The Early Medieval Slavs of Velim

Slavic-speaking settlers remade the Balkans in the early Middle Ages, and the cemetery of Velim in the Ravni Kotari hinterland of Zadar is the chief northwest Balkan witness to that Slavic period. Across the peninsula about 82 percent of the gene pool was replaced by Eastern European ancestry, yet the people of Velim kept roughly 30 percent of the region's Roman-era ancestry: the newcomers married in rather than sweeping the old population away. Kin groups were buried together, men stayed put and wives came from outside, and the settlers' homeland was traced to the lands between the Dniester and the Don. Twelve people buried between about 650 and 950 CE are gathered here, in the generations when the early Croatian principality was taking shape around them, though the study itself speaks only of the Slavic period.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Ancient DNA connects large-scale migration with the spread of Slavs.

Every Ancestry Map includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances. That is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Early Medieval Slavs of Velim are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

• 01

  Who were the Early Medieval Slavs of Velim?

  The Early Medieval Slavs of Velim (c. 650-950 CE, Velim, Ravni Kotari, Zadar County, Croatia) are one of the Historical figures entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 12 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Ancient DNA connects large-scale migration with the spread of Slavs".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Early Medieval Slavs of Velim mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Are they my ancestor?

  No, and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

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  How do I see my own distance to the Early Medieval Slavs of Velim?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestry Map, never sold separately. Order Ancestry Map, our Global25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

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