Professor Emeritus Patrick Geary is co-PI, along with three colleagues including Johannes Krause in Germany, Walter Pohl in Austria, and Tivadar Vida in Hungary, of the European Research Council funded research project HistoGenes, which uses a combination of genomic, archaeological, anthropological, and historical methods to study over six-thousand burial sites in the Carpathian Basin between the fifth and tenth centuries. In this macro-region along the middle Danube, Pannonians, Romans, Goths, Gepids, Longobards, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, Franks and many others came and went. This is an intriguing test case for the relationship between ethnic identities constructed in texts, cultural habitus attested in the archaeological record, and genetic profiles that can now be analyzed through ancient DNA. This brief video explains the project and introduces the multi-national and multi-disciplinary team.
