From ad 567–568, at the onset of the Avar period, populations from the Eurasian Steppe
settled in the Carpathian Basin for approximately 250 years 1 . Extensive sampling
for archaeogenomics (424 individuals) and isotopes, combined with archaeological,
anthropological and historical contextualization of four Avar-period cemeteries, allowed
for a detailed description of the genomic structure of these communities and their
kinship and social practices. We present a set of large pedigrees, reconstructed using
ancient DNA, spanning nine generations and comprising around 300 individuals. We uncover
a strict patrilineal kinship system, in which patrilocality and female exogamy were
the norm and multiple reproductive partnering and levirate unions were common. The
absence of consanguinity indicates that this society maintained a detailed memory
of ancestry over generations. These kinship practices correspond with previous evidence
from historical sources and anthropological research on Eurasian Steppe societies
2 . Network analyses of identity-by-descent DNA connections suggest that social cohesion
between communities was maintained via female exogamy. Finally, despite the absence
of major ancestry shifts, the level of resolution of our analyses allowed us to detect
genetic discontinuity caused by the replacement of a community at one of the sites.
This was paralleled with changes in the archaeological record and was probably a result
of local political realignment.
