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IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 501: Integrating Genetic, Archaeological, and Historical Perspectives on Eastern Central Europe, 400-900 (HistoGenes), I: Families, Peoples, and Mobility

Tuesday 5 July 2022, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:ERC Synergy Grant Project 'HistoGenes'
Organiser:Walter Pohl, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Moderator/Chair:Bonnie Effros, Department of History, University of Liverpool
Paper 501-aEarly Medieval History and the Genetic Challenge: The Aims of the HistoGenes Project
(Language: English)
Walter Pohl, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Index terms: Anthropology, Archaeology - General, Archaeology - Sites, Geography and Settlement Studies
Paper 501-bInferring Large Pedigrees and Mobility Patterns from the Analysis of Early Medieval Genomes
(Language: English)
Zuzana Hofmanová, Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Leipzig
Index terms: Anthropology, Archaeology - Sites, Geography and Settlement Studies, Science
Paper 501-cThe Role of Kinship in the Formation of Early Medieval Communities
(Language: English)
István Koncz, Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Index terms: Archaeology - General, Archaeology - Sites, Social History
Abstract

The use of genetic methods in the historical disciplines is controversial, not least because of the rather unreflective way in which geneticists often interpret their results. The HistoGenes Project, funded by an ERC Synergy Grant and uniting scholars from all disciplines involved, seeks to establish new methods across disciplinary boundaries. To get new clues about mobility, family relations, ethnic groupings and life conditions, we analyse biological, material and written evidence from separate vantage points but in a common matrix. Large-scale ancient DNA analysis of complete cemeteries can yield new evidence, but it cannot in itself detect families or ethnic groups. Confronting it with the archaeological and written record will help to discuss to what extent biological and cultural groupings overlap, both at micro-level (families, kin-groups) and macro-level (cultural communities, ethnic groups).