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National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 13(115), p. 3494-3499, 2018

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1719880115

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Population genomic analysis of elongated skulls reveals extensive female-biased immigration in Early Medieval Bavaria

Journal article published in 2018 by Krishna R. Veeramah, Andreas Rott, Melanie Groß, Lucy van Dorp ORCID, Saioa López, Karola Kirsanow, Christian Sell, Jens Blöcher, Daniel Wegmann ORCID, Vivian Link, Zuzana Hofmanová, Joris Peters ORCID, Bernd Trautmann, Anja Gairhos, Jochen Haberstroh and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Significance Many modern European states trace their roots back to a period known as the Migration Period that spans from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. We have conducted the first population-level analysis of people from this era, generating genomic data from 41 graves from archaeological sites in present-day Bavaria in southern Germany mostly dating to around 500 AD. While they are predominantly of northern/central European ancestry, we also find significant evidence for a nonlocal genetic provenance that is highly enriched among resident Early Medieval women, demonstrating artificial skull deformation. We infer that the most likely origin of the majority of these women was southeastern Europe, resolving a debate that has lasted for more than half a century.