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. 2021 Mar 23;12(3):460.
doi: 10.3390/genes12030460.

Maternal Lineages from 10-11th Century Commoner Cemeteries of the Carpathian Basin

Kitti Maár  1 , Gergely I B Varga  2 , Bence Kovács  2 , Oszkár Schütz  1 , Zoltán Maróti  2   3 , Tibor Kalmár  3 , Emil Nyerki  2   3 , István Nagy  4   5 , Dóra Latinovics  4 , Balázs Tihanyi  2   6 , Antónia Marcsik  6 , György Pálfi  6 , Zsolt Bernert  7 , Zsolt Gallina  8   9 , Sándor Varga  10 , László Költő  11 , István Raskó  12 , Tibor Török  1   2 , Endre Neparáczki  1   2
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Maternal Lineages from 10-11th Century Commoner Cemeteries of the Carpathian Basin

Kitti Maár et al. Genes (Basel). .

Abstract

Nomadic groups of conquering Hungarians played a predominant role in Hungarian prehistory, but genetic data are available only from the immigrant elite strata. Most of the 10-11th century remains in the Carpathian Basin belong to common people, whose origin and relation to the immigrant elite have been widely debated. Mitogenome sequences were obtained from 202 individuals with next generation sequencing combined with hybridization capture. Median joining networks were used for phylogenetic analysis. The commoner population was compared to 87 ancient Eurasian populations with sequence-based (Fst) and haplogroup-based population genetic methods. The haplogroup composition of the commoner population markedly differs from that of the elite, and, in contrast to the elite, commoners cluster with European populations. Alongside this, detectable sub-haplogroup sharing indicates admixture between the elite and the commoners. The majority of the 10-11th century commoners most likely represent local populations of the Carpathian Basin, which admixed with the eastern immigrant groups (which included conquering Hungarians).

Keywords: Carpathian Basin; Hungarian commoners; ancient mitogenome.

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Conflict of interest statement

I.N. and D.L. at SeqOmics Biotechnology Ltd. and Zs.G. at Ásatárs Ltd. had consulting positions during the time the study was conceived. SeqOmics Biotechnology Ltd. and Ásatárs Ltd. were not directly involved in the design and execution of the experiments or in the writing of the manuscript. This affiliation does not alter our adherence to Genes’ policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The locations of the graveyards of the Hungarian commoners (ConqC) under study. Sample size is indicated next to cemetery names; two numbers in Magyarhomorog and Szegvár indicate that two nearby cemeteries were sampled. The map was generated using QGIS 3.12.0 [10].
Figure 2
Figure 2
The phylogeographic origin of the ConqC maternal lineages from different cemeteries. Data are summarized from Figure S1 and from a previous study [6]. West Eurasian haplogroups (Hgs) are marked with pink, east Eurasian Hgs are marked with yellow, Eurasian Hgs are marked with green and Caucasus–Middle East Hgs are marked with brown. (A) Distribution of the merged data of 182 Hungarian commoner samples from all cemeteries. (B–G) The phylogeographic distribution of the maternal lineages from individual cemeteries: (B) Homokmégy-Székes (n = 34); (C) Püspökladány-Eperjesvölgy (n = 31); (D) Sárrétudvari-Hízóföld (n = 39); (E) Ibrány-Esbóhalom (n = 26); (F) Magyarhomorog-Kónyadomb (n = 26, with samples taken just from the commoner part); (G) Vörs-Papkert-B (n = 28, including all samples from this cemetery).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of the major Hg distributions from ancient Hungarian populations. The major Hg distribution of commoner samples (n = 182) from this study is distinct from that of Conqueror elite samples (n = 112) taken from previous studies [6,12,31], including elite data from Magyarhomorog in the present study. Brackets mark east Eurasian Hgs.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The principal component analysis (PCA) plot of the major mtDNA haplogroup distribution (distinguishing Hgs A, B, C, D, F, G, H, HV, I, J, K, L, M, N, N1a, N1b, R, T, T1, T2, U, U1, U2, U3, U4, U5, U6, U7, U8, V, W, X, Y and Z) of 88 Eurasian populations. The abbreviations of the population names are given in Table S4b. Color shadings denote geographic regions as indicated. ConqC and ConqE are highlighted with arrowheads. PC1 separates European populations to the left and Asian populations to the right side. PC2 separates Anatolian–Caucasus groups to the bottom and hunter–gatherers to the top.
Figure 5
Figure 5
A multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) plot from the linearized Slatkin Fst values from Table S5a. Abbreviations of the population names are given in Table S4b. European populations are sequestered to the left and Asian populations are sequestered to the bottom right. Color shading denotes geographic regions as indicated. ConqC and ConqE are highlighted with arrowheads.
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