Haplogroup E3b1a2 as a Possible Indicator of Settlement in Roman Britain
by Soldiers of Balkan Origin
Steven C. Bird
Abstract
The invasion of Britain by the Roman
military in CE 43, and the subsequent occupation of Britain for nearly four
centuries, brought thousands of soldiers from the Balkan peninsula to Britain
as part of auxiliary units and as regular legionnaires. The presence of Haplogroup E3b1a-M78 among
the male populations of present-day Wales, England and Scotland, and its nearly
complete absence among the modern male population of Ireland, provide a
potential genetic indicator of settlement during the 1st through 4th Centuries
CE by Roman soldiers from the Balkan peninsula and their male Romano-British
descendants. Haplotype data from several
major genetic surveys of Britain and Ireland are examined, analyzed and
correlated with historical, epigraphic and archaeological information, with the
goal of identifying any significant phylogeographic associations between
E3b1a-M78 and those known Romano-British settlements and military posts that
were associated specifically with Roman soldiers of Balkan origin. Studies by Cruciani et al. (2007), Perečić et
al. (2005), and Marjanovic et al. (2005), examining the distribution of
E3b1a-M78 and E3b1a2-V13 in the Balkans, are analyzed further to provide
evidence of phylogeographic associations between the E3b1a2 haplotypes
identified within the Balkans by these studies and those regions of the Balkans
occupied first by the Roman army in antiquity.
E3b1a2 is found to be at its highest frequency worldwide in the
geographic region corresponding closely to the ancient Roman province of Moesia Superior, a region that today
encompasses Kosovo, southern Serbia, northern Macedonia and extreme
northwestern Bulgaria. The Balkan
studies also provide evidence to support the use of E3b1a-M78 (in the present
study) as a close proxy for the presence of E3b1a2-V13 (representing 85% of the
parent E3b1a-M78 clade) in both the Balkans and in Britain.
Address for
correspondence: stevenbird1000@hotmail.com
Received: July 1, 2007; accepted:
Sept. 15, 2007.
Introduction
The
origins, arrival times and possible routes of migration of the E3b haplogroup
to Britain have been the subject of debate
among population geneticists for several years.
In his book, The Origins of the
British, Stephen Oppenheimer (2006) advanced a theory of a Neolithic time
period for the arrival of E3b (and a companion haplogroup, J2) in Britain,
corresponding to the period from 6.5-5.5 kya (thousands of years ago) and
originating from the Balkan peninsula. The data upon which his conclusions
concerning E3b and J2 were based
were derived from two surveys of British haplotypes, published by Weale et al.
(2002) and Capelli et al.(2003). Oppenheimer based his hypothesis, in part,
upon a study by Semino et al. (2004) that addressed the spread of haplogroups
E3b and J in western Europe during the Neolithic era, but did not include any
data from the island of Britain specifically, and upon the earlier work of
Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza (1984) concerning the “demic
diffusion” model, in which the Linearbandkeramik
or LBK culture arose after the Neolithic transition (with the
Starčevo-Körös-Çris cultures) about 6000 BCE or 8 kya.
At about
the same time as the release of Oppenheimer’s book, Bryan Sykes (2006)
published his book Blood of the Isles
(entitled Saxons, Vikings, and Celts
in the U.S. release). Simultaneously, Sykes also published the data
from the Oxford Genetic Atlas Project (OGAP) online. While the studies of Weale and Capelli were
limited geographically either to a specific transect of Britain or to a grid pattern containing
large gaps of unsampled and potentially significant geographic regions within Britain, the Sykes OGAP study covered
every region of the island of Britain.
Very
shortly after the publication of these two books, Cruciani et al. (2007)
published a new study defining ten subclades of haplogroup E3b1a-M78 through
several newly identified unique event polymorphisms (UEP’s).
The subclade E3b1a2 (identified by the presence of the V13 and V36 UEPs) was
found by Cruciani et al. (2007) to have a strong phylogeographic association
with the southern Balkan peninsula; this subclade also was found by the same
study to correspond very closely to the α (“alpha”) cluster of E3b1a-M78,
first identified by Cruciani et al., (2004) using microsatellite (STR) data. Cruciani (2007) also stated that the subclade
defined by the V13 UEP (phylogenetically equivalent to E3b1a2 and E3b1α)
was found in 85% of western European males who also were positive for E-M78.
Semino et
al. (2004) viewed E3b1a-M78, of which E3b1a2 is, by far, the most common
subclade in Europe, as an indicator of the diffusion of people from the Balkans
(along with a “companion” clade, J2b1-M12/M102) and therefore a candidate for a
residual genetic signature of the Neolithic demic diffusion model. Cruciani et
al. (2007) have brought the Neolithic dating assumption into question, however,
by their revised dating of the expansion of E-V13 and J-M12, from the Balkans
to the remainder of Europe, to a period no earlier than the Early Bronze Age (“EBA”)
Two
dating methods were employed by Cruciani (2007) to calculate the “time to most
recent common ancestor” ("TMRCA"): that of Zhivotovsky et al. (2006)
based on his “evolutionary effective” mutation rate for an average square
distance ("ASD") calculation, and the second based on Forster et
al. (1996) and Saillard et al. (2000) utilizing ρ ("rho")
statistics, employed to “assay how robust the time obtained is to choice of
method.” Cruciani et al. (2007) found
that Forster’s method produced time estimates that were slightly younger than
the ASD-based method but that the
difference was significant only for the root of the entire haplogroup.
An
important finding of this study was that E-V13 and J-M12 had essentially
identical population coalescence times.
They concluded that the E-V13 and J-M12 subclades expanded in Europe outside of the Balkans as the
result of “a single evolutionary event at the basis of the distribution of
haplogroups E-V13 and J-M12 within Europe, a finding never appreciated before.” Further, Cruciani, et al. (2007) wrote that
Our estimated coalescence age of about 4.5
ky for haplogroups E-V13 and J-M12 in Europe (and their C.I.s) would also
exclude a demographic expansion associated with the introduction of agriculture
from Anatolia and would place this event at the beginning of the Balkan Bronze
Age, a period that saw strong demographic changes as clearly testified from
archeological records.
These
expansion times were calculated by Cruciani (2007) to have occurred between
4.0-4.7 kya for E-V13 and 4.1-4.7 kya for J2-M12, with the upper limit of the
expansion time for E-V13 at 5.3 kya and for J2-M12 at 6.4 kya. Both expansion times therefore are centered
at approximately 4.3-4.35 kya, a period of time corresponding to the EBA in the
southern Balkans (Hoddinott, 1981).
Cruciani
et al.’s E-V13 and J2-M12 coalescence times bear a striking similarity to
carbon-14-based date calculations for certain archaeological sites in the
Maritsa river valley and its tributaries, near the city of Nova Zagora,
Bulgaria (Nilolova, 2002). These sites
are associated directly with the proto-Thracian culture of the southern Balkans
that came to dominate the region during the first millennium BCE.
Sites surveyed included Ezero, Yunatsite, Dubene-Sarovka and
Plovdiv-Nebet Tepe, all of which had deep associations with the developing EBA
proto-Thracian culture of the region. It
is evident that if Cruciani et al. (2007) are approximately correct in their
dating of the expansion of E-V13 from the Balkans, then Oppenheimer’s theory of
the role of E3b in Neolithic Britain is flawed fundamentally. E3b1a2 could not have arrived in Britain during the Neolithic era (6.5-5.5
kya) if it had not yet expanded from the southern Balkans.
