Periodic Reporting for period 3 - HistoGenes (Integrating genetic, archaeological and historical perspectives on Eastern Central Europe, 400-900 CE)
Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2024-10-31
Few parts of Europe witnessed so many population shifts in a few centuries as the Carpathian Basin in 400-900 CE. In this macro-region along the middle Danube, Pannonians, Romans, Goths, Gepids, Longobards, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, Franks and many others came and went. This is an intriguing test case for the relationship between the names of peoples found in texts of the period, cultural habitus attested in the archaeological record, and genetic profiles that can now be analysed through ancient DNA. What was the impact of migrations and mobility on the population of the Carpathian Basin? Was the late antique population replaced, did it mix with the newcomers, or did its descendants only adopt new cultural styles? To what degree did biological distinctions correspond to the cultural boundaries and/or ethnonyms in the texts? The evidence used in HistoGenes is particularly suited to explore these general questions about the relationship between biological, cultural and political identities of the past, and about the impact of migrations and mobility. Besides, it will extend our knowledge about ways of life in Central Europe after the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire, in a formative period of European history.
HistoGenes analyses over 6,000 samples from graves with cutting edge genetic and other scientific methods, and contextualizes the interpretation of these data in their archaeological and historical setting. HistoGenes, for the first time, unites historians, archaeologists, geneticists, anthropologists, and specialists in bio-informatics, isotope analysis and in other fields in a joint project. We aim for an integrated analysis of human social organization, cultural forms, mobility, and dynamic change in Eastern Central Europe. Thus, HistoGenes will not only advance our knowledge about a key period in European history, but also establish new standards for the historical interpretation of genetic data, and create a model for the collaboration between Sciences and Humanities.
HistoGenes analyses over 6,000 samples from graves with cutting edge genetic and other scientific methods, and contextualizes the interpretation of these data in their archaeological and historical setting. HistoGenes, for the first time, unites historians, archaeologists, geneticists, anthropologists, and specialists in bio-informatics, isotope analysis and in other fields in a joint project. We aim for an integrated analysis of human social organization, cultural forms, mobility, and dynamic change in Eastern Central Europe. Thus, HistoGenes will not only advance our knowledge about a key period in European history, but also establish new standards for the historical interpretation of genetic data, and create a model for the collaboration between Sciences and Humanities.
This is a very complex interdisciplinary project involving 12 beneficiaries between Budapest and New York, and from several scientific and humanities disciplines. Some delays were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the planned workflow has immediately begun, due to the great commitment for the project shown by all project members and partners. By the spring of 2024, over 6,000 samples had been taken and bone powder extracted in Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania and Germany. Ancient DNA has been sequenced in the Leipzig laboratory from over 4,300 samples. The next step was bioinformatic processing, mainly for ancestry, for the modelling of mobility and migration and for the inference of large-scale pedigrees.
In 2022, we published an article in CELL about Avar elite graves of the 7th century. We found that the core group of the Avars mostly had Eastern Asian ancestry, which had always been a contested issue but corresponded to reports from the period. The eastern ancestry of the migrant Avars differs considerably from the ancestry of the regional population of rather mixed, mostly European origin whom they encountered in the Carpathian Basin in 567/68. This gives us the rare opportunity to trace processes of admixture between a migrant ruling group and other populations. Two further publications traced this process of admixture. One, published in Nature in spring 2024, deals with a group of 7th/8th century cemeteries along the Tisza river, close to the Avar core area in the Carpathian Basin. The other addresses two cemeteries in the margins of the Avar settlement area, south of Vienna. The most striking result of these studies is that even in peripheral places, East Asian ancestry was preserved until the 8th century, while other communities with very similar late-Avar culture could also be almost completely European.
Several further, mostly regional studies are in the pipeline in different stages. That includes transect studies of the Little Hungarian Plain, Slovenia and Sachsen-Anhalt, and articles focusing on the 5th/6th century, on the Huns, on the pre-Avar period in eastern Hungary, on the Moravian central places at Mikulčice and Pohansko, and on the region around Zalavár, both in the 9th century. Accompanying archaeological and historical studies address gender and reproduction practices (for instance levirate unions, apparent in the pedigrees and in Chinese texts about steppe peoples as well as in Western sources); the advances in the chronology of cemeteries; or compare Western and Chinese sources (in part still lacking a translation into Western languages) on the steppe peoples, which allows both confronting perceptions and assessing information on the ways of life in the steppe zone.
In 2022, we published an article in CELL about Avar elite graves of the 7th century. We found that the core group of the Avars mostly had Eastern Asian ancestry, which had always been a contested issue but corresponded to reports from the period. The eastern ancestry of the migrant Avars differs considerably from the ancestry of the regional population of rather mixed, mostly European origin whom they encountered in the Carpathian Basin in 567/68. This gives us the rare opportunity to trace processes of admixture between a migrant ruling group and other populations. Two further publications traced this process of admixture. One, published in Nature in spring 2024, deals with a group of 7th/8th century cemeteries along the Tisza river, close to the Avar core area in the Carpathian Basin. The other addresses two cemeteries in the margins of the Avar settlement area, south of Vienna. The most striking result of these studies is that even in peripheral places, East Asian ancestry was preserved until the 8th century, while other communities with very similar late-Avar culture could also be almost completely European.
Several further, mostly regional studies are in the pipeline in different stages. That includes transect studies of the Little Hungarian Plain, Slovenia and Sachsen-Anhalt, and articles focusing on the 5th/6th century, on the Huns, on the pre-Avar period in eastern Hungary, on the Moravian central places at Mikulčice and Pohansko, and on the region around Zalavár, both in the 9th century. Accompanying archaeological and historical studies address gender and reproduction practices (for instance levirate unions, apparent in the pedigrees and in Chinese texts about steppe peoples as well as in Western sources); the advances in the chronology of cemeteries; or compare Western and Chinese sources (in part still lacking a translation into Western languages) on the steppe peoples, which allows both confronting perceptions and assessing information on the ways of life in the steppe zone.
The complex workflow goes far beyond the state of the art. This regards the involvement of archaeologists and historians in the choice of relevant research questions and the selection of sites for genetic/scientific analysis, but also in discussions about terminology and methodology, which had happened never before in such a systematic way in a large project. Furthermore, the decision to analyse, wherever possible, entire cemeteries has also opened doors to a more comprehensive understanding of social structures, ways of life and composition of local settlement groups. This, in turn, was only possible because the project reaches new dimensions in the number of individuals analysed. The Leipzig lab uses the most recent technologies for processing and analysing the samples and, together with the Veeramah lab at the State University of New York, constantly engages in the development of new methods of bioinformatic processing. The methods to infer biological relatedness have made spectacular progress. We have found that in most of the 7th- and 8th-century sites analysed so far, a considerable number of the burial community were related to each other. Thus, we could construct large pedigrees stretching across six or more generations. These results only unfold their potential in close collaboration with all disciplines: physical anthropologists assessing the age-at-death, archaeologists studying the grave goods and circumstances of the burial, 14C and Sr isotope analysis contributing further parameters about dating and local or non-local upbringing, and historians seeking to integrate the new data with what the written record can tell us about the context of the cemetery. This creates a lot of potential in the fine chronology of cemeteries, in their demography, and in understanding the cultural practices that influence the choice of partners and therefore also processes of admixture. In this way, we will be able to move our understanding of migration and their impact, and of the population history of Eastern Central Europe from 5th to the 9th century to a new level.