The genetic origin of Huns, Avars, and conquering Hungarians

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.04.093
• Publication Date: 2022-05-25T15:17:43Z
• Authors: Zoltán Maróti; Endre Neparáczki; Oszkár Schütz; Kitti Maár; Gergely I.B. Varga; Bence Kovács; Tibor Kalmár; Emil Nyerki; István Nagy; Dóra Latinovics; Balázs Tihanyi; Antónia Marcsik; György Pálfi; Zsolt Bernert; Zsolt Gallina; Ciprián Horváth; Sándor Varga; László Költő; István Raskó; Péter L. Nagy; Csilla Balogh; Albert Zink; Frank Maixner; Anders Götherström; Robert George; Csaba Szalontai; Gergely Szenthe; Erwin Gáll; Attila P. Kiss; Bence Gulyás; Bernadett Ny. Kov...; Szilárd Sándor Gál; Péter Tomka; Tibor Török
• Keywords: CONQUEST; Gene pool

Huns, Avars, and conquering Hungarians were migration-period nomadic tribal confederations that arrived in three successive waves the Carpathian Basin between 5th 9th centuries. Based on historical data, each of these groups are thought to have from Asia, although their exact origin relation other ancient modern populations been debated. Recently, hundreds genomes analyzed Central Mongolia, China, which we aimed identify putative source for above-mentioned groups. In this study, sequenced 9 Hun, 143 Avar, 113 Hungarian conquest period samples identified core populations, representing immigrants with no recent European ancestry. Our results reveal "immigrant core" both Huns Avars likely originated present day can be traced back Xiongnus (Asian Huns), as suggested by several historians. On hand, derived an earlier admixture Mansis, early Sarmatians, descendants late Xiongnus. We also shown a common "proto-Ugric" gene pool appeared Bronze Age Mezhovskaya Nganasan people, supporting genetic linguistic data. addition, detected shared Hun-related ancestry numerous Avar outliers, indicating link Aside immigrant groups, majority individuals local residents harboring "native European"