Another
difficulty for the acceptance of Oppenheimer’s “Neolithic” arrival time for E3b
and J2 in Britain is the virtual absence of these
haplogroups in Ireland, according to two recent
large-scale population studies (McEvoy, 2006a; Moore, 2006). The data, compiled by the Smurfit Institute
of Genetics at Trinity College, University of Dublin, demonstrated that E3b
appeared in Ireland at an extremely low level of just eight examples out of a
total of 1921 haplotypes tested, or 0.42% (less than 1/2 of one percent) when
combined. Remarkably, no samples of Y-haplogroup J (any subclade) were found by either study. In a surname study, also from the Smurfit
Institute, McEvoy et al. (2006b) found a 5-6% E3b presence (n=3) within a very
small sample (N=47) among males in Ireland who had "Norse" surnames.
Two of the resulting three E3b samples, however, may have resulted from a
single founder (surname Arthur). McEvoy
(2006b) stated, "In the Arthur [surname] both samples . . . were identical
suggesting a single origin or introduction to Ireland." Therefore the apparently higher percentage of
E3b haplotypes found in this study may be due to a founder effect and to the
very small sample size. Capelli et al.
(2003) also had found the "Neolithic" haplogroups of E3b and J
entirely absent in Ireland, based on two sample locations, one taken from
"a site in central Ireland that
has had no known history of contact with Anglo-Saxon or Viking invaders,"
(Castlerea) and the other near Dublin (Rush).
If
E3b1a-M78 had in fact arrived during the Neolithic era by water routes from Iberia and the Mediterranean, there would not appear to be any
obvious reason for it to be distributed so unevenly between Britain and Ireland. Oppenheimer acknowledged this
problem indirectly in Chapter 5 of his book (“Invasion of the Farmers”) and
stated in so many words that he had no explanation for the avoidance of Ireland
in favor of Britain by E3b (and J2), a problem that apparently did not affect
other Neolithic haplogroups identified by Oppenheimer (2006, pp. 193-194, 206-207), namely I1b* and
I1b2, allegedly following the same route along the Iberian coast and from the
Mediterranean.
While a
Neolithic arrival date for E3b in Britain, as suggested by Oppenheimer, is
evidently rendered impossible by Cruciani et al. (2007), a Bronze Age arrival
date is not necessarily excluded. The
British Bronze Age lasted from approximately 2400 to 600 BCE and involved a succession of
closely related cultures arriving from the continent. Norman Davies (1999, pp. 21-25) has
identified several groups associated with the British Bronze Age. The first to arrive were the "Beaker
Folk," followed by the "Flanged-axe Warriors" and, three
centuries later, the "Urnfield People." The Beaker Folk (also referred to as the
"Beaker Culture") are believed to have come mainly from Northwest Europe (Cockburn, 1969, pp. 36-41), and
also may have been associated with the spread of the Celtic language (Cunliffe,
2004). An excavation of the so-called
"Amesbury Archer" grave, near Stonehenge, has provided an example of
a Beaker Culture high status burial, probably an elite ruler (as evidenced by
the valuable grave goods found with the skeleton), whose origins have been
traced to an area in the Alps using oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel
(Fitzpatrick, 2003). He is dated to
approximately 2,300 BCE, and may have spoken an early form of Celtic. The place of origin is significant because it
locates the "Archer's" birthplace in a region of Europe other than the Balkan peninsula at approximately the same time
that E-V13 only was beginning to expand from the Balkans to the rest of Europe.
Therefore, it is improbable that the "Archer" (and his
associated Beaker culture peers) originated from a region closely associated
with E3b1a2 during the EBA.
Bronze Age and Iron Age Celtic-style cultures have been
identified by both Oppenheimer and Sykes as being associated with the so-called
"Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype" (R1b1c). Alcock (1972, pp. 99-112) has examined the
model of a Celtic Irish-Sea culture-province in the pre-Roman Iron Age (“IA”),
in particular connections across the Irish Sea, including a dominant Irish
cultural component, as well as related settlement in Wales, Strathclyde,
Argyll, and southwestern Britain. The
problems encountered by the Neolithic theory of Oppenheimer, i.e., the virtual
absence of E3b and the complete absence of J in Ireland, also are inherent in any BA or
IA scenario. A BA or IA culture that
extended across the Irish Sea probably would not have caused a significant difference in the Y
genetic admixture of Britain and Ireland.
Barring any later discovery of significant levels of E3b or J in Ireland, it would appear that whatever
historic or prehistoric migratory movements were responsible for these
haplogroups' presence in Britain had little or no impact on the
male genetic component of Ireland.
Difficulties
with Neolithic, BA, and IA models for the migration of E3b and J2 to Britain raise a question: If these
haplogroups did not arrive during these eras, then when might they have
migrated? To assist in developing a meaningful hypothesis concerning possible
migratory routes for E3b1a2 from the Balkan peninsula to Britain, a comparison of the published
haplotypes from the three aforementioned population surveys was made, with the
goal of identifying any residual patterns of settlement among British E3b
haplotypes.
The three
data sets of Capelli, Weale, and Sykes used six to ten STR markers to determine the
haplotype of each sample; this necessarily limited the resolution of the
data. Both Weale and Capelli reported
the haplogroup results for each of their haplotypes, classifying E3b haplotypes
as "M35" (Capelli) or “Haplogroup 21,” using the older nomenclature
for the haplogroup defined by YAP/SRY4064 (Weale). Sykes reported a greater number of Y-STR values for each haplotype tested,
up to ten, but did not provide any individual haplogroup identifications in the
OGAP. In the case of the first two
studies, samples were selected for inclusion if the donor and the donor's
paternal grandfather had been born within 20 km (Weale) or 20 miles (32 km)
(Capelli) of the location being surveyed.
In the third study (Sykes) the geographic origin of the haplotype was
assigned according to the paternal grandfather's birthplace. In effect, the haplotypes gathered were a
sample of Britain's male population distribution
patterns largely before World War I.
A factor
preventing direct comparison (by percentage) of these three data sets was a
substantial difference in the format used for reporting the geographic origins
of individual haplotypes. Weale (2002)
and Capelli (2003) each specified geographic locations (towns or villages) in
their reports of haplotype frequencies; Sykes (2006), however, reported his
findings by combining locations into larger geographic regions that, in most
cases, joined several British counties into a single data set (such as "Central England," or "Borders"). A map of the approximate locations for all
"Eshu" haplotypes was provided in the Appendix of the book, but the
precise geographic location of individual haplotypes was not provided.
Even with
these limitations, however, it was possible to identify some trends in the
three data sets when combined. Using Whit Athey's Y-Haplogroup Predictor, version
5 (Athey, 2006), nearly all of the haplotypes in Sykes’s OGAP study could be
classified into their respective broader haplogroup categories, (such as
E3b-M35 or I1b1-P37.2), based on their reported allele values. The haplotypes estimated to be E3b were then
further analyzed and refined using histograms (Figure 1) developed in the present study, based on the allele
frequencies found in E3b1-M35 and three of its subclades, and a public Y-DNA database compiled by the
"E3b Y-DNA Project” from those haplotypes whose subclades have been confirmed as
M35+.
