Paternal and maternal lineages in the Balkans show a homogeneous landscape over linguistic barriers, except for the isolated Aromuns.

The Balkan Peninsula is a complex cultural mosaic comprising populations speaking languages from several branches of the Indo-European family and Altaic, as well as culturally-defined minorities such as the Aromuns who speak a Romance language. The current cultural and linguistic landscape is a palimpsest in which different peoples have contributed their cultures in a historical succession. We have sought to find any evidence of genetic stratification related to those cultural layers by typing both mtDNA and Y chromosomes, in Albanians, Romanians, Macedonians, Greeks, and five Aromun populations.

Population genetic studies in the Balkans. II. DNA-STR-systems.

Within a study of the genetics of Southeastern European populations four DNA-STR-systems (D21S11, FGA, TH01, VWA) were examined in seven samples (samples of three Aromuns and four other Balkan populations). The results have been compared to data from four samples from literature (Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, Slovenians). The results show three clusters: a) the Aromuns from Albania (Andon Poci) and Macedonia (Stip region), b) the Romanian Aromuns (Kogalniceanu), Romanians (Constanta, Ploiesti) and Albanians (Tirana) und c) the data from literature.

Population genetic studies in the Balkans. I. Serum proteins.

Within a study of the genetics of Southeastern European populations seven serum protein polymorphisms (AMY2, BF, C3, CP, GC, HPA, TF) were examined in three samples of Aromuns (Albania: the village of Andon Poci, province Gjirocaster, Republic of Macedonia: Stip region, Romania: the village Kogalniceanu, province Dobruja) and four reference samples (Albanians: Tirana, Romanians: Constanta and Ploiesti as well as Greeks (Northeastern Greece)). The Aromun samples from Albania and Romania form one separate cluster and the reference samples together with the Aromuns from Macedonia (Stip region) form a second one.

Enzyme polymorphisms and haemoglobin variants in Greeks.

Several enzyme polymorphisms and hemoglobin variants were typed in a sample of n = 219 non-related Greek blood-donors. The following gene frequencies were observed: pa = 0.201, pb = 0.