Understanding 6th-century barbarian social organization and migration through paleogenomics

Despite centuries of research, much about the barbarian migrations that took place between\r\nthe fourth and sixth centuries in Europe remains hotly debated. To better understand this key\r\nera that marks the dawn of modern European societies, we obtained ancient genomic DNA\r\nfrom 63 samples from two cemeteries (from Hungary and Northern Italy) that have been\r\npreviously associated with the Longobards, a barbarian people that ruled large parts of Italy\r\nfor over 200 years after invading from Pannonia in 568 CE. Our dense cemetery-based\r\nsampling revealed that each cemetery was primarily organized around one large pedigree,\r\nsuggesting that biological relationships played an important role in these early medieval\r\nsocieties. Moreover, we identified genetic structure in each cemetery involving at least two\r\ngroups with different ancestry that were very distinct in terms of their funerary customs.\r\nFinally, our data are consistent with the proposed long-distance migration from Pannonia to\r\nNorthern Italy.