RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Maternal Genetic Ancestry and Legacy of 10th Century AD Hungarians JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 056655 DO 10.1101/056655 A1 Csősz, Aranka A1 Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna A1 Csákyová, Veronika A1 Langó, Péter A1 Bódis, Viktória A1 Köhler, Kitti A1 Tömöry, Gyöngyver A1 Nagy, Melinda A1 Mende, Balázs Gusztáv YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/06/02/056655.abstract AB The ancient Hungarians originated from the Ural region in today’s central Russia and migrated across the Eastern European steppe, according to historical sources. The Hungarians conquered the Carpathian Basin 895-907 AD, and admixed with the indigenous communities.Here we present mitochondrial DNA results from three datasets: one from the Avar period (7-9th centuries) of the Carpathian Basin (n = 31); an almost four-fold enlarged dataset from the Hungarian conquest-period (n = 101); and one from the contemporaneous Hungarian-Slavic contact zone (n = 23). We compare these mitochondrial DNA hypervariable segment sequences and haplogroup results with other ancient and modern Eurasian data. Whereas the analyzed Avars represents a certain group of the Avar society that shows East and South European genetic characteristics, the Hungarian conquerors’ maternal gene pool is a mixture of West Eurasian and Central and North Eurasian elements. Comprehensively analyzing the results, both the linguistically recorded Finno-Ugric roots and historically documented Turkic and Central Asian influxes had possible genetic imprints in the conquerors’ genetic composition. Our data allows a complex series of historic and population genetic events before the formation of the medieval population of the Carpathian Basin, and the maternal genetic continuity between 10-12th centuries and modern Hungarians.