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Monday, January 23, 2017

Ancient DNA evidence of an emerging noble class in early medieval Southern Germany

Some interesting news from 7th century AD Bavaria at the AJPA:

Rott et al., Early medieval stone-lined graves in Southern Germany: analysis of an emerging noble class

The paper's about kinship and social structure, and not geared for ancient population genetics. But the Y-chromosome haplogroups include R1b (7), I1 (2), I2b1 (2), and I2b, and the mitochondrial haplogroups include T2f (6), H2a2 (3), H1b, HV0*, U3a and U5a. Keep in mind that many of these samples are close relatives.


Rob said...

Wjere are the Hgs listed ?

rozenfag said...

@Rob: Tables 2 and 3.

Romulus said...

7th Century AD makes these haplogroups of the Frankish nobility.

Chad Rohlfsen said...

Suebians, not Franks.

Rob said...

Thanks Rosen

Romulius, IIRC, only the Duke was replaced by the franks. The remaining nobility was still local "Suebic" Bavarians.

Romulus said...

I was only going off of wikipedia so I defer to the more knowledgeable amongst us. That is some Steppe looking mtdna.

Chad Rohlfsen said...

Dukes were also probably Suebi, but possibly appointed by Franks towards the end of the 7th Century.

Rob said...

But Garibald was Burgundo-Frankish. The Stone slabbed funerary architecture is also suggestive of that (Arno Rettner et al)

Chad Rohlfsen said...

I don't know about that. Very doubtful. Franks were always meddling there and even sent forces after him, causing his kids to flee to Italy.

Samuel Andrews said...

They only tested the HVR-1 region of these ancients mtDNA. Some of the haplogroups they designated samples to are wrong. Here are the actual results. The paper says 21 individuals were tested but they presented mtDNA results for 23 individuals.

H dominates like in modern Europeans and unlike in Late Neolithic Germans. H dominates in Iron age Polish and Scandinavian mtDNA aswell. So there's already evidence natural selection favoured H in Bronze age Europe which caused it to rise in frequency.

H or HV6-17=4



Davidski said...


Two of the researches were also tested.

Samuel Andrews said...

I1 has been found in several ancient Germanic speakers....

300-400 AD, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
600-700 AD, York, England
700-800 AD, Bavaria, Germany

And So far 3 out of 6 Bronze age/Late Neolithic(xCorded Ware) Scandinavian Y DNA is I1. So......maybe proto-Germans did live in Scandinavia.

I2a2a, which was found in these royal Bavarians, is somewhat popular in Germany and might be descended of the Unetice and Bronze age Hungarian I2.

Samuel Andrews said...

"Two of the researches were also tested."

I didn't include the researchers. I don't know what's up.

Rob said...

@ Chad.

I can only fall to local authorities:

"ach jahrzehntelanger Diskussion besteht mittlerweile immerhin ein weitgehender Konsens, daß es sich bei den Agilolfingern um eine hochadelige Familie gehandelt hat, die aus den Kerngebieten des Merowingerreichs stammte" Hubert Fehr.

Romulus said...

Certainly some poor quality testing AND no autosomal...

Romulus said...


So they are Merovingian then?

FrankN said...

Romulus - see here:

I have never been much into nobility genealogy, but apparently all that cross-intermarrying already started in the early medieval.

FrankN said...

yDNA I2b2 dominated the LBA/ early Hallstatt Lichtenstein Cave (west of the copper and silver-rich Harz, overlooking the Hamburg-Munich motorway, rich grave goods).
Lichtenstein mtDNA was 17 H, 9 U5b, 5 T2, 5 J (not corrected for relatedness, which was quite substantial; possibly, there weren't more than 6-7 male lineages present).

J. S. said...

Ancient DNA and kinship analysis of human remains deposited in
Merovingian necropolis sarcophagi (Jau Dignac et Loirac, France,
7th_8th century AD)

André de Vasconcelos said...

Would be interesting to compare these to contemporary NW Iberian elite samples, since the area was settle by Suebi aswell, and according to wiki the Agilolfings were descended from the king of suebic Gallaecia. Unfortunetly there is probably no info on this, though.

Rob said...

@ Rom

Not these general nobility, only the ducatal ruling family. I don't think they have been tested yet

Marcello said...

The calculation of the Y-Haplogroup for the Individual WB32 with results in R1a instead of I2b1. I'am not sure if it's correct. Please help. Is I2b not an old haplogroup, which isn't valide anymore?