Gnecchi-Ruscone, Guido Alberto, Rácz, Zsófia, Samu, Levente, Szeniczey, Tamás, Faragó, Norbert, Knipper, Corina, Friedrich, Ronny, Zlámalová, Denisa, Traverso, Luca, Liccardo, Salvatore, Wabnitz, Sandra, Popli, Divyaratan, Wang, Ke, Radzeviciute, Rita, Gulyás, Bence, Koncz, István, Balogh, Csilla, Lezsák, Gabriella M., Mácsai, Viktor, Bunbury, Magdalena M.E., Spekker, Olga, le Roux, Petrus, Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna, Mende, Balázs Gusztáv, Colleran, Heidi, Hajdu, Tamás, Geary, Patrick, Pohl, Walter, Vida, Tivadar, Krause, Johannes, and Hofmanová, Zuzana (2024) Network of large pedigrees reveals social practices of Avar communities. Nature, 629. pp. 376-383.

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Abstract

From AD 567–568, at the onset of the Avar period, populations from the Eurasian Steppe settled in the Carpathian Basin for approximately 250 years1. Extensive sampling for archaeogenomics (424 individuals) and isotopes, combined with archaeological, anthropological and historical contextualization of four Avar-period cemeteries, allowed for a detailed description of the genomic structure of these communities and their kinship and social practices. We present a set of large pedigrees, reconstructed using ancient DNA, spanning nine generations and comprising around 300 individuals. We uncover a strict patrilineal kinship system, in which patrilocality and female exogamy were the norm and multiple reproductive partnering and levirate unions were common. The absence of consanguinity indicates that this society maintained a detailed memory of ancestry over generations. These kinship practices correspond with previous evidence from historical sources and anthropological research on Eurasian Steppe societies2. Network analyses of identity-by-descent DNA connections suggest that social cohesion between communities was maintained via female exogamy. Finally, despite the absence of major ancestry shifts, the level of resolution of our analyses allowed us to detect genetic discontinuity caused by the replacement of a community at one of the sites. This was paralleled with changes in the archaeological record and was probably a result of local political realignment.

Item ID:	82627
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1476-4687
Keywords:	kinship practices, ARCHAEOLOGY, ancient DNA, Avar empire, Great Hungarian Plain
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Funders:	ERC
Date Deposited:	07 May 2024 23:49
FoR Codes:	43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4301 Archaeology > 430101 Archaeological science @ 10% 43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4301 Archaeology > 430104 Archaeology of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Levant @ 30% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3105 Genetics > 310501 Anthropological genetics @ 60%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280113 Expanding knowledge in history, heritage and archaeology @ 100%
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