Research that combines experiences from disciplines has revealed that genes and culture do not necessarily have to coincide. The latest findings from the European Research Council’s HistoGenes project come from a genetic study of burial sites from the Avar era to the 8th century AD. The Avars arrived in the 6th century from the steppes of eastern Asia and settled in central and eastern Europe as part of a combined population.
Despite their rich archaeological heritage, many questions remained. Were the people buried in these sites descendants of the Avar conquerors or of the previous population that was integrated into the Avar society? Or had these two groups long since mixed, as many expected? The analysis of two large sites south of Vienna, of 500 graves in Mödling and almost 150 in Leobersdorf, brought unexpected results.
When the researchers looked at ancient DNA extracted from human remains at nearby sites, they were very surprised. While the population of Leobersdorf was mainly of East Asian origin, those buried at Mödling had ancestors related to European populations. “The genetic difference between those groups is very transparent and consistent for most Americans at the sites,” says Ke Wang, a geneticist and one of the study’s lead authors.
Before genetic analysis, no major differences had been observed between sites. The archaeological remains of the two communities and their way of life were very similar. “Cultural integration worked despite vital genetic differences, and these other people were clearly thought of as Avars,” says Walter Pohl of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a historian and one of the study’s lead authors.
Peaceful coexistence
Historical records agree with evidence from anthropology and archeology that this was one of the most peaceful periods in the history of the Vienna Basin, despite the Avars’ warlike reputation. “In the skeletons we found no war wounds and practically no signs of deterioration,” says Doris Pany-Kucera, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in Vienna and one of the lead authors of the study. placed in tombs.
Thanks to the sampling strategy and highly sensitive genetic analysis, it was possible to discover a high number of relatives among the deceased. “The large number of genetic relationships between the individuals allowed us to reconstruct contemporary six-generation-long pedigrees at each site,” says Zuzana Hofmanová from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, a geneticist and one of the senior lead authors of the study.
Only exceptionally did Americans have no biological connection to anyone else in their cemetery. However, researchers have not discovered blood relations, even among remote relatives. Curiously, they were able to verify that almost none of the mothers had local ancestors: so they would have to have come from other regions and other communities. However, there was practically no genetic connection between Mödling and Leobersdorf.
Both communities followed a similar social practice of choosing mates from certain other communities, through which their other ancestry was preserved: the women who became mothers in Leobersdorf came from communities that were also of East Asian descent. East (perhaps from the middle of the Avar kingdom). While in Mödling, the Array were of European origin. However, their prestige or wealth did not differ. “Status symbols, such as belt accessories representing griffins, as well as their culture and customs, were the same. Most likely, they both considered themselves Avars,” says Bendeguz Tobias, an archaeologist and one of the main authors of the study.
Studies of this scale, which systematically investigate burial sites, are still rare in the field. “The Mödling cemetery is one of the largest ever genetically analyzed, and these effects offer wonderful prospects for long-term studies in different disciplines,” says Johannes Krause, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and one of the study’s lead authors. . study.
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