page_title: Genetic studies on Bulgarians
section_title: Ancient DNA
hierarchical_section_title: Genetic studies on Bulgarians / Ancient DNA
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Ancient North Eurasian, West European Hunter Gatherer and Early Neolithic Farmer admixture in Europe. Legend: ENF: Early Neolithic Farmer ANE: Ancient North Eurasian WHG: Western Hunter Gatherers SEA: South Eurasian/Central Asian component EEA:Еast Eurasian component OCE: Oceanian component SSA: Sub-Saharan African Components lower then 1% were not taken into consideration
context_page_description: The Bulgarians are part of the Slavic ethnolinguistic group as a result of migrations of Slavic tribes to the region since the 6th century AD and the subsequent linguistic assimilation of other populations.
  Hellenthal et al, 2014 estimated from data of 94 modern populations a couple of analyses on Bulgarians inferred from an admixture event in 1000-1600 YBP between a Slavic and a Cypriot donor group: to a Polish donor group Bulgarians are of an estimated 59% Polish-like and 41% Cypriot-like admixture; to a Belarusian, Bulgarians are of 46% Belorussian-like and 54% Cypriot-like admixture. Early gene flows between southeastern and eastern Europe make it difficult to obtain a correct estimate, although young enough identical by descent segments confirmed such connection and that the East and West Slavs share more identical by descent segments with South Slavs than with Greeks, inter-Slavic populations, but less with Balts, while the South Slavs share similar number with East and West Slavs, but fewer with Greeks.
context_section_description: Despite the most common haplogroup among Bulgarians is 14000 years old I2a1b at 20%, 8000 years old hunter-gatherer samples of the same haplogroup came out genetically very distant from Bulgarian and Balkan individuals by an autosomal analysis of skeletal remains from Loschbour cave in Luxembourg.
  Three out of four samples from Bulgarian Neolithic(6,500-5000 ybp) from Smyadovo came out mtDNA haplogroup H and the other one is T2e, while another 5,500-4,000 old sample from Durankulak is U52a2. Several mtDNA Bulgarian samples considered part of the Yamna culture came out haplogroups H, T2a1b1a, U2e1a, U5a1 and K. 
  Computing the frequency of common point mutations of several mtDNA Thracian remains from Romania with haplogroups H17, H22 and HV has resulted that the Italian (7.9%), the Albanian (6.3%) and the Greek (5.8%) have shown a bias of closer genetic kinship with the Thracian individuals than the Romanian and Bulgarian individuals (4.2%), but it was noted that more mtDNA sequences from Thracian individuals are needed in order to perform a complex objective statistical analysis. From seven Thracian samples aged about 3 millennia from Gabova Mogila and Shekerdja Mogila in Sliven Province, and from Bereketska Mogila in Stara Zagora Province, two were identified as belonging to mtDNA Haplogroup D, presumably associated with East Asia. Haplogroup W5a was found among two individuals and H1an2. H14b1 was also found. Four samples from Iron Age Bulgaria were studied, the official study confirmed only that the two are male and mtDNA of two individuals - U3b for the Svilengrad man and HV for the Stambolovo individual. Haplogroups U for the Krushare man, U2e for the Vratitsa individual have been identified. Those individuals were from Thracian burial sites and are dated at around 450-1500 BC. Unofficial analysis of the raw data claims that the first one is positive for Y-DNA Haplogroup E-Z1919 or H-Z14031 (H1b1). It also claims that according to the SNPs all the four samples came out male and also in the man from Krushare Haplogroup J-PF5197 (J2a1a1a1b2) was found, while another man's haplogroup came out negative for E, I and J and remained unknown but is likely R1. According to an autosomal analysis of DNA Land, the Svilengrad man came out 100% Mediterranean islander, while the Stambolovo man appears to be 99% Balkan. One of the surprising results are of 3,500-3,100 years old samples from Vratitsa, which came out 60% Northwest European, 24% Southwestern European (22% Sardinian), 5% Ashkenazi, 5% Mbuti, 3% Native American, 3% South/Central European, 1% North Slavic, along with a 2,400 years old sample from Krushare that is 32% Southwestern European, 26% Northwestern European, 26% Balkan, 5% Central Indo European, 3% Mbuti, 3% Finnish, 3% North Slavic, 1% Ambiguous, 1% Amazonian, in comparison a sample from Iron Age Montenegro is surprising in the opposite direction and came out 64% North Slav and 50% Yamnaya. For the man from Krushare the authors explicitly stated "However, the DNA damage pattern of this individual does not appear to be typical of ancient samples, indicating a potentially higher level of modern DNA contamination.". While the Svilengrad man still shows the highest proportion of Sardinian ancestry, the Krushare more resembles the hunter-gatherer individuals.
  20 samples from medieval Bulgarian sites were alleged as originally Bulgar, but there is no evidence for that. They were from a burial site from the Monastery of Mostich in Preslav, Nozharevo, Tuhovishte and most came out European mtDNA haplogroup H, including H1, H1an2, H1r1, H1t1a1, H2a2a1 H5, H13a2c1, H14b1, HV1, J, J1b1a1, T, T2, U4a2b, U4c1 and U3 with the half belonging to Haplogroup H. It was shown a short genetic distance between these samples and modern Bulgarians.
  After at least 20 mediaval(10-14th century) mtDNA samples from Cedynia and Lednica in Poland, possibly Slavic, had been studied, the 855 sampled modern Bulgarians come out overally the closest group to these samples out of 20 other European nations and moreover, they share the highest value of
caption: Estimated ancient DNA admixture. Bulgarian: 52% Neolithic farmer (ENF), 32% Western Hunter Gatherer (WHG), 13% Ancestral North Eurasian (ANE).
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