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Brand new genetic study on the origins of Huns, Avars and Hungarian Conquerors
This scientific paper is a true milestone in the genetic study of the origins of European Huns, Avars and Hungarian Conquerors. There seems to be solid evidence of close genetic connection between European Huns and Avars, however several Hungary Conquerors were also related genetically to these two populations.
Summary
"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."
Huns
"The genomic history of Huns Avars and Conquerors revealed in this study reconciles with historical, archaeological and linguistic sources. Our data shows that the leader strata of both European Huns and Avars originated from the area of the former Xiongnu Empire, from present day Mongolia, and both groups can be traced back to early Xiongnu ancestors. Northern Xiongnus were expelled from Mongolia in the second century CE, and during their westward migration Sarmatians were one of the largest groups they confronted. Sergey Botalov presumed the formation of a Hun-Sarmatian mixed culture in the Ural region before the appearance of Huns in Europe22, which fits the significant Sarmatian ancestry detected in our Hun samples, though this ancestry had been present in late Xiongnus as well. Thus our data are in accordance with the Xiongnu ancestry of European Huns, claimed by several historians. We also detected Goth- or other German-type genomes among our Hun period samples, again consistent with historical sources."
Avars
"Our data are compatible with the Rouran origin of Avar elite, though the single low coverage Rouran genome provided a poor fit in the qpAm models. The elite preserved very ancient east Asian genomes with undisputable origin, as had been also inferred from Y-Hg data, however just half of the Avar-cline individuals had Avar_Asia_Core ancestry, implicating diverse origin of the Avar population. Our models
indicate that the Avars incorporated groups with Xiongnu/Hun_Asia_Core and Iranian ancestries, presumably the remnants of the European Huns and Alans or other Iranian peoples on the Pontic Steppe, as suggested by Kim 2013. People with different origin were
seemingly distinguished, as samples with Hun-related genomes were buried in separate cemeteries."
Hungarian Conquerors
"The Conquerors, who arrived in the Carpathian Basin after the Avars, had distinct genomic background with elevated levels of western Eurasian admixture. They carried very similar genomes to modern Bashkirs and Tatars, in agreement with our previous results from
uniparental markers. Their genomes were shaped by several admixture events, of which the most fundamental was the Mezhovskaya-Nganasan admixture around the late Bronze Age, leading to the formation of a “proto-Ugric” gene pool. This was part of a general
demographic process, when most Steppe_MLBA populations received an eastern Khovsgol related Siberian influx together with a BMAC influx, and ANA related admixture became ubiquitous on the eastern Steppe establishing the Scytho-Siberian gene pool. Consequently
proto-Ugric groups could be part of the early Scytho-Siberian societies of the late Bronze Age-early Iron Age steppe-forest zone in the northern Kazakhstan region, in the proximity of the Mezhovskaya territory.
Our data support linguistic models, which predicted that Conquerors and Mansis had a common early history. Then Mansis migrated northward, probably during the Iron Age, and in isolation they preserved their Bronze-Age genomes. In contrast the Conquerors stayed
at the steppe-forest zone and admixed with Iranian speaking early Sarmatians, also attested by the presence of Iranian loanwords in the Hungarian language. This admixture likely happened when Sarmatians rose to power and started to integrate their neighboring tribes
before they occupied the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.
All analysis congruently indicated, that the ancestors of Conquerors further admixed with a group from Mongolia, carrying Han-ANA related ancestry, which could be identified with early European Huns, compelling reconsideration of written historical sources about the
Hun-Hungarian relations. It is to be examined, how this genetic link is related to reports in medieval Hungarian chronicles about the Hun ancestry of the Conqueror elite, which according to the current state of historiography is not sufficiently supported. This admixture
could happen before the Huns arrived to the Volga region and integrated local tribes east of the Urals, including Sarmatians and the ancestors of Conquerors. These data are compatible with a Conqueror homeland around the Ural region, in the vicinity of early Sarmatians, along the migration route of the Huns, as had been surmised from the phylogenetic connections between the Conquerors and individuals of the Kushnarenkovo-Karayakupovo culture in the Trans-Uralic Uyelgi cemetery. Recently a Nganasan-like shared Siberian genetic ancestry was detected in all Uralic-speaking populations, Hungarians being an exception. Our data fills this gap, as Conq_Asia_Core has high Nganasan ancestry, notwithstanding this is negligible in modern Hungarians, partly because of the substantially smaller number of immigrants compared to the local population."
Source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...915v1.full.pdf
Originally Posted by Dunai
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