EAA2022: Abstract

To this day, the question of the impact of migrations in the period predating the formation of the first Slavic states in East Central Europe is still debated. Traditionally accepted consensus is that Slavs migrated from East into the rest of Europe in the 5th or 6th century AD. There are however voices that question this narrative and suggest that the Slavic languages arrived in the region without a large migratory event. Even in the presence of a demographic shift in the population, the process itself is not well described and the social structure of the presumed incomers might have played a strong role (e.g. elite migration versus slow immigration distributed over generations). The situation is complicated by geographical and cultural variability throughout Central Europe at this time. To overcome this challenge, in this part of the project FORMOR (GAČR grant The Formation of Multi-ethnic Complex Societies in Early Medieval Moravia. Collective Action Theory and Interdisciplinary Approach), we focus on an archaeologically well-defined region near Pohansko (Břeclav, South Moravia, Czechia) where there was a settlement that was a part of one of the first states where Slavic language has been used (Great Moravia) and where there are skeletal remains also from preceding (“Early Slavic” and “pre-Slavic”) occupation. We analyze whole genomes of medium coverage from these contexts and investigate continuity with various methods including explicit coalescent modeling. We also investigate the genetic relationship of these individuals to each other and known reference data in the wide region.

Slavs, aDNA, Czechia, Early Medieval, Pohansko

 Abstract (PDF)

Denisa Zlámalová¹

Ilektra Schultz^2,3
Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone⁴
Luca Traverso⁴
Petr Dresler⁵
Renáta Přichystalová⁵
Sam Morris⁶
Jiří Macháček⁵
Daniel Wegmann^2,3
Zuzana Hofmanová^5,4