Author Correction: Genetic insights into the social organisation of the Avar period elite in the 7th century AD Carpathian Basin.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Genetic insights into the social organisation of the Avar period elite in the 7th century AD Carpathian Basin.

After 568 AD the Avars settled in the Carpathian Basin and founded the Avar Qaganate that was an important power in Central Europe until the 9th century. Part of the Avar society was probably of Asian origin; however, the localisation of their homeland is hampered by the scarcity of historical and archaeological data. Here, we study mitogenome and Y chromosomal variability of twenty-six individuals, a number of them representing a well-characterised elite group buried at the centre of the Carpathian Basin more than a century after the Avar conquest. The studied group has maternal and paternal genetic affinities to several ancient and modern East-Central Asian populations. The majority of the mitochondrial DNA variability represents Asian haplogroups (C, D, F, M, R, Y and Z). The Y-STR variability of the analysed elite males belongs only to five lineages, three N-Tat with mostly Asian parallels and two Q haplotypes. The homogeneity of the Y chromosomes reveals paternal kinship as a cohesive force in the organisation of the Avar elite strata on both social and territorial level. Our results indicate that the Avar elite arrived in the Carpathian Basin as a group of families, and remained mostly endogamous for several generations after the conquest.

Y-chromosome haplogroups from Hun, Avar and conquering Hungarian period nomadic people of the Carpathian Basin.

Hun, Avar and conquering Hungarian nomadic groups arrived to the Carpathian Basin from the Eurasian Steppes and significantly influenced its political and ethnical landscape, however their origin remains largely unknown. In order to shed light on the genetic affinity of above groups we have determined Y chromosomal haplogroups and autosomal loci, suitable to predict biogeographic ancestry, from 49 individuals, supposed to represent the power/military elit. Haplogroups from the Hun-age are consistent with Xiongnu ancestry of European Huns. Most of the Avar-age individuals carry east Eurasian Y haplogroups typical for modern north-eastern Siberian and Buryat populations and their autosomal loci indicate mostly un-admixed Asian characteristics. In contrast the conquering Hungarians seem to be a recently assembled population incorporating un-admixed European, Asian as well as admixed components. Their heterogeneous paternal and maternal lineages indicate similar supposed phylogeographic origin of males and females, derived from Central-Inner Asian and European Pontic Steppe sources.