Genetically the I2a2(I2a1) is most prevalent among peoples in the Western Balkans (most notably Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and parts of Bosnia). It is accepted as the oldest "native" gene in the region.



But which "people" do those genetics correspond to the most since there are mostly Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks? Genetic studies among BiH peoples found that the marker is most prevalent among BiH Croats at a whopping 71%; then Bosniaks at 44%, and finally BiH Serbs at only 30%.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16266413

This means that the genetic marker is overwhelmingly present with BiH Croat/Catholics (as well as their Croat/Catholic brethren in Dalmatia). The rest of the genetic markers are thought to have been relatively recent imports to Bosnia no more than just a few centuries ago. These other markers we find more frequent in Bosniaks and especially Serbs.

This makes sense since it's well documented that medieval Bosnia was nominally a Catholic kingdom and the historic travelers and cartographers through Bosnia often considered the Catholics in Bosnia as "the old Bosnians" meaning the original Bosnians.

http://www.farsarotul.org/nl16_1.htm (read the 4th paragraph)

Now compare the first map of the I2a haplogroup with a map of Croatian migrations throughout Europe and the eventual settlement in the Western Balkans. Anything look familiar?



Kind makes you think doesn't it?

This is an old topic on this forum. We discussed it many times. There are some members who are pure experts in this matter.

On the English sub forum?

No, somewhere in Povijest.

Regarding the two images that you attached, I agree there's some similarity and geographical correspondence.

I guess your idea is that you can track that genetic marker all the way back to the Sea of Azov, where it is speculated (really not confirmed) that some kind of proto-Croatian tribe might have dwelt; one of many theories, all based on very thin evidence.

I'm not very convinced by any particular of these theories but one of them should be about right. Very little archaeological evidence on different Slavic tribes before the Migration Period (Velika Seoba Naroda) exists in general. Slavs were illiterate, so only secondary sources of other ppl describing them exist. That's precisely why the Slavic mythology is very obscure.

Harauvatya sounds much like the Russian name for Croatia: Horvatiya

Mittani-ans are not hungarian connected people.
They are more akin to the (northern) indians.
At least upper classes.
And lower (Hurrian) are proble akin to the (northern) Caucasians (like Chechens, but it's a long shot).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni
Croatian (and also serbian) upper clases, which made "core" of ancient people, are probably of sarmatian (iranian) descent, or at least of slavs which lived in sarmatian dominated area (or at it's edges) where they got their names.
It is important to notice that in balkans most of the newcommers asimilated aborings, in contrast to Spain (and Portugal), Italy and France, where the newcommers were assimilated.

I was talking about I2a haplogroup in particular and how it seems to be so frequent among Adriatic and Bosnian Croats. The origins of the haplogroup is thought to be native to south eastern Europe with its true origins north of Romania into Ukraine. I'm not claiming one thing or the other but I find a very interesting and hard to ignore correlation with the being thought to have originated in the territory between old White Croatia and old Red Croatia (in Ukraine) and then having frequency among descendants in both Adriatic Croatia and area round the old Croatian homeland beyond the Carpathians.

I think that's the working theory of John V.A. Fine who even claims the elite Croats and Serbs were still Iranian/Sarmatian upon their arrival to the Balkans.

However, genetics suggests a link between Slavic Croats in the Balkans and Slavic peoples in the Ukraine (part of which were descended from White and Red Croats in that territory many centuries ago).

I agree the the "original" Croats were probably of Sarmatian stock and largely nomadic with a partially warrior culture. But they were largely assimilated by the much numerous Slavs in Eastern Europe before ever arriving to the Adriatic and Slavs have penetrated deep into Byzantine held south eastern Europe even into Greece. This suggest large actually Slavic waves washing into SE Europe rather than a few elites that assimilated locals (although there was local assimilation but it was more sparse due to depopulation by foreign invaders such as Avars)

This picture shows that in B&H and Croatia live the same people.

To be fair, it suggests a correlation between the peoples of B&H and Croatia having a common link but not all of the people.

The Y-chromosome research only yields some data, not all of it. We cannot possibly determine all ancestry from limited genetic evidence but we can prove some. Also, the I2a marker is further broken down among Bosnia's constituent nations (Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats). The research I linked shows that BH Croats specifically carry the marker at a much higher frequency than Bosniaks and BH Serbs. About 71% of BH Croats or almost 3/4 carry the same marker as Croats in Croatia (especially in Dalmatia aka the center of medieval Croatia). Bosniaks are in second place with about 44% and BH Serbs trail last with only 30%. This data suggest several things and I referenced these things in my earlier posts.

It's evidence against some romantic-chauvinistic nationalist Croatian claims over Bosniaks and being "Islamicized Croats." Croatian nationalism of the Dr. Ante Starcevic flavor considers all or most Bosniaks as really "Croats." This is not true. If anything, the majority of Bosniaks (at least a little more than 50%) are probably descended from medieval Serbs (or at least peoples to the south and east of Bosnia) and not medieval Croats. The Serbs might actually be right when they claim most of the Bosniaks as "Serbs" but not necessarily in the way they imagine. In the Ottoman Empire there were large scale migrations and significant depopulation and depopulation of certain areas ( not least of which being areas in Bosnia, Serbia-Kosovo, and Croatia).

Most of the medieval Bosnian Catholic Croats fled Bosnia for Catholic Croatia when the Ottomans took over save for some communities huddled around Franciscan run villages. This is evident among their descendants which mostly live in Croatia today. The highest concentration of the "Bosnjak" surname is in Croatia by far and is frequent among Catholics (not Orthodox or Muslim).




"Bosnjak" in the surname context simply means which area one originates from and not ethnicity. Bosnjak then means "Bosnian."

Bosnia's original medieval population was largely depopulated with the Ottomans since most of Bosnia's medieval population was nominally Catholic or belonged to the Bosnian church (krstjani - who themselves were a rogue sect of Catholicism and were mainly upper class nobility i.e. Hrvatinic, Sandjelic, etc. ). Very few were Orthodox along the banks of the Drina river bordering medieval Serbia. Most of the Catholics fled while a large portion of the Krstjani converted to Islam to hold their lands and titles. Bosnia was repopulated gradually with Muslims and Muslim converts from lands outside of Bosnia, especially Serbia as well as by people who belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church. Some of the new settlers were converted Croats from Slavonia when the Habsburgs conquered the area from the Ottomans. The converted Croats from Slavonia resettled in Ottoman Bosnia mostly in the north region (Posavina) and the north west region (the Bihac pocket) in Bosanska Krajina or Turkish Croatia.

So yes, if we're going to be honest. A lot of Bosniaks can trace their roots to Serbia and this is evident in the fact that the Sandzak region still exists with a large Muslim population and Sandzak was the heart of the medieval Serb state Raska. Even Alija Izetbegovic's own roots are from Serbia as his grandparents migrated from the Belgrade pashaluk to Bosanski Samac. When Serbia became independent of the Ottoman Empire it tried to erase all traces of Islam in Serbia and succeeded for the most part except in heavily Muslim populated areas of Sandzak. Even the most notable Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire was Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic who was a converted Serb.

Medieval Bosnia largely died with the Ottoman Empire and its remnants only remain mostly among the Croat-Catholic population, most of which, don't even live in Bosnia anymore and don't identify with Bosnia.