PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Carlos Eduardo G. Amorim
AU  - Stefania Vai
AU  - Cosimo Posth
AU  - Alessandra Modi
AU  - István Koncz
AU  - Susanne Hakenbeck
AU  - Maria Cristina La Rocca
AU  - Balazs Mende
AU  - Dean Bobo
AU  - Walter Pohl
AU  - Luisella Pejrani Baricco
AU  - Elena Bedini
AU  - Paolo Francalacci
AU  - Caterina Giostra
AU  - Tivadar Vida
AU  - Daniel Winger
AU  - Uta von Freeden
AU  - Silvia Ghirotto
AU  - Martina Lari
AU  - Guido Barbujani
AU  - Johannes Krause
AU  - David Caramelli
AU  - Patrick J. Geary
AU  - Krishna R. Veeramah
TI  - Understanding 6th-Century Barbarian Social Organization and Migration through Paleogenomics
AID  - 10.1101/268250
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 268250
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/20/268250.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/20/268250.full
AB  - Despite centuries of research, much about the barbarian migrations that took place between the fourth and sixth centuries in Europe remains hotly debated. To better understand this key era that marks the dawn of modern European societies, we obtained ancient genomic DNA from 63 samples from two cemeteries (from Hungary and Northern Italy) that have been previously associated with the Longobards, a barbarian people that ruled large parts of Italy for over 200 years after invading from Pannonia in 568 CE. Our dense cemetery-based sampling revealed that each cemetery was primarily organized around one large pedigree, suggesting that biological relationships played an important role in these early Medieval societies. Moreover, we identified genetic structure in each cemetery involving at least two groups with different ancestry that were very distinct in terms of their funerary customs. Finally, our data was consistent with the proposed long-distance migration from Pannonia to Northern Italy.