From the latest genetic research into the origins of Macedonians and Greeks

WILL GENETICS FINALLY RESOLVE THE GREEK-MACEDONIAN DISPUTE?

The researchers reached the following conclusions:

· Macedonians belong to the "older" Mediterranean substratum, like Iberians (including Basques), North Africans, Italians, French, Cretans, Jews, Lebanese, Turks (Anatolians), Armenians and Iranians.

· Macedonians are not related with geographically close Greeks, who do not belong to the "older" Mediterranean substratum.

· Greeks are found to have a substantial relatedness to sub-Saharan (Ethiopian) people, which separate them from other Mediterranean groups.

It seams that Genetics, besides history itself, will be able to shed more precise light on the origins of the different peoples that have and still inhabit the Mediterranean basin. Researchers from the Department of Immunology and Molecular Biology, H. 12 de Octubre, at the “Universidad Complutense”, from Madrid, Spain, and Tissue Typing Laboratory Institute of Blood Transfusion, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, conducted the first genetic research on Macedonians and compared them to other Mediterranean populations. Ten researchers (Arnaiz-Villena A, Dimitroski K, Pacho A, Moscoso J, Gomez-Casado E, Silvera-Redondo C, Varela P, Blagoevska M, Zdravkovska V, and Martinez-Laso J.) were involved in the research, whose aim was “to determine the relative contributions of Macedonians and Greeks to the present-day genetic pool of Mediterranean peoples”, and for that “purpose, both HLA (Human Leucocyte Antigens) class I and class II DNA typing have been studied in Macedonians for the first time”.

The study “HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks” is presented in the Danish medical journal “Tissue Antigens”, February 2001, volume 57, issue 2, pages 118-127. Everyone that visits the website www.blackwellmunksgaard.com/tissueantigens (the link can also be found through www.historyofmacedonia.org) can read the following Abstract:

“HLA alleles have been determined in individuals from the Republic of Macedonia by DNA typing and sequencing. HLA-A, -B, -DR, -DQ allele frequencies and extended haplotypes have been for the first time determined and the results compared to those of other Mediterraneans, particularly with their neighbouring Greeks. Genetic distances, neighbor-joining dendrograms and correspondence analysis have been performed. The following conclusions have been reached: 1) Macedonians belong to the "older" Mediterranean substratum, like Iberians (including Basques), North Africans, Italians, French, Cretans, Jews, Lebanese, Turks (Anatolians), Armenians and Iranians; 2) Macedonians are not related with geographically close Greeks, who do not belong to the "older" Mediterranean substratum; 3) Greeks are found to have a substantial relatedness to sub-Saharan (Ethiopian) people, which separate them from other Mediterranean groups. Both Greeks and Ethiopians share quasi-specific DRB1 alleles, such as *0305, *0307, *0411, *0413, *0416, *0417, *0420, *1110, *1112, *1304 and *1310. Genetic distances are closer between Greeks and Ethiopian/sub-Saharan groups than to any other Mediterranean group and finally Greeks cluster with Ethiopians/sub-Saharans in both neighbour joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses. The time period when these relationships might have occurred was ancient but uncertain and might be related to the displacement of Egyptian-Ethiopian people living in pharaonic Egypt.”

The study used the following samples for their calculations: 172 unrelated ethnic Macedonians from Skopje; 98 Moroccans; 98 Berbers; 94 Moroccan Jews; 176 Spaniards; 80 Basques; 228 Portuguese; 179 French; 102 Algerians; 91 Sardinians; 284 Italians; 80 Ashkenazi Jews; 80 non-Ashkenazi Jews; 135 Cretans; 85 Greeks from the Aegean; 95 Greeks from Attica; 101 Greeks from Cyprus; 59 Lebanese from Niha el Shouff; 93 Lebanese from Kafar Zubian; 100 Iranians; 228 Turks; 105 Armenians; 101 Egyptians from Siwa; 83 Oromo; 98 Amhara; 38 Fulani; 39 Rimaibe; 42 Mossi; 77 San (Bushmen); 192 Senegalese; and 86 South African Blacks.

The results of the study make a number of interesting conclusions. First of all, it shows that the “Macedonians are related to other Mediterraneans and do not show a close relationship with Greeks”; however the Macedonians have a close relationship to the Cretans. “This”, the researchers conclude, “supports the theory that the Macedonians are one of the most ancient peoples existing in the Balkans, probably long before (the) arrival of the Mycaenian Greeks about 2000 B.C.”

The researchers were surprised to find out that “the reason why the Greeks did not show a close relatedness with all the other Mediterraneans analyzed”, was because the Greeks had a “genetic relationship with the sub-Saharan ethnic groups now residing in Ethiopia, Sudan and West Africa (Burkina-Fasso)”.

Dragi Stojkovski

Macedonian Herald, November-December, 2001, Toronto