Contemporary paternal genetic landscape of Polish and German populations: from early medieval Slavic expansion to post-World War II resettlements - PubMed (original) (raw)

doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2012.190. Epub 2012 Sep 12.

Begoña Martínez-Cruz, Anke Tönjes, Peter Kovacs, Michael Stumvoll, Iris Lindner, Andreas Büttner, H-Erich Wichmann, Daniela Siváková, Miroslav Soták, Lluís Quintana-Murci, Zofia Szczerkowska, David Comas; Genographic Consortium

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Contemporary paternal genetic landscape of Polish and German populations: from early medieval Slavic expansion to post-World War II resettlements

Krzysztof Rębała et al. Eur J Hum Genet. 2013 Apr.

Abstract

Homogeneous Proto-Slavic genetic substrate and/or extensive mixing after World War II were suggested to explain homogeneity of contemporary Polish paternal lineages. Alternatively, Polish local populations might have displayed pre-war genetic heterogeneity owing to genetic drift and/or gene flow with neighbouring populations. Although sharp genetic discontinuity along the political border between Poland and Germany indisputably results from war-mediated resettlements and homogenisation, it remained unknown whether Y-chromosomal diversity in ethnically/linguistically defined populations was clinal or discontinuous before the war. In order to answer these questions and elucidate early Slavic migrations, 1156 individuals from several Slavic and German populations were analysed, including Polish pre-war regional populations and an autochthonous Slavic population from Germany. Y chromosomes were assigned to 39 haplogroups and genotyped for 19 STRs. Genetic distances revealed similar degree of differentiation of Slavic-speaking pre-war populations from German populations irrespective of duration and intensity of contacts with German speakers. Admixture estimates showed minor Slavic paternal ancestry (~20%) in modern eastern Germans and hardly detectable German paternal ancestry in Slavs neighbouring German populations for centuries. BATWING analysis of isolated Slavic populations revealed that their divergence was preceded by rapid demographic growth, undermining theory that Slavic expansion was primarily linguistic rather than population spread. Polish pre-war regional populations showed within-group heterogeneity and lower STR variation within R-M17 subclades compared with modern populations, which might have been homogenised by war resettlements. Our results suggest that genetic studies on early human history in the Vistula and Oder basins should rely on reconstructed pre-war rather than modern populations.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Phylogenetic relationship and frequencies of Y-chromosomal haplogroups in the studied populations. Ka Kaszuby; Ko Kociewie; Ku Kurpie; Lu Lusatia; Sl Slovakia; Me Mecklenburg; Ba Bavaria. (1) R-M17-derived samples with unknown M458 status owing to permanent lack of PCR product, which the most likely resulted from deletion of the M458 locus, located in very close proximity to the DYS448 marker (independent deletions of DYS448 have been described within different haplogroups and two out of the three samples with unknown R-M458 genotypes possess DYS448 null alleles).

Figure 2

Figure 2

MDS analysis of (a) _F_ST values for Y-chromosomal haplogroups and (b) _Φ_ST values for 17-locus Y-STR haplotypes observed in the studied populations.

Figure 3

Figure 3

MDS analysis based on _Φ_ST distances for 7-locus Y-STR haplotypes observed in the studied populations compared with data published for 12 Slavic and Germanic populations., Filled circles indicate modern populations from northern (Gda Gdansk), central (War Warsaw) and southern Poland (Cra Cracow). Empty circles indicate pre-WWII populations from northern (KaN, KaC, KaS northern, central, southern Kaszuby; Ko Kociewie), central (Ku Kurpie) and southern Poland (PoS). Other Slavic populations: Lu Lusatia; Sl western Slovakia. German populations: Me Mecklenburg; Ba western Bavaria; Gre Greifswald; Ber Berlin; Lei Leipzig; Mai Mainz; Mün Münster. Other Germanic populations: Den Denmark; Got Gotland (Sweden); Ble Blekinge (Sweden).

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