As a
third method of estimation (and to provide a check of the robustness of the
derived subclade assignments), a median-joining network was constructed in NETWORK
4.2.0.1,
using the allele data from the OGAP predicted as E3b by Athey's Y-Haplogroup
Predictor, as shown in Figure 2. The E3b (estimated) data from the OGAP is
presented in Table 1, along with the subclade assignments determined
using the methodology outlined above.
These assignments are also presented in Table 2, grouped
according to the OGAP's geographic regions and the overall percentages for each
E3b subclade.
Key to multiple taxa nodes:
Modal: A2960, 5371, 4018, A3040, A3097, A3174,
A2923, A2833
A3429, A2967,A3029,
A9065 (E-M78)
2745: 2745,
A2243, A2950, A1201 (E-M78)
738: 738,
A2090, A2109, A3093 (E-M78)
5251: 5251, A8115, A8135, A8584
(E-M78)
A2981: A2981, 503 (E-M78)
A2751: A2751, A2211 (E-M78)
A2547: A2547, A231 (E-M78)
(All
other nodes have one taxon each.
Geographic descriptions apply only to the adjacent taxon).
Figure 2. Median-Joining Network, OGAP Data, E3b
Table
1. OGAP E3b Data Grouped by Region and
Classified by Subclade
|
Figure 3. Frequency of E3b
Grouped by County
|
Figure 4. E3b Distribution by
Geographic Location
|
|
Figure 5. E3b Distribution
by Frequency and Location
|
Figure 6. E3b Distribution–
Kriging Method
|
Of
special interest is a void appearing in the geographic distribution of E3b,
found largely in the part of England designated by Sykes (2006, p.
xvi) as “Central
England.” This region, containing the populous cities
of Gloucester, Birmingham and Coventry, was reported to be devoid of any
E3b haplotypes. The "hole" in
the distribution of E3b also extends south from this region within an area
defined approximately by the narrowing of the Severn estuary (immediately southwest
of Gloucester) to the west, the Isle of
Wight to the south, and east to the Thames river, immediately west of Greater
London.
The major
E3b1a-M78 (Wales-to-Nottingham) cluster extended across lands
formerly occupied by the Ordovices, the Deceangi, the Cornovii, the Brigantes
and the Coritani tribes. It did not appear therefore to conform to the
tribal divisions extant in Britain prior to the Roman invasion of CE
43. The indicated E3b "hole"
also did not appear to conform to any of the better-known medieval political
divisions, such as the Danelaw, whose western border (along Watling Street) bisects the Central England E3b
void. Weale (2002) stated that the
historical and archaeological records “argue for some degree of Viking
settlement in both East Anglia and the Midlands in the ninth century A.D. but
against a substantial displacement of the existing people during this period.”
The same conclusion was applied by Weale to the Norman invasion of 1066. An important conclusion of the Weale study was
that a strong genetic barrier exists, however, between Central England and Wales:
The Central English-North Welsh barrier cannot be
explained purely as a simple isolation-by-distance phenomenon because it
contrasts strongly with the lack of evidence for a cline among the five widely
separated English towns. Our findings
are particularly striking, given the high resolution and rapid mutation rate of
the Y chromosome haplotypes on which they are based. These allow genetic barriers, if they exist,
to be clearly defined.
The best explanation for our findings is that the
Anglo-Saxon cultural transition in Central England coincided with a mass immigration
from the con-tinent. Such an event would simultaneously explain both the high
Central English-Frisian affinity and the low Central English-North Welsh
affinity.
The data reported by the OGAP concerning the
"Eshu" void, when combined with Capelli and Weale, provides some
additional evidence that appears to support Weale's hypothesis. The distinct clustering of E3b1a-M78 from Wales to Nottinghamshire may be an
indication of a mass displacement of one group (the Romano-British) in favor of
another (the Anglo-Saxons) within the Central England region.
An alternative interpretation of
the Weale and Capelli findings, hypothesized by Thomas et al. (2006), was that
the genetic admixture of Central England resulted from an elite dominance
("apartheid") social structure imposed by the invading Anglo-Saxons
on the existing Romano-British population.
Thomas concluded that "the genetic contribution of an immigrant
population can rise from less than 10% to more than 50% in as little as five
generations, and certainly less than 15 generations." Under this scenario,
the Y genetic component of the Romano-British population was replaced partially
(or entirely) over a few generations (from the middle of the fifth century CE
to the issuance of the laws of Alfred the Great in about 890) by Anglo-Saxon
elite males who outbred the Romano-British males, due to social and economic
advantages. In effect, either model
(Weale or Thomas) would lead quickly to the substantial replacement (or
displacement) of Romano-British males by Anglo-Saxon males in the affected area
(Central
England). If a majority of the E3b haplotypes found
among the "native" British at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migration
had arrived during the Romano-British period (CE 43-410) and were introduced
into the general population by soldiers (and their descendants) who remained in
the province upon their retirement, then these E3b haplotypes would have been
replaced within Central England's genetic admixture during the Anglo-Saxon
cultural transition.
Balkan
Ethnogenesis
The
hypothesis that members of the E3b1a2 haplogroup migrated to Britain from the Balkans with the Roman
military during the first through third centuries, CE, as members of auxiliary
military units or as members of the regular Roman legions, is supported by
genetic, archaeological and historical evidence.
In Saxons, Vikings and Celts, Sykes (2006,
p. 224) queried:
But who were the soldiers of the Roman army? Not all from Rome, that’s for sure. After the initial campaigns, when there would
have been a substantial Italian contingent in the legions, the occupation
itself was left in the hands of the auxiliaries. In Wales these troops, who would be
granted citizenship when they retired, were drawn largely from the valleys of
the Rhine and the Danube.
It is for Y-chromosomes from that part of Europe that we should keep an eye out as
a sign of the genetic influence of the Roman occupation.
Thracian
and Dacian soldiers originating from the geographic regions near the Danube, where E-V13 has been shown to
have its highest frequencies worldwide, were attested historically and epigraphically
in the same regions of Britain where E3b1a-M78 has appeared most
commonly in the three population surveys of Weale, Capelli and Sykes. Cruciani's finding that E-V13 was present in
85% of western European males who also were tested positive for E-M78 suggested
that E3b1a-M78 could be used as a proxy for E-V13 in most cases, with the
caveat that approximately 15% of E3b1a-M78 haplotypes would be from subclades
other than E3b1a2-V13. The geographic
distribution of E-V13 could therefore be assumed, to a first approximation, to
be very similar to that of E-M78.
With the
six main subclades of E-M78 separated into their component parts, according to
Cruciani (2007) it appeared that the frequency distribution of E-V13 was
centered in the region of Albania.
The distribution, based upon data of Cruciani (2007, Fig. 2D), is
presented in Figure 7.
Peričić et al. (2005) also examined the distribution of
haplogroups in the same region of southeastern Europe with some differences in
populations sampled.
Figure 7. E-V13 Frequency, Balkan Region, after
Cruciani et al. 2007, Fig. 2D.
The
E-M78α cluster of E3b1 was found to be identified closely with the
southern Balkans, in particular the regions of the former Yugoslav Republics of
Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia.
Frequencies of E3b1α were highest in Kosovo, Macedonia, and Greece, with variance peaking in Macedonia and Greece.
