PREJARDHJA E FISEVE KRASNIQE E NIKAJ NËN DRITËN E TË DHËNAVE GJENETIKE, HISTORIKE DHE TRADITËS BURIMORE
THE ORIGIN OF NORTH ALBANIAN TRIBES OF KRASNIQE AND NIKAJ BASED ON Y-DNA PHYLOGENY; HISTORICAL DATA AND ORAL TRADITION

Summary/Abstract: The broadening range of data available to scientific inquiry requires ever more interdisciplinary approaches for research in the historical sciences. In this paper, we have elected to concentrate on the Krasniqe and Nikaj clans of Northern Albania as two of the largest Albanian clans, from which we collected 23 samples for genetic sequencing. Y-DNA data from these clans’ members’ support the findings of several other lines of research from the fields of History, Ethnography and Anthropology, at the same time enriching the history of these clans in the context of the plethora of clans, brotherhoods and other groups that make up the Albanians as an ethnic group. We find that, in agreement with local legends of common ancestry, patrilineally, members of all the main brotherhoods of Krasniqe and Nikaj descend from one common male ancestor, while members of all the largest Krasniqe brotherhoods also share a more recent common ancestor which the Nikaj members do not descend from. These findings support the establishment and generational expansion of kinship-based groups as a key mechanism in the foundational stage of northern Albanian clans which endured into the 20th century. In the case of Krasniqe and Nikaj, a core cluster of closely related lineages subsequently diffused into several brotherhoods, and eventually even into two distinct clans which retained tales of kinship. On the other hand, social, economic and political factors must have played an important role in formation and evolution of collective memories and identities, as neither Krasniqe nor Nikaj claim kinship with the Gashi clan, despite sharing more a more distant common ancestor with at least some of its brotherhoods. Y-DNA haplogroup and subclade assignments for both Nikaj and Krasniqe members place their paternal ancestry in highly concentrated affinity to other Albanians, especially from the northern areas, and in more distant relation to several previously published ancient DNA results from the wider region. Utilized alongside historical facts, genetic data such as the results presented here, facilitate the historicization of poorly documented truths which would be difficult to verify through traditional historiographical methodology.

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