Палеогеномни наблюдения върху населението в различните части на Средновековна България и връзката му със съвременните балкански популации
Paleogenomic Observations on the Population in Different Parts of Medieval Bulgaria and Its Connection With Modern Balkan Populations

Summary/Abstract: The results of the present ancient DNA research demonstrate that the transformation of the Balkan populations during the period under study represents a process of gradual integration and transformation rather than a single population replacement. Such conclusions were reached sixty years ago by V. Tupkova-Zaimova, based solely on the data from written sources. Particularly revealing is the proximity between the specimens from Ryakhovo and Bitola (9th – 10th centuries), which demonstrate an almost identical pattern of mixing with Proto-Slavic (47 – 49%), Balkan-Roman (36 – 42%) and Kazakh-Sarmatian components (11 – 14,6%). This proximity between two geographically distant necropolises from the central parts of the First Bulgarian Kingdom suggests the presence of a relatively homogeneous population within the state as early as the early 10th century, when the specimens date from. The intensity of mixing varies from region to region, with a gradient of slight reduction of the steppe component from north to south and east to west, but everywhere the process leads to the formation of a new, stable population structure, universally represented in the necropolises of the Central and Eastern Balkans. This structure, once finally formed in the 10th century, was remarkably durable over the next 1000 years and has remained unchanged to the present day (we can see it in Fig. 2, where the medieval specimens fall in the middle of the modern Bulgarian individuals). The process of population transformation that led to the existence of the modern Bulgarian population has deep roots in the Roman era and continued throughout the period of the Great Migration of Peoples, creating a genetic basis whose main characteristics are also found in other modern Balkan populations like the one in North Macedonia.

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