A higher frequency of E3b1α in the Vardar-Morava-Danube river
system (Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia) was noted when compared to the
neighboring Adriatic-Dinaric complex (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovinia). Because Cruciani did not include any
haplotypes from Kosovo, the resulting E-V13 frequency contour may not have
reflected the actual location of the region's peak frequency of E3b1α
accurately.[21]
Figure
8 shows the
distribution of E-V13 in the Balkans with the two data sets combined and
averaged, and with Kosovo treated as a distinct region from Serbia and Albania.
When the E3b1a-M78 data from the two studies (Figure 9) were combined,
averaged and compared with the combined and averaged E-V13 data, the resulting
(Kriging-based) contour maps were nearly identical. This phylogeographic coherence tended to
confirm that, for European populations, E3b1a-M78 could be treated as a close
proxy for E-V13. The inclusion of the
Kosovo data from Peričić (2005) was significant because it relocated the geographic center of
E3b1a2's frequency distribution from Albania (Figure 9) to a point
between Peć and Priština, approximately 170 km to the northeast, in the center of
the former Roman province of Moesia Superior (Upper Moesia); see Figure 10.
|
Figure 7. E-V13 Frequency, Balkan Region, after
Cruciani et al. 2007, Fig. 2D.
|
Figure 8. E-V13 Frequency Contour (Kriging Method),
Southern Balkans.
|
|
Figure 9. E-M78 Frequency Contour (Kriging Method),
Southern Balkans.
|
Figure 10. Boundary of Upper Moesia (after Mócsy,
1974) with E-V13 Frequency Gradient.
|
Moesia Superior was roughly rectangular in shape,
with the Danube River
forming a northern border between it and the ancient kingdom (and later, Roman
Province) of Dacia (Mócsy, 1974, Fig. 60). The Moesi, a tribe for whom the province of Moesia was named, were conquered by
Marcus Licinius Crassus in 29 BCE (Cary, 1917). The neighboring region of Dardania was subsequently conquered in
28 (Mócsy, 1974, p. 24). This
Thracian-speaking region included the cities of Scupi (Skopje) and the Roman colonia of Ulpianum (immediately south of the
modern city of Priština).
The Roman province of Moesia was created out of these combined
areas in CE 6 by Augustus. Domitian
reorganized the province in CE 86 into Moesia Superior and Moesia
Inferior (known also as Ripa Thracia). With regard to the tribal identity of the
natives of Upper
Moesia,
Mócsy (1974) has stated, based largely on archaeological evidence:
. . . a general conclusion may be permitted, that the
original inhabitants of Moesia Superior were in the main Thracian, but
had been exposed to Illyrian influence from the west, with the result that the
Dardanian area in particular emerges as the contact zone between the Illyrian
and Thracian languages. The inhabitants
of Scupi probably spoke Thracian, as a Roman soldier born there in the third
century considered himself a Bessus. In
late antiquity Bessus was the normal term applied to Thracian-speaking
inhabitants of the empire; the lingua Bessica was Thracian.
The
Dacian kingdom, immediately north of the Danube and Moesia Superior, was conquered
partially by Trajan in CE 106, with the region conquered becoming the Roman
province of Dacia Traiana. "Dacian" was a Roman ethnic label;
previously known to the Greeks as the Getae,
Wilcox (1982), Hoddinott (1981), and Webber (2001) have all identified the
Geto-Dacians as people of proto-Thracian descent and relationship. Because of later difficulties with the Goths,
Rome was forced to abandon Dacia Traiana and withdraw south of the Danube after CE 270, relocating many
Romanized Geto-Dacians in the process. The region (within Upper Moesia) that was settled by these
expatriate Dacians became known as Dacia
Aureliani. Upper Moesia was reorganized further by
Diocletian (after 284) into smaller provinces, being further divided into Dardania, Moesia Prima, Dacia Ripensis and Dacia Mediterranea. The administrative capital of Dacia
Mediterranea was Serdica (Sofia, Bulgaria) (Mócsy, 1974, p. 275), and
Dardania´s capital was Naissus (Niš, Serbia).
"Dacians" (as a Roman-identified ethnic group) therefore
presented special problems of identification, since the location of their
homeland shifted over time.
The
Russian linguist Georgiev (1960) stated that the modern Albanian people were
descended from Daco-Mysian ancestors, who had occupied ancient homelands in
western Dacia (north of the Danube) and Moesia Superior (south of the Danube).
This conclusion, based on linguistic evidence and analysis, was in good
agreement with the Y-DNA
genetic evidence published by
Perečić (2005) and Cruciani (2007) for the relevant regions of Southeastern Europe. Georgiev (1960) also stated that
the modern Albanian
language was most closely related to modern Romanian, and
that both were linguistic descendants of Daco-Mysian. According to Georgiev, "Romanian
represents a completely Romanised Daco-Mysian and Albanian a semi-Romanised
Daco-Mysian [language]." These archaeological, historical and linguistic
findings support the view that Thracians, Getae, Dacians, and Moesians (Mysians)
were derived from a common, earlier proto-Thracian culture.
Thracian soldiers in Roman
Britain
Epigraphic
evidence for the presence of individual Thracian soldiers, as well as for
Thracian military units of the Roman army, is found in several locations in Britain.
Jarrett (1969) traced the probable careers and locations of thirty-seven
separate Thracian units in the Roman military, ranging from the provinces of Syria to Britannia. He noted the difficulty of determining
exactly how many Thracian units were formed in total, because of the Roman
military’s unmethodical habit of naming many of the newly raised units the cohors I Thracum (First Thracian
Cohort), regardless of how many of these units with the same name had existed
previously. These Thracian cohorts initially were raised for service (probably)
in Germany; some later were assigned to
service in Britain.
The cohors I Thracum eq. (mounted
cohort of Thracian cavalry), is recorded on a tombstone in Cologne from the first century; this unit
had moved to Britain by 122 and was still there under
Severus (r. 193-211). The cohors II Thracum moved from Germany to Britain between the mid-first century and
CE 103, perhaps as a result of the Bouddican revolt. Only one seventh cohort is known, the cohors VII Thracum.
It was attested in Britain in 122 and 135 and in Brittania Inferior (corresponding to
northern England, with its capital at York) in the third century. Among the alae
(“wings” of cavalry), the ala I Thracum
was attested in Britain in 103 and 124; tombstones from Colchester (about CE
45) and Cirencester (CE 62) attest to the unit’s presence in Britain in the
mid-first century and an engraved trulla (washbasin
or ladle), possibly Flavian, places the unit in Isca Silurum (Caerleon, Gwent) in the late 1st century. The unit was moved to lower Germany (Germania inferior) by the mid-second century and
was still there in 219 (Jarrett, 1969, p 218).
Sources
for these attestations include bronze military diplomata (documents issued to retiring soldiers) and epigraphic
inscriptions, typically tombstones or dedications. The diplomata, which functioned as retirement papers, also granted
Roman citizenship to retiring soldiers after twenty-five years of service. An
example, found in 1812 near Malpas, Cheshire and now in the British Museum,
is typical. The diploma was issued to
Reburrus, son of Severus, the Spaniard.
It mentions Balkan units specifically, serving in Britain at the time of the diploma’s
issuance on 19 January 103.
