Maternal Lineages from 10–11th Century Commoner Cemeteries of the Carpathian Basin

Abstract

Nomadic groups of conquering Hungarians played a predominant role in Hungarian prehistory, but genetic data are available only from the immigrant elite strata. Most of the 10–11th century remains in the Carpathian Basin belong to common people, whose origin and relation to the immigrant elite have been widely debated. Mitogenome sequences were obtained from 202 individuals with next generation sequencing combined with hybridization capture. Median joining networks were used for phylogenetic analysis. The commoner population was compared to 87 ancient Eurasian populations with sequence-based (Fst) and haplogroup-based population genetic methods. The haplogroup composition of the commoner population markedly differs from that of the elite, and, in contrast to the elite, commoners cluster with European populations. Alongside this, detectable sub-haplogroup sharing indicates admixture between the elite and the commoners. The majority of the 10–11th century commoners most likely represent local populations of the Carpathian Basin, which admixed with the eastern immigrant groups (which included conquering Hungarians).

Tracing genetic connections of ancient Hungarians to the 6-14thcentury populations of the Volga-Ural region

“…In the Volga-Ural region, we could identify most of the “eastern” genetic traits of the conquerors (28) (29) (30) (35) (36). Therefore, the historical, linguistic, and archaeological assumption that these population elements (i.e.…”

“…In the case of the Kushnarenkovo culture (from the Trans-Uralic Uyelgi site) as well as those representing the Lomovatovo and Nevolino cultures associated populations (Cis-Ural is the western foreland of the Urals), also show extensive genetic connections to the conquering Hungarians (23). The composition of the uniparental genetic lines (24) (25) (26) (27) of the Hungarians living today in the CB is similar to that of other European peoples (21), but the maternal (23) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) and paternal (33) (35) (36) lineages of the population of the archaeological Conquest period in CB in the late 9 th -10 th centuries (henceforth: conqueror Hungarians, in short conquerors) show a different picture. Their maternal lineages are similar to modern Tatars, in addition with a significant Eastern Eurasian component.…”

“…In our study we analyse 10 groups (Table 1) which were formed according to archaeological, chronological and geographic aspects. In addition to the investigated sites, we used database data of the conquerors from the Carpathian Basin (23) (28) (29) (30) (KL-IV–VI), the Cis-Ural group (Bayanovo, Brody, Bartim, Sukhoy Log) and the Uyelgi site (23).…”

Whole genome analysis sheds light on the genetic origin of Huns, Avars and conquering Hungarians

“…All pre-PCR steps were carried out in the dedicated ancient DNA facilities of the Department of Genetics, University of Szeged and Department of Archaeogenetics, Institute of Hungarian Research, Hungary. Mitogenome or Y-chromosome data had been published from many of the samples used in this study 29,36 , and we sequenced whole genomes from the same libraries, whose preparations had been described in the above papers. For the rest of the samples we used the following modified protocol.…”

Ancient and Archaic Genomes

“…Another research article presenting data on whole mitochondria is focused on 10–11th century remains in the Carpathian Basin. Maár et al [ 5 ] analyzed more than 200 new mitogenomes for the commoner population in order to compare them with the data available for the immigrant elite including conquering Hungarians. Phylogenetic analysis and haplogroup- and sequence-based methods provide a first description of this population and the relationships with other ancient Eurasian groups, highlighting differences and possible admixture with the eastern immigrants.…”