Early Medieval Genetic Data from Ural Region Evaluated in the Light of Archaeological Evidence of Ancient Hungarians

Abstract

The ancient Hungarians originated from the Ural region of Russia, and migrated through the Middle-Volga region and the Eastern European steppe into the Carpathian Basin during the 9th century AD. Their Homeland was probably in the southern Trans-Ural region, where the Kushnarenkovo culture disseminated. In the Cis-Ural region Lomovatovo and Nevolino cultures are archaeologically related to ancient Hungarians. In this study we describe maternal and paternal lineages of 36 individuals from these regions and nine Hungarian Conquest period individuals from today’s Hungary, as well as shallow shotgun genome data from the Trans-Uralic Uyelgi cemetery. We point out the genetic continuity between the three chronological horizons of Uyelgi cemetery, which was a burial place of a rather endogamous population. Using phylogenetic and population genetic analyses we demonstrate the genetic connection between Trans-, Cis-Ural and the Carpathian Basin on various levels. The analyses of this new Uralic dataset fill a gap of population genetic research of Eurasia, and reshape the conclusions previously drawn from 10-11th century ancient mitogenomes and Y-chromosomes from Hungary.

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

“… Comparison of the major Hg distributions from ancient Hungarian populations. The major Hg distribution of commoner samples (n = 182) from this study is distinct from that of Conqueror elite samples (n = 112) taken from previous studies [ 6 , 12 , 31 ], including elite data from Magyarhomorog in the present study. Brackets mark east Eurasian Hgs.…”

“…The ConqC clustered in the eastern side of the European aggregation, with the closest genetic affinity to Baltic Bronze Age populations, Baltic Iron Age populations, Baltic Medieval populations, Bell Baker Germany and Great Britain Bronze Age populations, and is not far away from the Steppe Early-Middle Bronze Age (Steppe EMBA) population, though these relative distances need to be interpreted with care, as our population dataset certainly incompletely represents the past genetic variability. In contrast, the Conqueror Elite is located between ancient European and Asian populations and its closest clusters are the Sarmatian Iron Age population, the Tien Shan Iron Age population, the Karasuk late Bronze Age population and the two groups suggested to be in connection with the Conquerors [ 31 ]: the Cis-Ural Medieval population and the Uyelgi Trans-Ural Medieval population.…”

“…These were supplemented with 13 commoner mitogenomes published previously [ 6 ], as listed in Table 1 . The merged ConqC population was compared to the 88 ancient Eurasian groups from the newly assembled mitogenome database, including the previously published military elite strata of the Conquerors [ 6 , 12 , 31 ], which was supplemented with the Magyarhomorog elite graveyard data from the present study ( Table 1 , Tables S3c and S4 ).…”