Ancient nomads you’ve probably never heard of disappeared from Europe 1,000 years ago. Now, DNA analysis reveals how they lived

• For centuries, our main sources of information have been pottery sherds, burial sites and ancient texts.
• But the study of ancient DNA is changing what we know about the human past, and what we can know.

Who were the Avars?

The Avars were a nomadic people originating from eastern central Asia. From the 6th to the 9th century CE, they wielded power over much of eastern central Europe.

• The Avars are renowned among archaeologists for their distinctive belt garnitures, but their broader legacy has been overshadowed by predecessors such as the Huns.
• Nevertheless, Avar burial sites provide invaluable insights into their customs and way of life.

Kinship patterns, social practices and population dynamics

• We combined ancient DNA data with archaeological, anthropological and historical context.
• As a result, we have been able to reconstruct extensive pedigrees, shedding light on kinship patterns, social practices and population dynamics of this enigmatic period.

We sampled all available human remains from four fully excavated Avar-era cemeteries, including those at Rákóczifalva and Hajdúnánás in what is now Hungary. This resulted in a meticulous analysis of 424 individuals. Around 300 of these individuals had close relatives buried in the same cemetery. This allowed us to reconstruct multiple extensive pedigrees spanning up to nine generations and 250 years.

Communities were organised around main fathers’ lines

• Our results suggest Avar society ran on a strict system of descent through the father’s line (patrilineal descent).
• In contrast, women played a crucial role in fostering social ties by marrying outside their family’s community.
• Our study also revealed a transition in the main line of descent within Rákóczifalva, when one pedigree took over from another.
• Our results show an apparent genetic continuity can mask the replacement of entire communities.

Future direction of research

Our study, carried out with researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, is part of a larger project called HistoGenes funded by the European Research Council. This project shows we can use ancient DNA to examine entire communities, rather than just individuals. We think there is a lot more we can learn.

• Now we aim to deepen our understanding of ancestral Avar society by expanding our research over a wider geographical area within the Avar realm.
• Additionally, we plan to study evidence of pathogens and disease among the individuals in this research, to understand more about their health and lives.
• Another avenue of research is improving the dating of Avar sites.

• Bunbury receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) (project number CE170100015).
• Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 856453.