A study led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), in collaboration with Harvard University and involving the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), the University of Western Ontario, and the University of La Rioja (UR), reconstructs for the first time the genomic history of the first millennium in the Balkan Peninsula. To achieve this, the team has recovered and analyzed the ancient genomes of 146 individuals who lived in present-day Croatia and Serbia during that period.
Published in the prestigious journal Cell, the work unveils the Balkans as a global and cosmopolitan frontier of the Roman Empire and reconstructs the arrival of Slavic peoples in this region. For the first time, the team has identified three individuals of African origin who lived in the Balkans under the imperial rule of Rome.
On the other hand, the research confirms that the migration of Slavic peoples from the 6th century onwards represented one of the largest permanent demographic changes in all of Europe, whose cultural influence persists to this day.
The Roman Empire transformed the Balkans into a global region
The Roman Republic first and the Roman Empire later incorporated the Balkans, turning this border region into a crossroads of communication and a melting pot of cultures. The study confirms that the economic vitality of the empire attracted immigrants from distant places to this region.
Through the analysis of ancient DNA, the team has identified that, during the Roman rule of the region, there was a significant demographic contribution from the Anatolian Peninsula (located in present-day Turkey) that left a genetic imprint on the Balkan populations. However, there is no trace of Italian ancestry in the analyzed genomes. These populations from the east integrated fully into the local society of the Balkans. In Viminacium, for example (one of the main cities of the Romans, located in present-day Serbia), we find an exceptionally rich sarcophagus in which a man of local descent and a woman of Anatolian descent were buried, comments Íñigo Olalde, researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and former “La Caixa Junior Leader” researcher in the Paleogenomics group at IBE.
The team has also revealed the sporadic long-distance mobility of three individuals of African descent to the Balkan Peninsula during its imperial rule. One of them was a teenager whose genetic origin lies in the region of present-day Sudan, outside the boundaries of the ancient Empire. According to isotopic analysis of the roots of his teeth, in his childhood, he had a marine diet very different from the rest of the individuals analyzed, comments Carles Lalueza-Fox, principal investigator at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) and director of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona (MCNB).
Furthermore, he was buried with an oil lamp representing an eagle iconography related to Jupiter, one of the most important gods for the Romans. The archaeological analysis of his burial reveals that he could have been part of the Roman military forces, so we would be talking about an immigrant who traveled from afar to the Balkans in the 2nd century AD, points out Lalueza-Fox. This shows us a diverse and cosmopolitan Roman Empire, welcoming populations far beyond the European continent.
The Roman Empire welcomed barbarian populations
The study has identified some individuals of Northern European and steppe ancestry who inhabited the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century, in the midst of Roman occupation. Anthropological analysis of their skulls reveals that some of them were artificially deformed, a custom of some steppe and Hun populations, often referred to as “barbarians.”
These results support historical and archaeological research and show the presence of individuals from beyond the borders of the Empire, beyond the Danube, long before the fall of the Western Empire.
The borders of the Empire were much more diffuse than the borders of current nation-states. The Danube served as the geographical limit of the Empire but acted as a communication route and was very permeable to the movement of people, comments Pablo Carrión, researcher at IBE and co-first author of the study.
Slavic populations changed the Balkan region
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, especially from the 6th century onwards, the study reveals the large-scale arrival in the Balkans of individuals genetically similar to modern Slavic-speaking populations from Eastern Europe. Their genetic footprint represents between 30 and 60% of the ancestry of present-day Balkan peoples, making it one of the largest permanent demographic changes anywhere in Europe during the Great Migrations period.
Although the study detects sporadic arrivals of individuals from Eastern Europe in earlier periods, it is from the 6th century onwards that a strong migratory wave is observed. According to our analysis of ancient DNA, this arrival of Slavic-speaking populations in the Balkans took place over several generations and involved complete family groups, including men and women, explains Carrión.
The study also identifies that the establishment of Slavic populations in the Balkans was greater in the north, with a genetic contribution between 50% and 60% in present-day Serbia, and gradually lower towards the south, with a genetic representation between 30 and 40% in continental Greece and up to 20% in the Aegean islands. Their genetic legacy is visible not only in current Balkan populations speaking Slavic languages but also in other groups that include regions where Slavic languages are not spoken today, such as Romania and Greece, points out David Reich, researcher at Harvard University, where the recovery and sequencing of ancient DNA took place.
Coordination to rewrite the history of the Balkans
The Yugoslav War in 1991 led to the separation of the Balkan peoples into the different countries that make up the region today, and its consequences persist to this day. However, researchers from across the region have collaborated on the study. Croatian and Serbian researchers have collaborated in the study. It is a great example of cooperation, considering the recent history of the Balkan Peninsula. At the same time, these types of works are an example of how objective genomic data can contribute to overcoming social and political problems linked to collective identities that have been based on epic narratives of the past, comments Lalueza-Fox.
The team created a genetic database of the Serbian population from scratch to reconstruct the history of the Balkans. We found ourselves in the situation where there was no existing genomic database of the current Serbian population. To build it and use it as a comparative reference in this study, we had to find people who self-identified as Serbian based on certain shared cultural traits, even if they lived in other countries like Montenegro or North Macedonia, comments Miodrag Grbic, professor at the University of Western Ontario and visiting professor at the University of La Rioja.
Despite the identity issue, marked by the recent history of the Balkans, the genomes of the Croats and Serbs analyzed speak of a shared heritage equally between Slavic populations and Mediterranean populations.
We believe that the analysis of ancient DNA can contribute, along with archaeological data and historical records, to the reconstruction of the history of the Balkan peoples and the formation of the so-called Slavic peoples of southern Europe, points out Lalueza-Fox.
The picture that emerges is not one of division but of shared history. People who inhabited the Balkans in the Iron Age were similarly affected by migrations during the Roman Empire and Slavic migrations later. Together, these influences resulted in the genetic profile of modern Balkans, regardless of national borders, concludes Grbic.
Sources
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) de España | Iñigo Olalde, Pablo Carrión, et al., A genetic history of the Balkans from Roman frontier to Slavic migrations. Cell, vol.186, issue 25. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.10.018
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