Three theories account for the ethnogenesis of the Romanian people. One, known as the Daco-Roman continuity theory, posits that they are descendants of Romans and Romanized indigenous peoples (
Dacians) living in the
Roman Province of
Dacia, while the other posits that the Romanians are descendants of Romans and Romanized indigenous populations of the former Roman provinces of
Illyricum,
Moesia,
Thracia, and
Macedonia, and the ancestors of Romanians later migrated from these Roman provinces south of the
Danube into the area which they inhabit today. The third theory also known as the admigration theory, proposed by
Dimitrie Onciul (1856â1923), posits that the formation of the Romanian people occurred in the former "Dacia Traiana" province, and in the central regions of the Balkan Peninsula.
[160][161][162] However, the Balkan Vlachs' northward migration ensured that these centers remained in close contact for centuries.
[160][163] This theory is a compromise between the immigrationist and the continuity theories.
[160]
According to a triple analysis â
autosomal,
mitochondrial and
paternal â of available data from large-scale studies, the whole genome
SNP data situates Romanians are most closely related to
Bulgarians,
Macedonians, followed by other European populations, which form a coherent cluster among worldwide populations.
[164]Most
West Slavs-
East Slavs,
Hungarians, and
Austrians were found to share as many identical by-descent DNA segments with
South Slavs as with Romanians,
Torbeshi and
Gagauzes.
[165] According to 2023 archaeogenetic study autosomal qpAdm modelling, the modern-day Romanians are 55.4% of Central-Eastern European early medieval (mostly Slavic) ancestry, 24.6% of Bulgaria-Early Iron Age like ancestry, 11.4% West Anatolia ancestry and 8.6% Croatia-Serbia Roman-Anatolian like ancestry.
[166]
The prevailing Y-chromosome in
Wallachia(
PloieÈti,
Dolj),
Moldavia (
Piatra NeamÈ,
BuhuÈi),
Dobruja (
ConstanÈa), and northern Republic of Moldova is recorded to be
Haplogroup I.
[167][168] Subclades
I1and
I2 can be found in most present-day European populations, with peaks in some
Northern European and
Southeastern European countries. Haplogroup I occurs at 32% in Romanians.
[169] The frequency of I2a1 (I-P37) in the Balkans today is owed to indigenous European tribes, and was present before the
Slavic migrations to Southeastern Europe.
[165] A similar result was cited in a study investigating the genetic pool of people from Republic of Moldova, concluded about the representative samples taken for comparison from Romanians from the towns of Piatra-NeamÈ and BuhuÈi that "the most common Y haplogroup in this population was I-M423 (40.7%). This is the highest frequency of the I-M423 haplogroup reported so far outside of the northwest Balkans. The next most frequent among Romanian males was haplogroup R-M17* (16.7%), followed by R-M405 (7.4%), E-v13 and R-M412* (both 5.6%)."
[170] The I-M423 haplogroup is a subclade of I2a, a haplogroup prosperous in the
Starcevo culture and its possible offshoot
CucuteniâTrypillia culture (4800-3000 BCE). The high concentration of I2a1b-L621, the main subclade, is attributed to Bronze Age and Early Iron Age migrations (Dacians, Thracians, Illyrians) and the medieval Slavic migrations.
[171]
Procrustes-transformed PCA plot of genetic variation of European populations. (
A) Geographic coordinates of 37 populations. (
B) Procrustes-transformed PCA plot of genetic variation. The Procrustes analysis is based on the unprojected latitude-longitude coordinates and PC1-PC2 coordinates of 1378 individuals.
[172]
According to a Y-chromosome analysis of 335 sampled Romanians, 15% of them belong to R1a.
[173] Haplogroup R1a, is a
human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroupwhich is distributed in a large region in
Eurasia, extending from
Scandinavia and
Central Europe to southern
Siberia and
South Asia.
[174][175] Haplogroup R1a among Romanians is entirely from the Eastern European variety Z282 and may be a result of Baltic, Thracian or Slavic descent. 12% of the Romanians belong to
Haplogroup R1b, the Alpino-Italic branch of R1b is at 2% a lower frequency recorded than other Balkan peoples.
[176]The eastern branches of R1b represent 7%, they prevail in parts of
Eastern and Central Europe as a result of Ancient
Greek colonisation â in parts of Sicily as well.
[176][177] Other studies analyzing the haplogroup frequency among Romanians came to similar results.
[168]
Delving into the regional differences of
Mitochondrial DNA of Romanians, a 2014 study emphasised the different position of North and South Romanian populations (ie inside and outside of the Carpathian range) in terms of mitochondrial haplotype variability. The population within the Carpathian range was found to have
haplogroup H at 59.7% frequency, U at 11.3%, K and HV at 3.23% each, and M, X and A at 1.61% each. The South Romanian population also showed the highest frequency in
haplogroup H at 47% (lower than in the sample from the North of Romania),
haplogroup U showed a noticeable frequency at 17% (higher than in the sample from North Romania), haplogroups HV and K at 10.61% and 7.58%, respectively, while haplogroups M, X and A were absent. Comparing the results to European and international samples, the study proposes a weak differentiated distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups between inner and outer Carpathian population (rather than North-South boundary) based on higher frequency for the
haplogroup J and
haplogroup K2a in the Southern Romanian sample - considered as markers of the Neolithic expansion in Europe from the Near East, the absence of K2a and the presence of
haplogroup M in Northern Romanian sample - with higher frequency in Western and Southern Asia, and the inclusion of both Romanian populations within the range of the European mitochondrial variability, rather than being closer to the Near Eastern populations. The North Romanian sample was also found to be slightly separated from the other samples included in the study.
[178]
A 2017 paper concentrated on the
Mitochondrial DNA of Romanians, showed how Romania has been "a major crossroads between Asia and Europe" and thus "experienced continuous migration and invasion episodes"; while stating that previous studies show Romanians "exhibit genetic similarity with other Europeans". The paper also mentions how "signals of Asian maternal lineages were observed in all Romanian historical provinces, indicating gene flow along the migration routes through
East Asia and Europe, during different time periods, namely, the Upper Paleolithic period and/or, with a likely greater preponderance, the Middle Ages", at low frequency (2.24%). The study analysed 714 samples, representative to the 41 counties of Romania, and grouped them in 4 categories corresponding to historical Romanian provinces:
Wallachia,
Moldavia,
Transylvania, and
Dobruja. The majority was classified within 9 Eurasian mitochondrial haplogroups (H, U, K, T, J, HV, V, W, and X), while also finding sequences that belonged to the most frequent Asian haplogroups (haplogroups A, C, D, I - at 2.24% overall frequency, and M and N) and African haplogroup L (two samples in Wallachia and one in Dobruja). The H, V, and X haplogroups were detected at higher frequencies in Transylvania, while the frequency of U and N was lower, with M being absent, interpreted as an indicator of genetic proximity of Transylvania to Central European populations, in contrast to the other three provinces, which showed resemblance to Balkan populations. The Dobrujan samples showed a larger contribution of genes from Southwestern Asia which the authors attributed to a larger Asian influence historically and/or its smaller sample size compared to that of the other populations included.
[179]
Procrustes-transformed PCA plot of genetic variation of European populations. (A) Geographic coordinates of 37 populations. (B) Procrustes-transformed PCA plot of genetic variation. The Procrustes analysis is based on the unprojected latitude-longitude coordinates and PC1-PC2 coordinates of 1378 individuals.[172]
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