobility. We find that modern Albanians descend from Roman era western Balkan populations, with additional admixture from Slavic-related groups. Remarkably, Albanian paternal ancestry shows continuity from Bronze Age Balkan populations, including those known as Illyrians. Our results provide an unprecedented understanding of the historical and demographic processes that led to the formation of modern Albanians and help locate the area where the Albanian language developed.
Introduction
During the Iron Age (1100 BCE–150 CE), the Balkans were characterised by remarkable cultural, linguistic, and genetic heterogeneity (1–6). In the western Balkans, “Celtic” cultures such as Hallstatt and La Tène, interacted for centuries with local groups referred to as the “Illyrians” and “Dalmatians” (7, 8). Deep in the Balkan heartland, heterogenous populations named by classical authors as “Dacians”, “Dardanians”, “Moesians”, and “Paeonians” (1, 7–9) bordered nomadic cultures from the Pontic-Caspian steppe known as the “Scythians” (10), while the southeastern part of the peninsula was inhabited by “Thracians” and “Greeks” (2, 11). Balkan peoples also expanded beyond the confines of the peninsula, with “Messapians” migrating to southeast Italy at least since 600 BCE (12). The linguistic and cultural diversity of the Balkans was considerably homogenised during the Hellenistic (2, 9), Roman (9, 13–15), and especially the Migration Period, when Germanic and Slavic-speaking groups massively settled in the region (2, 3, 16, 17). These events ultimately led to the extinction of all palaeo-Balkan languages except Greek and Albanian. The latter is one of the most enigmatic branches of the Indo-European language family, having vexed linguists for more than two centuries (2, 18, 19).
Tracing the origins of Albanians and their language is challenging for several reasons. Only a handful of historical sources comment on the ethnic and linguistic composition of the southwest Balkans during the transition from classical antiquity to Medieval times (500-1000 CE) (20–22), and none of them mention an Albanian-speaking population from the territory of modern Albania. Speakers of Slavic languages are reported to have inhabited what is now southern Albania in the 8th century CE (15, 21), where the frequency of Slavic toponyms also peaks (23), while the same region is characterised by the presence of Greek-speakers at least since the Medieval period (24). The urbanised Medieval populations of the northwest, referred to by contemporary historians as the Romani/Ῥωμᾶνοι (20), are thought to have spoken a variant of vulgar Latin known as West Balkan Romance (14, 15, 25) that persisted at least until the 13th century CE (26). The demographic and linguistic situation in the mountainous interior is unknown, and it is only in the 11th century CE that Albanians appear in the historical record (22), while the earliest surviving written document of their language dates to 1462 CE (27).
A number of linguistic hypotheses have attempted to identify the affinities of the Albanian language and to locate the region where it developed, yet no definitive conclusions have been drawn. The most prominent, mutually exclusive hypotheses can be divided into those arguing for a local west Balkan origin from an Illyrian (28, 29) or Messapic background (19, 30, 31) [which may or may not have been distinct languages (7, 30, 32)], and those proposing a non-local origin from a Daco-Moesian-Thracian background (2, 19, 33) or an unattested Balkan language, whose speakers entered Albania from the central-east Balkans sometime after 400 CE (15, 32, 34, 35). The validity of these hypotheses, although hotly debated, is hard to test, as these ancient languages are poorly recorded, being known only from fragmentary inscriptions, toponyms, and a handful of historical sources (2, 7, 36). Furthermore, all of the ethnonyms of ancient Balkan peoples, such as “Illyrian” and “Thracian”, are likely artificial labels that were coined by ancient and modern authors (37), and may include several related languages with largely obscure geographical limits, intelligibility, and emic identities of their speakers (8, 9, 32). The most recent linguistic hypotheses propose a sister-group relationship of Albanian to Greek or to the Greek-Armenian clade (18, 38, 39), which firmly places the origin of the language in the Balkans but does not pinpoint the location of the proto-Albanian homeland within the peninsula and its potential affiliation to historically attested populations.
Archaeological data on Albania’s Medieval cultures are also inconclusive, especially for the Komani-Kruja complex (ca. 600-800 CE), which has been interpreted as the cultural expression of either a Romanised population (local or intrusive) (8, 40, 41) or an indigenous Albanian-speaking group (42).
Due to the challenges associated with linking archaeological, literary, and linguistic evidence, an archaeogenetic approach may offer novel insights into the origin of the Albanians, their biological relationships to ancient people, and the affinities of their language. Although gene flow is not always accompanied by language shifts [as in the case of Basque (43) and Etruscan (44)], migration is one of the primary vectors of cultural change (45, 46), of which language dissemination is a frequent outcome (3, 17, 47–49). Recent years have witnessed a surge in the palaeogenomic sampling of the Balkan peninsula (3–6, 11, 16), yet the resulting datasets have not been mined to help us understand how migration led to the emergence and spread of new material cultures, communities, and languages in the territory of modern Albania.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790v1.full