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After 567, a certain nomad group of Eastern European origin arrived to the CarpathianBasin with the Avars and occupied the territory east to the TisaRiver. This population differs from the Inner Asian Avars by their burial customs whose best analogies can be found among the contemporary nomads of the steppe region of Eastern Europe, called Sivashovka group. The main aim of this article is a special rite of the two regions: burials with whole horse skeletons. This element of the burial rite was treated as a foreign influence — Avaric or Turkic. This study proves that this element was well embedded in the structures of the funerary rite in both regions. Additionally, there are similarities, which show that both populations get acquainted with this custom at the same time. We can state that the difference between the burials with horse hides and the burials with whole skeletons is based on social, rather than ethnic grounds.

In 1960, an isolated grave – dated to the early Avar period – was found in Tiszavasvári, on the plot of Miklós eszenyi. According to the burial customs (the nee-sWW orientation of the deceased, the niche grave, the horse skin burial), this grave fits well into the type characteristic of the early Avar period the Trans-Tisza region. in this article, we examine two parts of the horse harness in detail, i.e. the bone cylinder for fastening the stirrup leather and the omega shaped iron object which was attached to the saddle for fixing the bridle.

Huns, Avars and conquering Hungarians were Migration Period nomadic groups which arrived in three successive waves in the Carpathian Basin between the 5th and 9th centuries. Based on historical data each of these groups are thought to have arrived from Asia, although their exact origin and relation to other ancient and modern populations has been debated. In this study we have sequenced 9 Hun, 143 Avar and 113 Hungarian conquest period samples, and identified three core populations, representing immigrants from each period, with no recent European ancestry. Our results suggest that this immigrant core of both Huns and Avars originated in present day Mongolia, and their origin can be traced back to Xiongnus. On the other hand, the immigrant core of the conquering Hungarians derived from an earlier admixture of Mansis, early Sarmatians and descendants of late Xiongnus. In addition, we detected shared Hun-related ancestry in numerous Avar and Hungarian conquest period genetic outliers indicating a genetic link between these successive nomadic groups. Aside from the immigrant core groups we identified that the majority of the individuals from each period were local residents, harboring native European ancestry.