The
inscription is translated (Collingwood, 1990) as follows:
The Emperor Caesar Nerva Traianus Augustus, conqueror of
Germany, conqueror of Dacia, son of the deified Nerva, pontifex maximus, in his
seventh year of tribunician power, four times acclaimed Imperator, five times
consul, father of his country, has granted to the cavalrymen and infantrymen
who are serving in four alae and eleven cohorts called: (1) {ala} I Thracum and (2) I
Pannoniorum Tampiana and (3) Gallorum Sebosiana and (4) Hispanorum Vettonum,
Roman citizens; and (I) {cohor} I Hispanorum and (2) I Vangionum, a thousand
strong, and (3) I Alpinorum and (4) I Morinorum and (5) I Cugernorum and (6) I
Baetasiorum and (7) I Tungrorum, a thousand strong, and (8) II Thracum and
(9) III Bracaraugustanorum and (10) III Lingonum and (11) IIII
Delmatarum, and are stationed in Britain under Lucius Neratius Marcellus,
who have served twenty-five or more years, whose names are written below,
citizenship for themselves, their children and descendants, and the right of
legal marriage with the wives they had when citizenship was granted to them,
or, if any were unmarried, with those they later marry, but only a single one
each. {Dated} 19 January, in the
consulships of Manius Laberius Maximus and Quintus Glitius Atilius Agricola,
both for the second time [CE 103]. To Reburrus, son of Severus, from Spain, decurion of ala I Pannoniorum
Tampiana, commanded by Gaius Valerius Celsus. Copied and checked from the
bronze tablet set up at Rome on the wall behind the temple of
the deified Augustus, near [the statue of] Minerva. [Witnessed by]: Quintus Pompeius Homerus;
Gaius Papius Eusebes; Titus Flavius Secundus; Publius Caulius Vitalis; Gaius
Vettienus Modestus; Publius Atinius Hedonicus; Tiberius Claudius Menander.
[N.B. Boldface mine, for emphasis—SCB]
Among the
units listed in this document, several can be identified with regions found to
be high in frequency for E3b1a2. The ala I Thracum (First Wing of Thracian
Cavalry) and the cohors II Thracum
(Second Thracian Infantry) would have had members from the regions containing
Thracian tribes, including the Roman provinces of Thracia and Moesia. The
Pannonian and Dalmatian units, ala I
Pannoniorum Tampiana, and the cohors
IIII Delmatarum (Fourth Dalmatian Infantry) may have had some E3b1a2
members from the Balkan peninsula also, although clearly Reburrus himself (for
whom this particular diploma was issued) or his father was “from Spain.”
Cheshire and Northern Wales
Frere et
al., have stated that “less than 20% of diploma recipients moved out of the
province in which they had served upon retirement.”
It is evident from the
wording of the Malpas diploma that many of the soldiers must have had wives and
children, who stood to gain rights as citizens upon the soldiers’
retirement. The fact that this bronze
plaque was found barely twenty miles (32 km) from the major fortress at Deva (now Chester, Cheshire), not far
from the Roman Road and very close to the minor Roman settlement of Bovium
(now Tilston, Cheshire) would tend to suggest that Reburrus settled in the
immediate vicinity following his retirement.
Presumably, soldiers from retiring Thracian, Dalmatian or Pannonian
units, all of which were likely to have had members whose haplotype was E3b1a2,
would have done the same.
Another
diploma, which was discovered in Middlewich, Cheshire in 1939, was dated to
approximately CE 105. It had been issued
to a member of the ala Gallorum et
Thracum Classiana civium Romanorum ("Classian [cavalry] wing of Gauls and
Thracians [who are] Roman Citizens") Because of the wording, which
differed somewhat from the standard diploma formula, the editors of the RIB
suggested that the diploma was issued to a serving soldier, rather than a
retiring one. The diploma provides only
a fragment of the soldier’s name, viz. “…us, son of Rammio from…” and it is
also unusual in naming his wife, “Amabilis, daughter of Firmus.” The identification of the Thracian members of
this particular cavalry unit as Roman citizens is significant (Collingwood,
1965, p. 174).
Aside
from the Malpas and Middlewich diplomas, a considerable amount of epigraphic
evidence has been identified linking Roman soldiers who were buried in Deva
specifically to the Roman provinces of Thracia and Moesia, including in some
cases place names of origin within these provinces for these soldiers
(Carrington, 2006). Four individuals
from the Legio II Adiutrix were
identified by Carrington (2006) from burial markers as having originated in Aprus (now Apri, in Turkish Thrace) and
were associated with the Roman fortress at Deva in the period from CE 71 to
circa 86. There is also evidence of
soldiers of Thracian origin who were members of the XX Legio VV (“Twentieth Legion Valeria Victrix”) settling in or
near the Roman fortress of Deva (now Chester, Cheshire), presumably upon
retirement (Carrington, 2006). A third
century grave marker depicts a soldier from the XX Legio VV and his spouse, identifying him as being “Bessus”
(of the tribe of the Bessi).
This stone is depicted in The Roman
Inscriptions of Britain ("RIB")entry
no. 523 (Collingwood, 1965, p. 174). The
find is significant because it provides direct epigraphic proof of a married
Thracian soldier who lived (and died) in Deva during the third century. The description from the RIB is as follows:
523. Tombstone, 25
X 46 in., broken across the stool and also above the inscription. Donatus reclines on a couch, and holds in his
left hand a scroll, probably his will, and in his right a cup. On the left his wife reclines behind
him. Found in 1887 in the North Wall
(east part). Now in the Grosvenor Museum.
Drawn by R. P. W., 1947.
[Inscription]: D(is) M(anibus) | C(a)ecilius Donatus B |
essus na | tione mili | tauit ann | os XXVI uix | it
annos XXXX.
To the spirits of the departed, Caecilius Donatus, a
Bessian tribesman, served 26 years and lived 40 years.
The Bessi were a Thracian tribe. Since Donatus given no
praenomen, tribe, or father’s names and uses the spelling Cecilius (for
Caecilius), and as a legionary was recruited from a tribal area and not from a
town, a third-century date seems certain.
Mócsy
(viz., quotation above) identified a third century tombstone in which a soldier
from Scupi (Skopje, Macedonia) called himself a
"Bessus." Another marker from Deva, naming "M.
Ulpius Ianuarius" from “Ulpia Traiana,” may possibly be that of a Dacian
soldier and is dated by Carrington to the period from 117 to 193. Some ambiguity necessarily must be present in
this case because of the existence of two Roman colonia with the same name, the first at the site of the ancient
Dacian capital of Sarmizegetusa, and the second on the Rhine river at the site of the modern
city of Xanten, Germany.
Considering the period of identification, which coincides with the
posting of the cohors Primae Dacorum (First
Dacian Cohort) to Birdoswald, on Hadrian’s Wall (a site also associated with the XX Legio VV, Chester’s main military unit), a Dacian
attribution is possible but not certain.
Carrington
(2006, p. 12) also addressed the evidence for the Chester canabae (civilian settlements), including marriages between Roman
soldiers and local women, the legal positions of the soldier, his wife and
their offspring with regard to Roman citizenship and inheritance, and the most
probable period of settlement:
The first half of the third century is the period when one
would expect family-formation at Chester to have been at its strongest,
given that the [XX] legion was fairly static in its home base, local
recruitment was supposedly increasing and the legal impediments to soldiers’
marriage seen to have been removed . . . .
