EAA2021: Abstract

Fine-scale ancient DNA analyses provide not only insights to prehistoric demographic processes, but also a deeper understanding of the studied communities’ structure and organization. Here we present intensively sampled Early Bronze Age graveyards (assigned to the Nitra and Únětice cultures) from the north-west part of the Carpathian Basin, and compare the new genomic data with anthropological and archaeological records and theories. Several families are reconstructed based on the genome-wide capture data, and attempts on reconstructing distant relatedness is also presented. A comprehensive analyses of the paternal and maternal lineages, together with the autosomal DNA results enable to reformulate the current knowledge about the social system of the Nitra (Nitrianska) culture’s population, that culture was disseminated in present-day southwest Slovakia and southern Moravia. The Nitra culture followed epi-Corded Ware traditions in many ways, and most of the burials showed emphasis on highlighting the gender and social status of the buried individuals. The homogeneity of the male lineages of the Nitra culture’s population, the detected distinct ancestry components and the comparison of the male and female admixture signals all contribute to a new way of understanding of the social changes at the dawn of the Bronze Age in East-Central Europe.

Early Bronze Age, archaeogenetics, Carpathian Basin, Nitra culture, Únetice culture, social archaeology

 Abstract (PDF)

Anna Szecsenyi-Nagy¹

Alena Šefčáková²
Inigo Olalde³
Harald Ringbauer⁴
Juraj Bartík⁵
Zdeněk Farkaš⁵
Pavol Jelínek⁵
Klaudia Daňová⁶
Ron Pinhasi⁷
David Reich^8,9