engleski

Population History Of The Eastern Adriatic: Parallels In Historical Surname And Current Genetic Variation

Using a regional approach, the study continues previous research aimed at depicting the history of human migrations in the Eastern Adriatic by comparing genetic, cultural and linguistic differences that reflect different aspects of its history. The previously obtained results indicated quite a heterogeneous ethnic composition of the historic Pre-Slavic populations named Illyrians, and clearly demonstrated a clear north-western/southeastern gradient pointing a remarkable discrimination of the Northern Adriatic from other East Adriatic populations. They also showed that in spite of subsequent romanization and more recent settlement of Slavic populations and other demographic events in the region, the traces of genetic individuality of prehistoric peoples have been to a certain degree preserved through the process of assimilation. The present study is therefore directed toward further understanding of the processes that caused the patterns by applying the Monmonier's maximum difference algorithm. The method provides a more detailed visualization of the geographic patterns of variation by identifying the “ barriers” or genetic boundaries and enables a better interpretation of microevolutionary processes through the identification of hidden boundaries resulting from secondary gene flow among previously isolated populations. The present analysis is focused on the comparison of two different boundary maps: one based on the regional distribution of genetic markers obtained by typing the human Y chromosome that reflects genetic differences between populations linked to the populations’ past demographic history, and the other is based on the regional distribution of the recorded Illyrian, pre-Slavic surnames used as a proxy to Y-chromosome genetic variation. The results obtained affirm the usefulness of the method applied and provide a further historical and geographic insight into the role of the local migrations and cultural factors responsible for regional genetic diversity.

biocultural evolution; surname analysis; genetic boundaries; Eastern Adriatic; Illyrians

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