Hadrian eventually allowed the illegitimate children of soldiers into
the ranks of intestate heirs. Soldiers
could legitimize their marriages on discharge, although any children born
during service remained illegitimate.
Nevertheless, if their mothers were Roman citizens, these children would
still be citizens.
Archaeological
evidence for Roman settlement in northern Wales is also compelling. A. H. A. Hogg (1965, p. 28) identified over a
hundred examples of homesteads of “distinctive character” preserved in
northwest Wales:
They are associated, also, with terraced fields which have
resisted destruction even more strongly than the homesteads themselves. Further, sufficient sites have been excavated
to justify the presumption that the majority, if not all, are of the Roman
period.
Hogg
(1965, p. 33) hypothesized that these homesteads associated with the terraced
fields were, in all likelihood, of early third century Roman origin and stated
that:
. . . some proportion of the enclosed homesteads represent
officially encouraged new settlement superimposed on relatively sparse
occupation which had persisted from before the Roman conquest, possibly
enfeebled by punitive measures.
He
estimated the Romano-British population of the region at 4000, plus another 500
soldiers stationed at Segontium (Caernarfon,
Gwynedd). In northeast Wales, the
settlement of Dinorben (1.8 miles
[2.9 km] southeast of Abergele, Clwyd), which was established by the Romans at
the site of an earlier, abandonded Iron Age fortress, was seen as significant by
Hogg. Dinorben appeared to have been a
villa-styled settlement, dated soon after the middle of the 3rd
century, with the main part of the work being done by a force of laborers
(Hogg, 1965, p. 31). The third century
date coincidence is striking, corresponding to the period of greatest family
growth in Deva, as identified by Carrington (2006). Dinorben was identified by J. L. Davies (1977,
p. 257) as “the only Welsh hillfort to produce items of undoubted Roman military equipment.”
Abergele
was discovered by Weale (2002) to have the highest percentage of E3b in Britain, at nearly 39% of a very small
sample of 18 haplotypes. Oppenheimer (2006, p. 232) seized upon this evidence
to advance a theory of a "Bronze age Spanish mining colony in north
Wales" at Abergele, based upon the discovery (in 1997) of a BA copper mine
at Pentwyrn (Great Ormes Head),
twelve miles (19 km) distant from Abergele.
The area around the Pentwyrn site was believed to have been occupied
during the upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age
periods. There is archaeological
evidence, however, to indicate that the individuals who worked the mine in the
pre-Roman eras actually may have lived nearby at the Lloches yr
Afr rock shelter,
within 200 meters of the mine site itself.
Southeastern Britain
In
addition to the tight clustering of E3b1a-M78 haplotypes in Wales and Northern
England (Chester to Nottingham), another significant cluster of E3b1a-M78
appears to follow the coastline of the North Sea and the English Channel from
Fakenham, Norfolk to Midhurst, Sussex (see Figure 6). It could be argued reasonably that the
substantial presence of E3b1a-M78 in a region contained entirely within the
early medieval kingdom of East Anglia (corresponding today to the
modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk) might provide evidence for the
introduction of this subclade by the incursion of the Anglo-Saxon population
itself from mainland Europe. The absence of
E3b1a-M78 in the "Central England" region, however (also controlled by the
Anglians) would appear to refute this proposition.
More
significant may be the close geographic proximity of some of these E3b1a-M78
haplotypes to the Roman fortresses and settlements known collectively as the
“Forts of the Saxon Shore,” especially in Norfolk.
The origins, purposes, and functions of the Saxon Shore forts remain a matter of intense
debate among archaeologists, but all competing theories acknowledge that the
shore forts were associated directly with the late Roman military in Britain.
In Rome’s Saxon Shore Fields (2006, p. 38)
stated that under Severus Alexander (r. 222-235) it was thought advisable to
withdraw troops from the northern frontier (i.e., Hadrian’s Wall) and place
them in new forts built at Branoduno
(Brancaster), Caister-on-Sea, and Regulbium
(Reculver). Epigraphic evidence of
the Saxon Shore is essentially nonexistent, with
Wilkes (1977, pp. 76-80) referring to the problem as an “argumentum ex
silentio.” Thracian and Dacian cohorts
stationed at Birdoswald on Hadrian’s Wall were well-attested epigraphically, however, from
205 to at least 276. This period overlaps with the reign of
Severus and the decision to relocate Roman troops from the Wall to the Shore
Forts.
Through
aerial photography, it has been determined that most of these forts had small,
non-military settlements (vici) adjacent
to them, with the most extensive being at Branodunum
(Brancaster) (Fields, 2006, p. 51).
From the third century onward soldiers were permitted to have their
families stationed with them (Fields, 2006, p. 48). Moreover, the presence of Roman soldiers,
originating from the Balkans, in the forts of the Saxon Shore, provides a robust explanation
for the presence of E3b1-M78 in East Anglia and Essex.
Branodunum
was the permanent base of the Equites
Dalmatae Branodunenses (Dalmatian Horsemen of Branodunum). Likewise, the cuneus equitum Dal-matarum Fortensium
(Formation of Brave Dalmatian Horsemen) were stationed at Bradwell, Essex (Othona) (Fields, 2006). The Roman province of Dalmatia corresponds geographically with
the southwestern part of modern Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, a region
found by Peričić (2005) and Marjanovic (2005) to have significant
levels of E3b1α present, ranging from 5.6% among mainland Croatians up to
19% among ethnic Serbs. Therefore it is
possible, even probable, that these units recruited from Dalmatia would have had substantial
numbers of members who were E3b1a2. See Figure
11.
Figure 11. "Saxon Shore" Fort Locations,
E3b Haplotype Locations (from
Figure 4)
and E3b (Kriging Method) Gradient.
There also
is substantial archaeological evidence for dense settlement by the
Romano-British in the region known today as Essex County.
An unequivocal Thracian identification for an individual from
first-century Essex can be made for the subject of
the very well-preserved Roman burial tombstone of Longinus Sdapeze of Serdica,
held presently in the Colchester Museum. The stone is Bath oolite and the workmanship is of
very high quality. Its outstanding
condition is attributable to its burial, face-down for nearly 1900 years, from
sometime after CE 45 until 1928. The find site was located in Colchester, “on the south side of a Roman
road running from north-west to south-east to cross the south-westward Roman
road from the Balkerne Gate. The site is
800 yds. south-west of the Gate, 80 yds. south of Lexden Road, and 30 yds. west of Beverly Road.” The inscription reads:
Longinus Sdapeze |
matygi f(ilius) duplicarius |
ala prima
Tracum pago |
Sardi(ca)
anno(rum) XL aeror(um) XV |
heredes exs
testam(ento) [f(aciendum)] c(urauerunt |
h(ic) s(itus) e(st)
The translation
in the RIB has some difficulties with the last name of Longinus, identifying it
(probably in error) as “Sdapezematygus,” but also acknowledging that Die Thrakische Sprachreste (Vienna, 1957) made
Sdape a name separate from Zematygus. A
more recent interpretation offers the division of the name as “Longinus
Sdapeze, son of Matygus,” a reading that follows the original inscription’s
division.
