Native Pomaks
The prevailing opinion is that the Pomaks are descendants of ancient Thracian tribes. There are still scholars who believe that their origin is from a very old African population or from Mongol tribes that inhabited Asia Minor and the Balkans after the 7th century AD. ..
No connection of the Pomaks with modern African populations is confirmed, which excludes their common origin, and a basic genetic trait of the Mongolian populations is completely absent in them, which is conclusive evidence of the lack of kinship… The Pomaks are closer to Europeans and Greeks, which supports the hypothesis that they are descendants of ancient Thracian tribes."
In the end, the team of geneticists concluded that the Pomaks were an ancient Balkan population of European, not Asian, origin, which had been genetically "preserved" due to their geographic isolation and endogamy.
