Origins of Slavs: Archaeology, Linguistics, Anthropology, History

[Domen]

Midas was it you who told me that you have R1a haplogroup ???

Haplogroups are in most cases tied geographically and nothing else.

Haplogroups are not tied to the land but to the people who live there, though.

Do you suggest that R1a et all haplogroups are Slavic OR do you mean that certain combinations of haplogroup combined with high R1a frequencies are typical to Slavic speakers in general?

High frequencies of R1a are typical to West Slavic and East Slavic people. Not all subgroups of R1a haplogroup are typical for Slavic people.

But high frequency R1a haplogroup in Scandinavia is the result of Medieval Slavic settlement in Scandinavia (I wrote about this in two threads recently). And high frequency of R1a in parts of Germany and Austria is the result of Germanization (assimilation) of Slavic and Baltic people.

I am asking because unfortunately the coupling of haplogroups with ethnic groups/languages

Yes, you need to be careful with such coupling. One example are precisely Slavic languages.

South Slavs have much different frequencies of various haplogroups than West Slavs and East Slavs.

South Slavs assimilated previous population of the Balkans, who already had those haplogroups.

They speak Slavic language but they are to a large extent descendants of Pre-Slavic population of the Balkans.

 

[Midas]

Ok, it's clear Domen!
Sorry for the quick parenthesis.

PS: Btw, it was not me saying I have R1a haplogroup.

 

[Domen]

BTW - how can you live in Scandinavia, Balkans, Anatolia and Levant at the same time? Hehe.

 

[Midas]

BTW - how can you live in Scandinavia, Balkans, Anatolia and Levant at the same time? Hehe.

I live in Sweden but I have family members from all these places. We speak 4 languages at home
Generally, those areas are also "areas of specialty". I know more about them, that anything else.

 

[Domen]

Ok, thanks for explaining.

 

[Strula]

As reported by some authors ancient ancestors of the Slavs had a lower material culture from their neighbors: "They live in miserable huts, scattered from one another and always moving from one place to another. Lead a dowdy and are always full of dirt. These nations, anti and sclavinii are not driven by one man, but living in the order of seniority in a democratic and therefore their business, both favorable and unfavorable ones are always discussed things in common "(Procopius of Cesareea, About wars, VII, 14, 22-24).


Of the three branches of the Slavs (the west - the Czechs, the Poles, the east-Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Slovaks, south, Slovenes, Serbs, slavobulgarii) only southern branch settled in the Eastern Roman Empire. The other two branches occupied territories left by migratory German or foreigner, after migration to Western Europe and south.

More primitive than the Germans, Slavs lived in smelly swamps and anointed his face with soot mosquito. The Germans caught both servants of the Slavs, that the word "Slav" came to mean "slave".

Now i understand why Hitler wanted to make all slavic people slaves and believed they are good for slaves. I was always wondering.

 

[Domen]

"Miserable huts" by Byzantine standards maybe (Procopius was born in the city of Caesarea in Byzantine Palestine).

Other barbarian tribes used similar houses as Slavic tribes.

Reconstructions of Slavic houses (based on archaeological findings):

By comparison Saxon and Anglo-Saxon houses from the same period:

More primitive than the Germans, Slavs lived in smelly swamps

This claim has been discredited already during the 19th century.

The original homeland of Slavs was in Ukraine, not in Belarus ("smelly swamps").

 

[Domen]

All barbarians were described the same way - as dirty people with children running around naked - by Roman historians:

From "Germania" by Tacitus:

"(...) the Peucinians, whom some call Bastarnians, speak the same language with the Germans, use the same attire, build like them, and live like them, in that dirtiness and sloth so common to all. (...) In every household the children, naked and filthy (...)"

I recall also another similar fragment about "those dirty Germanic savages" by another Roman historian, but I forgot who was that.

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As for Slavic people - Procopius of Caesarea also wrote this about them:

"(...) For they are all exceptionally tall and stalwart men. (...)"

All barbarians were also described by the Romans as exceptionally tall and stalwart - both Celtics, later Germanics and finally Slavics.

I suppose those Romans had to be really small if everyone else was "exceptionally tall" for them.

 

[Domen]

If you read "The Gallic Wars" by Julius Caesar, you can also see how he described Gauls as utter savages.

But Terry Jones presented quite a different image (the truth is probably somewhere in between):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl96VLPCAqw

 

[Domen]

On the other hand, Romans praised character traits - the faithfullness of barbarian women, democratic lifestyle (in case of Slavs), etc.

Tacitus wrote that Germanic women - unlike Roman women - did not develop a habit of cheating on their husbands with random men.