Abstract
We applied ancient DNA methods to shed light on the origin of ancient Hungarians and their relation to modern populations. Hungarians moved into the Carpathian Basin from the Eurasian Pontic steppes in the year 895 AD as a confederation of seven tribes, but their further origin remains obscure. Here, we present 17 mtDNA haplotypes and four Y-chromosome haplogroups, which portray the genetic composition of an entire small cemetery of the first generation Hungarians. Using novel algorithms to compare these mitochondrial DNA haplogroups with other ancient and modern Eurasian data, we revealed that a significant portion of the Hungarians probably originated from a long ago consolidated gene pool in Central Asia-South Siberia, which still persists in modern Hungarians. Another genetic layer of the early Hungarians was obtained during their westward migrations by admixing with various populations of European origin, and an important component of these was derived from the Caucasus region. Most of the modern populations, which are genetically closest relatives of ancient Hungarians, today speak non-Indo-European languages. Our results contribute to our understanding of the peopling of Europe by providing ancient DNA data from a still genetically poorly studied period of medieval human migrations.
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Acknowledgement
The generous support of Avicenna Foundation Grant No. GF/JSZF/814/9/2015 to I.R. and encouragement of Professor Miklos Maroth is highly appreciated. This research was also supported in part by OTKANN 78696, OTKA K78555, Hungary-Romania Cross-Border Co-operation Programme No. HURO/1101/173/2.2.1, and Campus Hungary grant B2/1SZ/18826. Niall O´Sullivan is highly acknowledged for his technical support in the ancient DNA laboratory.
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438_2016_1267_MOESM3_ESM.xlsx
Online Resource 3 (ESM_3): Results of the autosomal STR analysis obtained with the PowerPlex ESX 17 system and Y-chromosomal STR results obtained with the PowerPlex Y23 amplification kit (XLSX 13 kb)
438_2016_1267_MOESM4_ESM.xlsx
Online Resource 4 (ESM_4): Haplogroup frequency database of 111 modern (n = 20748) and 35 ancient (n = 1072) Eurasian populations used in the population genetic analyses, with references (XLSX 57 kb)
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Online Resource 5 (ESM_5): Mean Hg distributions of the seven clusters created by the SOC algorithm, and list of populations belonging to the clusters (JPEG 486 kb)
438_2016_1267_MOESM6_ESM.xls
Online Resource 6 (ESM_6): Weighted Euclidean distances of Hg distributions of 111 modern and 35 ancient populations listed in Online Resource 4 (ESM_4) calculated with the MDS algorithm (XLS 398 kb)
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Neparáczki, E., Juhász, Z., Pamjav, H. et al. Genetic structure of the early Hungarian conquerors inferred from mtDNA haplotypes and Y-chromosome haplogroups in a small cemetery. Mol Genet Genomics 292, 201–214 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-016-1267-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-016-1267-z