Ancient DNA unlocks new understanding of migrations in the first millennium AD

A new study published in Nature reveals waves of human migration across Europe during the first millennium AD using a more precise method of analysing ancestry with ancient DNA. Led by Leo Speidel, former Sir Henry Wellcome postdoctoral researcher at the Crick and UCL and now group leader at RIKEN, Japan, alongside Pontus Skoglund at the Francis Crick Institute, this study reports a new data analysis method called Twigstats, that uses reconstructed ‘whole genome genealogies’ to quantify the differences between genetically similar groups more precisely. Applied to over 1500 ancient genomes, the new approach reveals previously unknown details of migrations in Europe during the first millennium AD (year 1 to 1000), encompassing the Iron Age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the early medieval ‘Migration Period’ and the Viking Age.

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