The Demography of Two Early European Medieval Communities: Combining Genetic Data with “Classical” Demographic Analysis

Irene Barbiera , Univgersity of Padova
Ginapiero Dalla-Zuanna, University of Padova
Margit Berner, Natural History Museum, Department of Anthropology
Zuzana Hofmanová, Leipzig, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Archaeogenetics
Doris Pany-Kucera, Vienna Natural History Museum, Department of Anthropology
Walter Pohl, Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Medieval Research
Bendeguz Tobias, Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Medieval Research
Ke Wang, Shanghai, Fudan University, School of Life Sciences

For all 181 and 485 skeletons buried in the Leobersdorf and Mödling cemeteries (Lower Austria, between 7th and 8th centuries), the analysis of DNA has been combined with the usual anthropolog-ical analyses (Gnecchi-Ruscone et al. 2024: “Network of large pedigrees reveals social practices of Avar communities”. Nature, 629(8011), 376-383). This activity allowed for a more precise identi-fication of the skeletons' sex and the reconstruction of kinship ties among the buried individuals, namely, the kinship relationships between ascendants and descendants (parents and children), be-tween collaterals (brothers and sisters), and reconstructing marital couples (i.e., couples of a man and a woman sharing children). The DNA analysis allows to identify other individuals (the in-ferred individuals), for which it is possible to establish the existence, the sex and the kinship rela-tionship with the buried skeletons, but whose remains were not found. In this paper we will use the DNA data for significantly enriching the demographic analysis of the communities that used these cemeteries. Looking at the generations, we will establish the size of the two communities that used the cemeteries, and their population trends. Moreover, since DNA analysis allows to reconstruct couples of men and women who had children together, we will deduce some information on differ-ential by sex of mortality and of remarriage. Finally, by looking at the sex of people without rela-tives, we will infer information about gender differences in immigration.

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 Presented in Session 24. Mortality, Inequality and Population Dynamics in Historical Perspective