Following this,
the translation becomes:
Longinus
Sdapeze, son of Matygus, duplicaris from the First Cavalry Regiment of
Thracians, from the district of Sardica [Serdica], age 40, of 15 years’
service. His heirs under his will had
this set up. He lies here.
Notwithstanding
the apparent difficulties of the father’s and son’s names, there is a
considerable amount of information to be gleaned from this stone. Longinus was from the region (“pago”)
surrounding Serdica (now Sofia, Bulgaria). He was an officer (“duplicaris,” that is, one
who received double pay, presumably for some administrative duty), he had
served fifteen years and he died at about age 40. Although he had heirs, it is not clear from
the evidence if the heirs were his offspring or simply his comrades in
arms.
The figure
depicted on the stone is interesting, with obvious similarities to the Thracian
“Hero” religious icon described at length by R. F. Hoddinott (1981, pp.
179-185) in his landmark archaeological treatise, The Thracians. The RIB described the stone figure as follows:
The cavalryman . . . is in
scale-armour, with oval shield on left arm, and is riding to the right on a
richly caparisoned horse, beneath whose belly crouches a naked barbarian with
his left hand holding his shield under him.
In the right hand of the cavalryman there is a dowel-hole, presumably
once filled by a metal weapon [N.B., probably a lance; see the description for
the stone of Rufus Sita, below].
The
mounted Thracian “Hero” figure was a common theme for tombstones from Thracian
units, though not always associated exclusively with ethnic Thracian
soldiers.
Dark
(2002, pp. 97-100) has theorized that sub-Roman Essex may have survived intact
until the sixth century and that the civilian authority may have transitioned
smoothly from sub-Roman to Saxon authority without any evidence of struggle or
the displacement of the local Romano-British population. Drury and Rodwell (1980, p. 71) have provided
similar evidence for the survival of sub-Roman Essex well into the Anglo-Saxon
period. At Rivenhall, two large domestic
buildings and an aisled barn were modified during the 4th, 5th and 6th
centuries, "to suit the needs of the agriculturally-based estate . . .
there is good reason at least to ask whether Roman estates did not gradually
transmute into Domesday vills."
The
authors also stated (Drury, 1980, pp. 71-74):
With the exception of a small number of early Saxon
settlements founded in the coastal areas of Essex, of which Mucking is the best
known, it has become clear that there cannot have been any great influxes of
Germanic immigrants in the 5th and 6th centuries,
comparable to those of East Anglia or east Kent. This is not to say that folk of Germanic
origin were not present in the hinterland of Essex:
. . . . artifact finds suggest that they were, but in limited numbers,
living in controlled circumstances on ‘Roman’ settlements. How such controlled settlement was instituted
and maintained is perhaps beyond the reach of archaeology, but the clues to its
initial phases should doubtless be sought in the Saxon short fort at
Bradwell-on-Sea and the walled towns of Colchester and Great Chesterford… it
can hardly be coincidence that every 5th century Anglo-Saxon
site—settlement or cemetery—is directly associated with one of late Roman date
. . . .
This
position was echoed by Bassett (1989, p. 25), who stated:
Elsewhere there may have been a takeover (by new
immigrants or by a settled community nearby) of a former Romano-British town
and its immediate hinterland... A good example is provided by the small walled
Roman town at Great Chesterford on the north-western border of the county of Essex.
Its cemeteries appear to show a peaceful fusion of the town's latest
Roman population and a group of Germanic newcomers, many of them perhaps
mercenaries.
Peterson
(2004, Fig. 3, p. 66) has described evidence of several Roman cadastres or "centuriations"
in southeastern Britain.
A cadastre was a system of land administration often based on a square
survey grid. The known area of the
cadastre identified, primarily in Essex County, extended from the northern bank
of the Thames to the Essex-Cambridgeshire
border, west to east from the Colne river in Middlesex to an area east of
Wickford, Essex.
The Roman city of Caesaromagus (Chelmsford) was in the eastern part of this
grid, Saffron Walden and Bishop's Stortford are to the north, and Great
Wymondley is to the northwest.
The area
north of Saffron Walden and east of the Roman fort at Great Chesterford included
several villas and the largest group of Roman burial tumuli in western Europe,
located at Bartlow, just over the Cambridgeshire border from Essex (Bassett, 1982, pp. 2-12). These barrows originally numbered nine, and
are the largest group of such burial mounds west of the Alps.
Liversidge (1968, pp. 495-499) identified several Roman objects taken
from these burial tumuli and noted, among other objects, a coin of Hadrian (r.
CE 117-138) lying on top of the remains of one cremation that was placed in a glass
jug.
An
illustration from 1845 by Knight (1845, Fig. 21, No. 18) provided an interior
view of the largest of the tumuli, a sketch of the burial gallery of tumulus
no. 3, accessed from the exterior originally by a hallway-like passage. In The
Thracians, Hoddinott (1981, pp. 119-121, 124-126) described earthen burial
tumuli very similar in appearance to the Bartlow tumuli, complete with hallways
and burial galleries, throughout ancient Thracia. The Bartlow tumuli are also
similar in appearance to a line of Roman barrows found in Belgium lying along a section of the main
road from Cologne to Boulogne which was built for the invasion
of Britain, between Bavai and Tongres
(Liversidge, 1968, p. 498). Some of the
artifacts found in the Bartlow mounds were believed to have been imported from
the Rhineland.
The
tumuli (originally in County Essex) may have been associated with a
large villa about one mile (1.6 km) away, near Linton, Cambridgeshire
(Liversidge, 1968, p. 498). This Roman
corridor villa located on the south bank of the Greta river, in the extreme
northern end of Hadstock parish and on the Essex/Cambridgeshire border, was
first discovered in 1826. Coin finds
extend from Hadrian to Constantine III, suggesting that the villa was
occupied continuously from the late first century until at least the end of the
Romano-British period in 410 (SEAX Index).
Southwestern Britain
Charles
Thomas (1966, pp. 74-98) has commented on the difficulty of archaeological
research in Dumnonia (Cornwall and
Devon) and that due to the material poverty of the region, both in the
pre-Roman and Roman eras, few artifacts have been recovered. He identified the Roman fort of Durocornavis at the (modern) location
called "The Rump," fifteen miles (24 km) southwest from Tintagel,
near Polzeath, Cornwall; additional Roman settlements
were identified at Exeter, Seaton, Topsham and Plymouth.
The tombstone of
Rufus Sita, very similar to that of Longinus Sdapeze, is described in RIB
121. It was found in 1824 in Wotton,
about 0.75 miles (1.2 km) ENE of the north
gate of the Colonia Nervia Glevensium, and is now in the Gloucester City Museum. The inscription reads:
Rufus
Sita eques c(o)ho(rtis) VI
Tracum
ann(orum) XL stip(endiorum) XXII
heredes exs test(amento)
f(aciendum) curaue(runt)
h(ic) s(itus) e(st)
Translated:
Rufus Sita, trooper of the Sixth
Cohort of Thracians, aged 40, of 22 years’ service. His heirs had this erected according to the
terms of his will. He lies here.
The editors
of the RIB speculated that the last name Sita
may have derived from Sitas, a king
of “Thrace” in 29 BCE, who was of the Denethali
tribe. This identification is tenuous at
best, however. The stone features the
Thracian “Hero” theme, complete with a lance in the right hand of the figure,
who is striking down a prostrate enemy, carrying a short sword in his right
hand. The similarities to the tombstone
of Longinus Sdapeze of Colchester, and to the Thracian "Hero" iconography, are
obvious.
