Genetic structure of the early Hungarian conquerors inferred from mtDNA haplotypes and Y-chromosome haplogroups in a small cemetery

Abstract

We applied ancient DNA methods to shed light on the origin of ancient Hungarians and their relation to modern populations. Hungarians moved into the Carpathian Basin from the Eurasian Pontic steppes in the year 895 AD as a confederation of seven tribes, but their further origin remains obscure. Here, we present 17 mtDNA haplotypes and four Y-chromosome haplogroups, which portray the genetic composition of an entire small cemetery of the first generation Hungarians. Using novel algorithms to compare these mitochondrial DNA haplogroups with other ancient and modern Eurasian data, we revealed that a significant portion of the Hungarians probably originated from a long ago consolidated gene pool in Central Asia-South Siberia, which still persists in modern Hungarians. Another genetic layer of the early Hungarians was obtained during their westward migrations by admixing with various populations of European origin, and an important component of these was derived from the Caucasus region. Most of the modern populations, which are genetically closest relatives of ancient Hungarians, today speak non-Indo-European languages. Our results contribute to our understanding of the peopling of Europe by providing ancient DNA data from a still genetically poorly studied period of medieval human migrations.

Revising mtDNA haplotypes of the ancient Hungarian conquerors with next generation sequencing

“…In the 15 samples of [9] the same haplogroups were assigned from NGS data in all cases, however only 8 haplotypes proved to be correct. In both studies the majority of deviations originated from undetected SNP-s in sequencing reactions of PCR fragments, but [7] also identified 3 SNP-s erroneously (lined through nucleotide positions in Table 2).…”

“…Bone powder remains of samples from the study of [9], were saved in the Department of Genetics, University of Szeged, and were reused to build NGS sequencing libraries.…”

Y-chromosome haplogroups from Hun, Avar and conquering Hungarian period nomadic people of the Carpathian Basin

“…Although mtDNA data can be informative, since as far as we know none of the above nomadic invasions were pure military expeditions in which raiding males took local women, but entire societies with both men and women migrated together 3 , however nomadic societies were patrilinealy organized, thus Y-chromosome data are expected to provide more relevant information about their structure and origin than mtDNA. So far 6 Ychromosome Hg-s have been published from the Conquerors; 12 which revealed the presence of N1a1-M46 (previously called Tat or N1c), in two out of 4 men, while 13 detected two R1b-U106 and two I2a-M170 Hg-s.…”

Mitogenomic data indicate admixture components of Asian Hun and Srubnaya origin in the Hungarian Conquerors

“…Another study [14] showed the presence of N-Tat (M46) Y-chromosome marker (a major clade of the above mentioned N-L1034) in two of the Conqueror samples and one living Sekler, which was interpreted as a Finno-Ugric link. It is notable that in the latest studies [12,13] population genetic analysis also indicated considerable Central Asian affinity of the Conquerors. However all these studies applied low resolution, error prone PCR based aDNA methods [15] and high resolution Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data from the Conquerors has not been available yet, though power of discrimination of the entire mitochondrial genome over the hypervariable regions (HVR) has been shown to be huge [16].…”

“…The genetic composition of the Conquerors was also analyzed in several ancient DNA (aDNA) studies [11][12][13] and indeed, all these detected significant presence of East Eurasian major mtDNA haplogroups (Hg-s), which are rare in modern Hungarians but are found in Uralic people. Another study [14] showed the presence of N-Tat (M46) Y-chromosome marker (a major clade of the above mentioned N-L1034) in two of the Conqueror samples and one living Sekler, which was interpreted as a Finno-Ugric link.…”