Ancient dna in a Slavic-Avar community

Angela

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See: Lukas Sebest et al"Detection of mitochondrial haplogroups in a small avar-slavic population from the eigth–ninth century AD"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.23380/full

"Objectives

In the sixth century AD, Avars came to Central Europe from middle Eurasian steppes and founded a strong Empire called the Avar Khagante (568–799/803 AD) in the Pannonian basin. During the existence of this empire, they undertook many military and pugnacious campaigns. In the seventh century, they conquered the northern territory inhabited by Slavs, who were further recruited in Avar military and were commissioned with obtaining food supplies. During almost 200 years of Avar domination, a significant influence by the Avar culture (especially on the burial rite) and assimilation with indigenous population (occurrence of “East Asian”cranial features) could be noticed in this mixed area, which is supported by achaeological and anthropologcal research. Therefore we expected higher incidence of east Eurasian haplogroups (introduced by Avars) than the frequencies detected in present-day central European populations.
Materials and methods

Mitochondrial DNA from 62 human skeletal remains excavated from the Avar-Slavic burial site Cífer-Pác (Slovakia) dated to the eighth and ninth century was analyzed by the sequencing of hypervariable region I and selected parts of coding region. Obtained haplotypes were compared with other present-day and historical populations and genetic distances were calculated using standard statistical method.
Results and discussion

In total, the detection of mitochondrial haplogroups was possible in 46 individuals. Our results prooved a higher frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups in our analyzed population (6.52%) than in present-day central European populations. However, it is almost three times lower than the frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups detected in other medieval Avar populations. The statistical analysis showed a greater similarity and the lowest genetic distances between the Avar-Slavic burial site Cifer-Pac and medieval European populations than the South Siberian, East and Central Asian populations.
Conclusion

Our results indicate that the transfer of Avar genetic variation through their mtDNA was rather weak in the analyzed mixed population."
 
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Is it really likely to expect Avars, Bulgars, Magyars and Tatars who invaded Eastern Europe to have been themselves, even before their invasions to the west, significantly East Asian/Northeast Asian? I find it doubtful. Even Mongolians seem to have at least 10% of Caucasoid admixture, and early Turks probably lived to their west and southwest, in much more contact with Caucasoid peoples of the steppe.

Also, the invasions of steppe peoples in Eastern Europe took place mostly between 500 and 1000 AD. By then, it is quite probably that the Turks, since at least 300 years earlier, had started to expand and assimilate into their tribal confederations and more or less general customs the vast majority of Scytho-Sarmatian peoples of the steppe and also many Finno-Ugrians of Central Siberia and the Urals. Many Turkic steppe populations of our days are overwhelmingly Caucasoid with minor, in some cases veeeery minor Northeast Asian admixture, suggesting that what happened was more a rearrangement of cultural and political structures in the steppe than a massive demographic change.

If I were one of those scientists, I would be looking also for signs of Caucasoid Pontic-Caspian or Uralic haplogroups, not just East Asian ones. I'd be a bit surprised if, in fact, those Avars and Bulgars were still mostly (> 50%) East Asian in autosomal DNA. It is even possible, even probable that many of those "Avars" and "Bulgars" invading Eastern Europe weren't even ethnic Avars or Bulgars, but just mercenaries and newly allied tribes who came from different "vassal" cultures.
 
I don't have access to the full paper, but from what they say in the summary, other medieval Avar populations seem to have had more East Eurasian mtDna haplogroups.

" Our results prooved a higher frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups in our analyzed population (6.52%) than in present-day central European populations. However, it is almost three times lower than the frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups detected in other medieval Avar populations. "

Clearly, this particular group had less. I wonder if that could be because of the Slavic input they discuss.

Generally, I agree that these groups were very inclusive and thus rather heterogeneous genetically. So, I would guess that the actual number of Turks who entered Anatolia would be quite a bit larger than the amount of "Turkic" dna might indicate.

It would have been very helpful to have yDna and autosomal analysis too.
 
I don't have access to the full paper, but from what they say in the summary, other medieval Avar populations seem to have had more East Eurasian mtDna haplogroups.