Durnovaria (Dorchester) was a major Roman settlement
featuring a high level of cultural sophistication. A Roman town house there was
excavated in 2000; evidence of continuous construction from the first to the
fourth centuries was evident. Coin finds indicated continuous occupation of the
site until at least the fifth century.
The location of Durnovaria corresponds geographically to the higher E3b
frequency, shown in Figures 5 and 6, at Dorchester.
Scotland
It may be
seen from Tables 1 and 2, and from Figures 3-6, that E3b1a-M78 is
present in Scotland, but at a less concentrated level
than found in England or Wales.
It is possibly significant that Capelli did not find any E3b present in Scotland; all data samples appearing north
of Hadrian's
Wall
were from the OGAP study
(See Figure 11). The sample sizes
for certain regions of Scotland, however, especially Argyll,
Tayside & Fife, Borders, and Highland are probably too small to allow
any generalizations for such a large geographic area. The appearance of one E3b haplotype, from a
sample of only nineteen haplotypes gathered in Argyll, is especially
problematic and is very similar to the difficulty with Abergele's small data
set.
Nevertheless,
the Romans were not absent from Scotland.
It is perhaps significant that all of the haplotypes located north of Hadrian's Wall were estimated to be
E3b1a-M78. Curle (1911, pp. 341-342) has
identified and discussed Roman artifacts associated with the Roman fort in
Newstead. Coin finds totaling 260 from
that site indicated occupation from approximately the reign of Vespasian to
that of Commodus, or from around CE 80 to 180.
The latest date to which occupation of Newstead could be assigned was CE
210 (Dark, 2002, pp. 209-11).
Dark
(2002, pp. 202-207) has identified a Romano-British style settlement associated
with the kingdom of Strathclyde, very near the location of the western Scottish
haplotypes, appearing in Fig. 4. Some
evidence of Roman-style settlement also exists in the regions surrounding
modern Edinburgh. There simply is
not yet enough data concerning E3b's presence in Scotland to permit any definite
conclusions to be drawn, other than to say generally that E3b appears to be
rarer north of Hadrian's Wall than south.
Summary
The
coalescence age (TMRCA) of E-V13, as calculated by Cruciani, et al. (2007), has
placed the expansion of this haplogroup from the Balkan peninsula into the remainder of Europe no earlier than 5.3 kya. If correct, E3b1a2 could not have been
involved in the Neolithic settlement of Britain.
Another difficulty with the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age scenarios
for E3b (and J) is the almost complete absence of those haplogroups from Ireland, suggesting that they arrived as
part of a migration that did not itself have any significant impact on Ireland's Y-DNA admixture. One such large-scale migration is known from
history; the Roman occupation, which never reached Ireland in the form of permanent
settlements.
The E-M78
cluster E3b1α (phylogenetically equivalent to E-V13) was found by Peričić
(2005) to be at its highest frequency worldwide in the geographic region
corresponding to the Roman province of Moesia
Superior, a region that encompasses Kosovo, southern Serbia, northern
Macedonia and extreme northwestern Bulgaria today. The Roman invasion of CE 43, and the
subsequent occupation and settlement of Britain for nearly four centuries by
the Roman military, brought thousands of soldiers from the Balkan peninsula to
Britain as part of auxiliary units and, at least in some cases, as regular
legionnaires. By no later than the
mid-third century, retired Thracian soldiers and their families were living in
Deva (Chester); archaeological evidence indicates also that the
Northern Wales/Cheshire region was heavily settled by the Romano-British during
the same period (third century), a region containing the highest frequency of
E3b1a-M78 haplotypes found in Britain today.
With
E-M78 treated as a close approximation (85%) for the presence of E-V13, the
geographic association between the locations of E3b1a-M78 haplotypes and the
"Saxon Shore Forts" in southeastern Britain (especially in Norfolk)
may be significant, suggesting a possible link between the vicus populations of these forts and the current distribution of
these haplotypes. Similarly, the dense
settlement and long survival of sub-Roman Essex may be linked to the present
distribution of E3b1-M78 in southeastern Britain. Additional genetic surveys of
this important region of Roman Britain, an area not sampled by Capelli et al.
in the 2003 study, may help to clarify the
situation.
The lower
density of E3b haplotypes north of Hadrian's Wall may be explained by the more
limited Roman presence in that region, encompassing a period of approximately
100 years, rather than the 400+ years of Romano-British and sub-Roman society
south of the Wall. There is some indication of substantial Roman- and
sub-Roman-style settlement in Strathclyde and near Edinburgh.
Limitations in the size of the data sets for large portions of Scotland (both Capelli and Sykes) prevent
any firm conclusions from being made at this time. A more thorough survey of Scotland (especially those regions
underserved by the two existing large-scale studies) may help to clarify the
extent to which E3b is present in Scotland.
There
appears to be less doubt, after three published genetic surveys (Weale, 2002;
Capelli, 2003; Sykes, 2006), that the "Central England" E3b void is not an
accidental artifact of population sampling bias, but rather reflects a genuine
population replacement. The "E3b
hole" suggests that either (a) a massive displacement of the native
Romano-British population by invasion or, (b) the substantial genetic
replacement of Romano-British Y-DNA through an elite dominance
("apartheid") model (Thomas, 2006), has occurred in Central
England. Regardless of the mechanism,
the Central
England
region of Britain, with its lack of E3b haplotypes,
is the area having the most "striking similarity in the distribution of
Y-chromosomes" with Friesland (Thomas, 2006). North Wales, where E3b1-M78 is found at its
highest frequency, is identified specifically by the same study as having the
highest genetic dissimilarity with "Central England” (Thomas, 2006). For these reasons, it is hypothesized that
the early Anglo-Saxon ruling elite in this region may have been responsible for
the replacement of the Romano-British male genetic admixture in central England
by a process or processes that led to the almost complete removal of E3b (any
subclade) from this geographic region.
Some
relevant questions that must await better and more complete genetic sampling of
E3b1a2 haplotypes in Britain and western Europe include: (a) whether E-M78
(putatively E-V13) haplotypes from the Northern Wales/Cheshire geographic
cluster and from the southeastern England cluster are in fact from the same
population, originating in the Balkan peninsula, or whether their arrival times
and migration routes are substantially different; (b) what role (if any) J2-M12
has had in the Roman occupation and settlement of Britain; and, (c) could any
E3b haplotypes located in the Rhine river region also have been the result of
settlement and military occupation of Germania
Inferior by soldiers of Balkan origin?
It is
hoped that a large-scale genetic survey of all of Britain may be undertaken in the near
future, perhaps following the excellent model of the Smurfit Institute's
studies of Ireland, especially in their use of more
extended haplotypes. The availability
and use of the newly identified "V series" SNP tests (based on the
UEPs identified by Cruciani et al., 2007) also may help to clarify greatly the
role that E3b1a2 has played in the formation of the modern British people.
Acknowledgement
I wish to
thank Mr. Larry Jones, Esq., for his very helpful insights and commentary while
this manuscript was in preparation. Any
content, opinions or conclusions expressed, when not attributed directly to the
relevant source, are my own.
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