Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Ancient DNA Reveals Matrilineal Continuity in Present-Day Poland over the Last Two Millennia, by Anna Juras. 2014

No Recent Arrivals! Poles Have Lived on Present-Day Polish Territory For at Least the Last 2,000 Years

The article is from PLOS ONE 9(10)e110839. The authors describe how they sampled some ancient archeological sites in Poland, “The Roman Iron Age samples (RoIA) comprised 38 human remains from cemeteries in Kowalewko (n = 11) and Rogowo (n = 13) assigned to the Wielbark culture, and two burial sites in Karczyn (n = 12) and Gaski (n = 2) assigned to the Przeworsk culture. The Wielbark culture extended in the north-eastern territories of contemporary Poland during the 1st to the 4th century AD. The Przeworsk culture was present in the Western, Central and Southern Poland from the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD. Both Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures were dated to the Roman Iron Age based on the archaeological context.” (p. 2).

THE ANCIENT PRZEWORSK AND WIELBARK CULTURES TURN OUT TO BE SLAVIC, NOT GERMANIC

“Notably, modern Poles shared the highest number (nine) of informative mtDNA haplotypes with the RoIA individuals.” (p. 4).

“…only three out of the 12 tested modern populations (Bulgarians, Poles and Belarusians) were found to share significantly higher percentage (p,0.05) of informative haplotypes with the ME samples .” (p. 5).

AT LEAST A 2,000 YEAR OLD PRESENCE OF POLES ON THEIR PRESENT-DAY TERRITORY

“The presence of subclusters of H5a1 in four ancient samples belonging to both the RoIA and the ME periods, and in contemporary Poles, indicates the genetic continuity of this maternal lineage in the territory of modern-day Poland from at least Roman Iron Age i.e. , 2 kya.” (pp. 6-7).

THE RESULTS SUPPORT THE AUTOCHTHONOUS, NOT ALLOCHTHONOUS, HYPOTHESIS OF SLAVIC ORIGINS

“Results of our study indicate genetic continuity of mitochondrial lineages between ancient and modern populations in the territory of contemporary Poland. In particular, presence of sub-clades of hg H5a1 among both RoIA and ME ancient samples and present day Poles, and the identification of N1a1a2 haplotype in RoIA and contemporary Poles is consistent with the idea of continuity of maternal lineages from at least Roman Iron Age in the region. Our data demonstrates that present-day Western Slavs, among analyzed Europeans, exhibit a mtDNA profile that is more similar to one found among ancient inhabitants of Central Europe. This observation appears to be in concordance with the autochthonous hypothesis.” (p. 8).

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For further scientific evidence of ancient Slavic presence, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/ancient-slavic-european-presence-mielnik-sikorska/