" Our results prooved a higher frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups in our analyzed population (6.52%) than in present-day central European populations. However, it is almost three times lower than the frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups detected in other medieval Avar populations. "

Clearly, this particular group had less. I wonder if that could be because of the Slavic input they discuss.

Generally, I agree that these groups were very inclusive and thus rather heterogeneous genetically. So, I would guess that the actual number of Turks who entered Anatolia would be quite a bit larger than the amount of "Turkic" dna might indicate.

It would have been very helpful to have yDna and autosomal analysis too.


Thats the million dollar question. Why wouldnt they test for Ydna? were all the remains female? If not, why only test for MTDNA? Seems silly to half ass it.
 
I don't have access to the full paper, but from what they say in the summary, other medieval Avar populations seem to have had more East Eurasian mtDna haplogroups.

" Our results prooved a higher frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups in our analyzed population (6.52%) than in present-day central European populations. However, it is almost three times lower than the frequency of east Eurasian haplogroups detected in other medieval Avar populations. "

Clearly, this particular group had less. I wonder if that could be because of the Slavic input they discuss..

Yes, I read that, but that would also mean that even in the most "Avar-ized" medieval populations in Eastern Europe, possibly including many "pure" Avar immigrants among the conqueror groups, the East Asian Mt-DNA ammounted to less than 20% (~ 15-20%) of the total. Considering the modern Bashkirs, Tatars and Chuvashes, I wouldn't expect the East Asian Y-DNA to be much more than (perhaps on the order of 1/3?), indicating that the bulk of the Avar population was probably local Eastern European/steppe peoples acculturated into Avar culture and tribal markers.
 
Yes, I read that, but that would also mean that even in the most "Avar-ized" medieval populations in Eastern Europe, possibly including many "pure" Avar immigrants among the conqueror groups, the East Asian Mt-DNA ammounted to less than 20% (~ 15-20%) of the total. Considering the modern Bashkirs, Tatars and Chuvashes, I wouldn't expect the East Asian Y-DNA to be much more than (perhaps on the order of 1/3?), indicating that the bulk of the Avar population was probably local Eastern European/steppe peoples acculturated into Avar culture and tribal markers.

Yes, that seems a sensible conclusion. Most of these groups, and even the Indo-European groups who came into Europe earlier, appear to have been very inclusive.

Their modern descendants seem far more "exclusive".

It will be interesting to see the yDna, however, and whether the proportions there are different.
 
Yes, that seems a sensible conclusion. Most of these groups, and even the Indo-European groups who came into Europe earlier, appear to have been very inclusive.

Their modern descendants seem far more "exclusive".

It will be interesting to see the yDna, however, and whether the proportions there are different.

Do they plan on attempting to extract YDNA, or is that not being explored? would be a complete shame if not.
 
Yes, that seems a sensible conclusion. Most of these groups, and even the Indo-European groups who came into Europe earlier, appear to have been very inclusive.

Their modern descendants seem far more "exclusive".

It will be interesting to see the yDna, however, and whether the proportions there are different.

Do they plan on attempting to extract YDNA, or is that not being explored? would be a complete shame if not.
 
Yes, I read that, but that would also mean that even in the most "Avar-ized" medieval populations in Eastern Europe, possibly including many "pure" Avar immigrants among the conqueror groups, the East Asian Mt-DNA ammounted to less than 20% (~ 15-20%) of the total. Considering the modern Bashkirs, Tatars and Chuvashes, I wouldn't expect the East Asian Y-DNA to be much more than (perhaps on the order of 1/3?), indicating that the bulk of the Avar population was probably local Eastern European/steppe peoples acculturated into Avar culture and tribal markers.

Ancient anthropologists found only 16% of mongolid skulls (whatever the fiability, it seems reality would not be very far from this) in Avar cimeteries of Pannonia covering from 568 to 800 AD - for the most among the elite - these types would have been as well of sinaid, mongolid and "toungid" = "sayanid" types... (if we can rely only with caution on these partitions of types, it shows the mongolid types were picked on a vaste area).
concerning mtDNA, we know nomadic ancient tribes came with some of their "sisters" but picked also a lot of foreign female on their road.
 

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