Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Another evidence, that the Macedonians are not-related with greeks:

HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks

Tissue Antigens 2001 Feb; 57(2):118-127



Department of Immunology and Molecular Biology, H. 12 de Octubre, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. aarnaiz@eucmax.sim.ucm.es

Arnaiz-Villena A, Dimitroski K, Pacho A, Moscoso J, Gomez-Casado E, Silvera-Redondo C, Varela P, Blagoevska M, Zdravkovska V, Martinez-Laso J.



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" Mediterranenan 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.

Ancient and Modern Evidence about the Distinct Macedonian Nation


The long list of modern scholars (among which are Eugene Borza, Waldemer Heckel, A.B. Bosworth, Peter Green, Ernst Badian, Carol Thomas, S.M. Burstain, P.A. Brunt, John Yardley), agree that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks, but a distinct nation. Their views align with the Spanish genetic research above. Eugene Borza, Historian, Professor, and Archeologist, whom the American Philological Association refers to as "Macedonian specialist" has written:



"It is clear that over a five-century span of writing in two languages representing a variety of historiographical and philosophical positions the ancient writers regarded the Greeks and the Macedonians as two separate and distinct peoples whose relationship was marked by considerable antipathy, if not outright hostility."



Waldemar Heckel, one of the foremost Alexander scholars in the world, in his Alexander the Great (2004), writes on page 7:



“It is clear from the extant historians that the lost sources made a clear distinction between Macedonians and Greeks - ethnically, culturally and linguistically – and this must be an accurate reflection of contemporary attitudes...�?



In alignment with the genetic results cited above, the ancient Greek and Roman historians also clearly excluded Macedonia from Greece as a distinct country, and the Macedonians from the Greeks as distinct nation. Not one ancient historian wrote that Macedonia is “Northern Province of Greece�? or that the Macedonians are “northern Greeks�?.



The Greek orator Demosthenes, spoke of Alexander the Great’s father Philip II as "not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honors, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave" (Demosthenes, Third Philippic, 31).



Justin, the Roman historian from the 3rd century AD wrote: "Antipater was appointed governor of Macedonia and Greece" (Justin 13.4.5)



Arrian, the ancient Greek historian from the 2nd century AD wrote: "Darius' Greek mercenaries attacked the Macedonian phalanx… the Macedonian centre did not set to with equal impetus… and the Greeks attacked where they saw that the phalanx had been particularly torn apart. There the action was severe, the Greeks tried to push off the Macedonians into the river and to reserve victory to their own side… There was also some emulation between antagonists of the Greek and Macedonian races" (Arrian 2.10.4-7).



Pausanias, the ancient Greek historian from the 2nd century AD wrote: "the united Greeks defeated the Macedonians in Boeotia and again outside Thermopylae forced them into Lamia" (Pausanias 1.1.3)



Plutarch, the ancient Greek historian from 1st century AD quoted Alexander’s words where the king himself separates the Macedonians from the Greeks as distinct nation: “When you see the Greeks walking about among the Macedonians, do they not look to you like demi-gods among so many wild beasts?�? (Alex.51.2)



Conclusion



Please consider the Macedonian position when approaching Stone’s Alexander. Alexander and his Macedonians would have been appalled by Stone who had tried to make them fighting for Greece, when the ancient evidence says they did for Macedonia, because as the ancient authors testify they were not Greeks.