title: Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks.
abstract: Peloponnese has been one of the cradles of the Classical European civilization and an important contributor to the ancient European history. It has also been the subject of a controversy about the ancestry of its population. In a theory hotly debated by scholars for over 170 years, the German historian Jacob Philipp Fallmerayer proposed that the medieval Peloponneseans were totally extinguished by Slavic and Avar invaders and replaced by Slavic settlers during the 6th century CE. Here we use 2.5 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms to investigate the genetic structure of Peloponnesean populations in a sample of 241 individuals originating from all districts of the peninsula and to examine predictions of the theory of replacement of the medieval Peloponneseans by Slavs. We find considerable heterogeneity of Peloponnesean populations exemplified by genetically distinct subpopulations and by gene flow gradients within Peloponnese. By principal component analysis (PCA) and ADMIXTURE analysis the Peloponneseans are clearly distinguishable from the populations of the Slavic homeland and are very similar to Sicilians and Italians. Using a novel method of quantitative analysis of ADMIXTURE output we find that the Slavic ancestry of Peloponnesean subpopulations ranges from 0.2 to 14.4%. Subpopulations considered by Fallmerayer to be Slavic tribes or to have Near Eastern origin, have no significant ancestry of either. This study rejects the theory of extinction of medieval Peloponneseans and illustrates how genetics can clarify important aspects of the history of a human population.
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Genetics, Departments of Medicine and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stamatoyannopoulos
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
authors.forename: Aritra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bose
authors.affiliation: Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Athanasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Teodosiadis
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
authors.forename: Fotis
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5521-846X
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tsetsos
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Plantinga
authors.affiliation: Division of Hematology, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Nikoletta
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Psatha
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, George Papanicolaou Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Nikos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zogas
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, George Papanicolaou Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Evangelia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yannaki
authors.affiliation: Graduate Studies and Research Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8494-5081
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zalloua
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Kenneth K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Kidd
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.|Division of Medical Genetics, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Brian L
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6454-6633
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Browning
authors.affiliation: Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Seattle, WA, USA.|Departments of Medicine and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stamatoyannopoulos
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece.
authors.forename: Peristera
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Paschou
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
authors.forename: Petros
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Drineas
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000072441:DNA, Ancient / Q000737:chemistry*; D015894:Genome, Human; D005838:Genotype; D006115:Greece; D063426:Human Migration; D006801:Humans; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010375:Pedigree; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D000072441:DNA, Ancient