EAA2021: Abstract

The Langobard conquest of Italy is one of the most well documented migrations in early medieval Europe. Collegno, near Turin – founded around the turn of the 6th-7th centuries and remained in use till the 8th century – is among the most important burials sites dated to the beginning of the Langobard occupation. Previous study from the Veeramah Lab showed that the community was organized around biological kinship with multiple kindreds. The former study focused on the first phase of the site, but additional sampling from its later phases allows us a more comprehensive study of this cemetery. While a large part of the earliest period individuals had more ancestry associated with contemporary northern Europeans, the later period is marked by the arrival of a new genetic ancestry. This pattern suggested that there might have been multiple different groups of people that arrived and settled in this region gradually within a period of time. We were able to find new kindreds and complement the old ones with individuals from the later phases. Integrating paleogenomic results with archaeological data we found correlation between burial customs and kindred groups and we identified patterns that suggest the community was indeed organised around biological relatedness, but rather than around the wider kinship, the focus was on the core families.

ancient DNA, kinship, migration, early medieval Europe, Italy

 Abstract (PDF)

István Koncz¹

Yijie Tian²
Alessandra Modi³
Caterina Giostra⁴
Janet Kay⁵
Elena Bedini⁴
Walter Pohl⁶
David Caramelli³
Johannes R. Krause^7,8
Patrick J. Geary⁹