Ethnic Segregation In 8th Century Austria

The Avars from Asia Steppes and European farmers co-existed in segregated communities in the early Middle Ages in Austria for at least six generations.

Researchers carried out an archeogenetic study of human remains from more than 700 individuals from the Early Middle Ages. Two large burial sites, Modling and Leobersdorf, have been genetically analyzed in their entirety. The surprising result was that the individuals from Leobersdorf were mostly of East Asian origin, while those buried in Modling mostly had European ancestry. Both communities lived next to each other for at least six generations. . . . 

[The result] emerged from a genetic study of burial grounds from the Avar period in the 8th century CE. The Avars had arrived in the 6th century from the East Asian Steppes and settled in East Central Europe among a mixed population.

From Science Direct. The article quoted above is based upon the academic paper whose abstract and citation are provided below:

After a long-distance migration, Avars with Eastern Asian ancestry arrived in Eastern Central Europe in 567 to 568 CE and encountered groups with very different European ancestry. 

We used ancient genome-wide data of 722 individuals and fine-grained interdisciplinary analysis of large seventh- to eighth-century ce neighbouring cemeteries south of Vienna (Austria) to address the centuries-long impact of this encounter. We found that even 200 years after immigration, the ancestry at one site (Leobersdorf) remained dominantly East Asian-like, whereas the other site (Mödling) shows local, European-like ancestry. These two nearby sites show little biological relatedness, despite sharing a distinctive late-Avar culture. 

We reconstructed six-generation pedigrees at both sites including up to 450 closely related individuals, allowing per-generation demographic profiling of the communities. Despite different ancestry, these pedigrees together with large networks of distant relatedness show absence of consanguinity, patrilineal pattern with female exogamy, multiple reproductive partnerships (for example, levirate) and direct correlation of biological connectivity with archaeological markers of social status. The generation-long genetic barrier was maintained by systematically choosing partners with similar ancestry from other sites in the Avar realm. Leobersdorf had more biological connections with the Avar heartlands than with Mödling, which is instead linked to another site from the Vienna Basin with European-like ancestry. Mobility between sites was mostly due to female exogamy pointing to different marriage networks as the main driver of the maintenance of the genetic barrier.

Ke Wang, et al., "Ancient DNA reveals reproductive barrier despite shared Avar-period culture." Nature (January 15, 2025) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08418-5 (open access).