In the 6th century, Avars from Central Asia penetrated into Central Europe and settled there. DNA analyzes of a good 700 dead from two neighboring burial grounds south of Vienna now reveal how culture and people mixed back then. Although there was great cultural and social similarity between the two neighboring towns, there was an almost complete genetic separation that lasted for generations: in one, almost only people of Avar descent lived, and in the other, Europeans.
The Avars were a Central Asian pastoralist people who populated the steppe areas north of the Black Sea until the middle of the 6th century. Their distribution area extended into what is now Mongolia. From 553 onwards, however, Turkish tribal groups invaded the Avar region and drove them westwards. As a result, the Avars migrated to East Central Europe. Their initially warlike advance culminated in a failed siege of Constantinople in 626, but later a peaceful coexistence developed between the Avars, who also settled along what is now the Austrian Danube valley and in the foothills of the Alps, and the long-established Europeans.
Focus on burial grounds of two neighboring towns
Numerous finds of typical Avar metal art, as well as local costumes, place names and bridles, bear witness to the presence and great cultural influence of the Avars, even after the destruction of their empire by the Franks around the year 800. However, despite this rich archaeological heritage, the Avar period raises many questions, especially regarding the way in which immigrants from Asia lived together with their European neighbors. In order to provide more clarity, an international research team led by Ke Wang from Fudan University in China and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig genetically and archaeologically examined two large burial grounds from the Avar period.
The burial grounds of Mödling and Leobersdorf, which are only around 20 kilometers apart, are located south of Vienna and contain the graves of a total of 722 dead from the 7th and 8th centuries. Archaeological finds in these graves show that primarily people from the Avar culture were buried there. According to the examinations of the dead, there were no conflicts between the ethnic groups in this area; Avars and long-established residents apparently lived in peaceful coexistence. “We found no injuries on the skeletons that could be traced back to fighting, and there are hardly any signs of deficiency symptoms,” explains co-author Doris Pany-Kucera from the Natural History Museum Vienna.
Culturally the same, but genetically separate
The results of the DNA analyzes were all the more surprising: “We found that these two neighboring places had highly different genetic ancestry despite their common cultural background and the same social practices,” report Wang and her team. While 72 percent of the dead buried in Leobersdorf were of East Asian descent, in Mödling there were almost exclusively graves of people of European origin. “The genetic differences between these groups were very clear,” says Wang.
Despite spatial proximity and cultural similarities, genetically separate populations lived in these neighboring towns: they did not marry each other and did not move from one village to the other. Further analysis shows that this genetic isolation lasted for more than six generations. “However, status symbols such as belt fittings with griffins as well as their culture and customs were identical. It is very likely that both groups considered themselves Avars,” says co-author Bendeguz Tobias from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Close family relationships between the dead within the two burial grounds also allowed the research team to reconstruct the social structure of the two communities.
Avar women came from far away
These comparative analyzes showed that the early medieval residents of Mödling and Leobersdorf were not only similar in their material culture, both were also organized patrilineally and patrilocally. According to this, the men stayed locally, but mainly married women who moved from further away areas. “Leobersdorf had more biological connections with the core area of the Avars than with neighboring Mödling,” report the researchers. The genetic barrier that lasted for generations was apparently maintained by the fact that the men of Leobersdorf, who were descended from Avars, systematically selected their wives from places in the Avar region.
Wang and her colleagues say these results demonstrate that cultural assimilation, ethnic integration and genetic mixing do not necessarily occur at the same pace. “This study provides the astonishing example of a genetic barrier between culturally closely related Avar communities. “This highlights how much we can still learn about ancient human societies by combining analyzes of ancient DNA with historical, anthropological and archaeological approaches,” comments Michelle Trenkmann, senior editor of Nature.
Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Specialist article: Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08418-5