EAA2021: Abstract

When used in conjunction with archaeology, paleogenomics can be a powerful tool to better understand human history, demography and with the sampling of whole sites it could also provide insights to the processes involved in the formation of communities and social structures. This is especially interesting in the Middle Danube Region as very few parts of Europe witnessed so many population shifts in a few centuries as this area during the early Medieval period. After the decline of the Roman rule in Pannonia (433 AD) came a time of political instability. From the last decades of the 4th century onward until the arrival of the Avars in the late 6th century, population groups arrived continuously into the Carpathian Basin. This political instability led to the emergence of a mosaic-like cultural landscape with small burial sites consisting of around 20-50 graves. In our study, we analyze three cemeteries near the southern shore of Lake Balaton (in present-day Hungary) from the 5th and 6th centuries. We present new findings from two nearby late-5th-century cemeteries named Hács and Balatonszemes and compare them to the mid-6th-century cemetery of Szólád published by Amorim et al. (2018). We use principal component analyses and genetic clustering analyses to characterize the genetic ancestry of the 25 individuals and estimate levels of kinship between them. We analyze these results alongside the archaeological record of the sites to investigate how differences in ancestry and kinship are reflected within the layouts of the cemeteries and whether these are similar from cemetery to cemetery. Furthermore, we also use analyses of identity-by-descent (IBD) tracts in the genomes to test whether there is population continuity between the late fifth century Hács and Balatonszemes with sixth century Szólád or whether there is evidence of the continuous immigration attested by the written sources.

ancient DNA, kinship, Carpathian Basin, social organisation, early medieval Europe

 Abstract (PDF)

István Koncz¹

Deven N. Vyas²
Tivadar Vida^3,4
Balázs Gusztáv Mende⁴
Johannes Krause^5,6
Janet Kay⁷
Walter Pohl⁸
Krishna R. Veeramah²
Patrick J. Geary⁹