In 2003-2004, excavations on the outskirts of Balatonkeresztúr along the M7 motorway, led by Szilvia Fábián, revealed Bronze Age graves at a multi-stage site. In cooperation with the research program of the Momentum Mobility Research Group of the HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeology led by Viktória Kiss, the human remains from the graves were genetically analyzed by the researchers of the HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeogenomics. The results have recently been published in the Oxford Academic Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution by Dániel Gerber et al.
Due to the constantly changing water levels of Lake Balaton over millennia, the finds from the Balatonkeresztúr site can be divided into well-separated archaeological horizons. The radiocarbon-dated burials of this study were left by communities belonging to the Somogyvár-Vinkovci, Kisapostag and Encrusted Pottery cultures between ~2560 and ~1620 BC. The youngest phase within this Bronze Age horizon contained a mass grave of eight people, which was the starting point for the archaeogenomic investigations. These settlement pit inhumations are extremely rare in the light of the frequent cremation practices in the corresponding period.
The primary aim of the whole genome study was to uncover the population history events that took place over a time span of almost thousand years. The results show that the genome of the earliest individual that belongs to the Somogyvár-Vinkovci culture, is the one-third mixture of the autochthonous population of southern Transdanubia, and two-third mixture of a previously uncharacterised branch of the presumably Indo-European speaking steppe populations, probably from the Baltic region. In genetic terms, the population represented by this individual was more similar to the modern communities in the Balkans, rather than to the one associated with the Kisapostag culture, which displaced them from the region sometime around 2200 BC. Based on a whole genome analysis of 11 remains, this newcomer population had an unprecedentedly high so-called ancient hunter-gatherer genetic ancestry compared to contemporaneous populations in Europe.
The history of hunter-gatherers goes back to pre-glacial times. They were the indigenous people of Europe before the spread of agriculture, who were gradually absorbed into the new farming groups arriving from the Middle East from the 7th millennium BC onwards. The last isolated communities are known to have disappeared from Europe by the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. However, genetic analysis on the Kisapostag associated population has radically extended their - genetic - survival. The analyzed population originates from a largely intact hunter-gatherer source in Eastern Europe prior to their appearance in Transdanubia. It is important to note that a recent, parallel study (Chylenski et al. 2023) also recognised the importance of this genetic component, based on the data from the Eastern European region, but they linked this source to the Baltic region, whereas present publication points to a previously unknown source in present-day western Ukraine/Moldova.
"By following the genetic traces, we have been able to detect several appearances of this very ancestry from contemporaneous populations and mostly outliers found in Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States. These results are going to help to resolve a number of archaeological and archaeogenetic discrepancies concerning European prehistory," emphasized Dániel Gerber.
The individuals found in the mass grave belonging to the Encrusted Pottery culture, who presumably died of an - as yet undetected - epidemic , were direct descendants of the Kisapostag culture community. In addition, maternal admixture with the autochthonous population of the region (unrelated to the Somogyvár-Vinkovci culture) has been detected, resulting in the decline of their peculiar hunter-gatherer ancestry. Both the Kisapostag and Encrusted Pottery populations had a strong patriarchal social structure. In the light of previous studies on the Encrusted Pottery culture (Freilich et al. 2021), these communities may have been patrilocal, likely forming regionally distinct, clan-like superfamilies. This group became famous in the Carpathian Basin primarily for its highly decorated pottery. "According to our results, smaller groups of this culture appeared in other regions of Central Europe. For example, the remains of the warriors recovered in Tollensee, Germany, who were the victims of the first known European war (around 1300 BC) but based on strontium isotope analyses originated from the vicinity of Prague, were largely descended from this population" as Viktória Kiss highlighted.
Despite the fact that the population movements of the past four thousand years have almost completely wiped out this Bronze Age population, some Hungarian paternal descendants do appear in the databases, indicating that they contributed, albeit marginally, to the genetic composition of the modern-day Hungarian population.
In addition to the population genetics results, the publication also contains a number of methodological innovations, including research on genetic diseases. The results revealed the first prehistoric individual identified with Jacobs syndrome, a genetic disorder with two Y chromosomes, colloquially referred to as "super male". This name refers to the presumed violent tendency of males with two Y chromosomes but in fact, this condition has not been shown to have such an effect. Also, among the new findings is the earliest ever identified pair of dizygotic twins from Balatonkeresztúr: the remains of a boy and a girl, aged 1.5-2 years, found in the mass grave. Other genetic disorders have also been identified , such as the Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), Lig4 syndrome, which causes physical and mental retardation, HSP (Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia), which causes muscle stiffness and mobility impairment, as well as susceptibility to autism. Despite the fact that in most cases, there is only circumstantial evidence for the actual onset of symptoms, these findings will contribute to the epidemiological research of inheritable disorders.
Owing to the work of Ágnes Kustár, who recently passed away, a reconstruction of the face of a woman from the Kisapostag culture, nicknamed as Jelena, by the researchers, could be created. "This is not only the first female facial reconstruction from the Bronze Age in Hungary, but also the first from the Bronze Age of the Central and Eastern European region, which has been supplemented by genetic information on pigmentation markers (eye colour, hair colour and skin tone)," added Anna Szécsényi-Nagy.
The study and articles cited in the text:
- Dániel Gerber, Bea Szeifert, Orsolya Székely, Balázs Egyed, Balázs Gyuris, Julia I Giblin, Anikó Horváth, Kitti Köhler, Gabriella Kulcsár, Ágnes Kustár, István Major, Mihály Molnár, László Palcsu, Vajk Szeverényi, Szilvia Fábián, Balázs Gusztáv Mende, Mária Bondár, Eszter Ari, Viktória Kiss, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy: Interdisciplinary Analyses of Bronze Age Communities from Western Hungary Reveal Complex Population Histories. Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 40, Issue 9, September 2023, msad182, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad182
- Chyleński M, Makarowicz P, Juras A, Krzewińska M, Pospieszny Ł, Ehler E, Breszka A, Górski J, Taras H, Szczepanek A, Polańska M, Włodarczak P, Lasota-Kuś A, Wójcik I, Romaniszyn J, Szmyt M, Kośko A, Ignaczak M, Sadowski S, Matoga A, Grossman A, Ilchyshyn V, Yahodinska MO, Romańska A, Tunia K, Przybyła M, Grygiel R, Szostek K, Dabert M, Götherström A, Jakobsson M, Malmström H. Patrilocality and hunter-gatherer-related ancestry of populations in East-Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age. Nature Communications 2023 Aug 1;14(1):4395. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40072-9https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40072-9. PMID: 37528090; PMCID: PMC10393988.
- Freilich S., Ringbauer H., Los D., Novak M., Pavičić, D. T. et al. Reconstructing genetic histories and social organisation in Neolithic and Bronze Age Croatia. Scientific Reports 11, 2021, 16729. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94932-9https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94932-9 (08.06.2023).
Collaborating institutions in the research:
- HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeogenomics
- HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeology
- ELTE Faculty of Science, Department of Genetics
- Rippl-Rónai Museum (Kaposvár)
- Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum
Further informations:
Dániel Gerber
Viktória Kiss
