Archaeogenetic research on the Avar Period
The research on ancient DNA has greatly contributed to understanding the genetic background and social organisation of the Avar people and their elite.
The biological connection network maintained by the Avar elite once residing in the Danube–Tisza Interfluve was a key to sustaining political stability. All reconstructed family trees show paternal descent, indicating that tracking ancestors on the male line was pivotal for social cohesion both regionally and for the whole society. The results of the mitochondrial DNA analyses, tracking the maternal line, point to the Far East and outline elite Avar families who had arrived in the Carpathian Basin in groups and kept inmarrying for generations after that. Full genome mapping results have revealed that the Avars paid attention to avoid marriages between close (first to fifth-degree) kin, and outlined that they migrated through Eurasia relatively quickly: the members of the Avar elite originated from Inner Asia and crossed Eurasia swiftly to get to the Carpathian Basin, covering 5,000 km from today’s Mongolia to the Caucasus in only six years and settling in the land what is Hungary now only a decade after that. Their migration is one of the fastest large-scale population movements in the history of mankind, and it could be reconstructed by exploiting the information potential of ancient DNA.
Differences could be grasped between the genetic compositions of the populations inhabiting the Danube–Tisza Interfluve and the Trans-Tisza Region, as well as between the populations of the Early and Middle and Late Avar periods. In the second half of the 7th and throughout the 8th century AD, the Danube–Tisza Interfluve was home, besides some groups of Inner Asian origin, to people with fundamentally European genetic characteristics. Compared to this area, the proportion of the Asian components was lower, and the genetic composition of the population more heterogenous in the Trans-Tisza Region. For example, the genetic record of the mortuary community of the cemetery unearthed at Rákóczifalva near Szolnok reflects a major population change in the 7th century AD, likely in context with a realignment of power within the Avar Khaganate.
The research of ancient DNA enables us to understand, besides biological connections, the social interactions that formed the communities of the Avars in the 7th and 8th centuries AD. The results of this discipline greatly improve our understanding of how these ancient societies worked and what genetic and cultural factors influenced their rise and decline.
Principal component analysis (PCA) displaying the genetic composition of important persons and some communities from the Avar Period. Every symbol marks one individual; grey dots represent recent (living) people whose data were added for comparison, a 'background' for ancient DNA data. On the right side of the chart, a genetically homogenous cluster of Avars (from Kunpeszér, Kunbábony, and Petőfiszállás) can be seen, whose genetic composition is very similar to recent peoples in Northeast Asia. Starting from there, the marks of the Avar Period people from the Carpathian Basin appear in a narrow zone pointing towards the European peoples on the left side, marking a genetic gradient. The wider sections of this zone reflect mixing with peoples other than Inner Asian and European. Based on the analysis of the Rákóczifalva cemetery, even a single community had relatively high genetic variability.
Kinship relationships
In context with the making of this exhibition, a relatively large set of DNA samples could be analysed from the cemetery unearthed at Kecskemét–Mindszenti-dűlő. Most of the 24 investigated individuals were not closely related biologically. Still, two families could be outlined in the southeastern part of the cemetery, whose members were interred close to each other. All identified members of these families are adults; one is represented by two brothers, while the other by a man and his son and daughter.
Overview of the origin of the genetic components in the analysed DNA samples.
As part of the preparation of this exhibition, genetic samples from 7th–8th-century AD graves from Bácsalmás, Hajós, Kecskemét–Mindszenti-dűlő, and Szentkirály were subjected to analysis. The results were compared with a reference panel of sample sets representing the one-time populations of the regions marked in the legend above the chart. Based on that, the dominant components in the genomes of the analysed Avar Period individuals were European variants, and they likely had ancestors in Eastern Central Europe; however, their biological connections highly vary within Europe, with both the paternal and maternal lines being heterogeneous. The single individual with a significant Inner Asian component in his genome was a killed man discovered in Szentkirály (Skeleton 17D), whose skull displays mongoloid characteristics and who is similar to the members included in the analysis of the Avar elite (from Kunbábony, Szalkszentmárton, Petőfiszállás, and Kecskemét–Sallai Road). These results corroborate the picture outlined by the PCA analysis.