Key Takeaways
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Some ancient peoples get to be famous. The Vikings have blockbuster shows. The Romans have, well, an empire’s worth of pop culture. The Sarmatians don’t get nearly as much attention, despite once dominating a vast stretch of Central Europe for centuries. In fact, many historians describe the Sarmatians as a “forgotten people,” a once-formidable presence on the edge of the Roman world not claimed as ancestors by any modern nation. This month, we’re helping to restore their legacy by adding 44 of them to Historical Matches.
Who Were the Sarmatians?
The Sarmatians were a nomadic people, who likely spoke an Iranian language. They originated in the southern Ural region of what is now western Russia more than two thousand years ago. From there, they moved west, eventually displacing the Scythians as the dominant power of the Pontic Steppe. By the 1st century CE, Sarmatian groups had settled the Carpathian Basin, a region spanning much of modern Hungary and Romania, ruling over the Celtic and Scythian populations who already lived there.
Relations between the Sarmatians and the Roman Empire ran hot and cold, eventually boiling over into the Marcomannic-Sarmatian Wars in the late 2nd century CE. But despite these tensions the Sarmatians settled down, adopted farming, and formed lasting alliances with their Germanic neighbors.
156 New Genomes, and Some Genuine Surprises
Last year, researchers published a study in Cell sequencing 156 new ancient genomes from Sarmatian- and later Hun-period sites across the Carpathian Basin and the Romanian plains in order to learn about the genetics of the Sarmatians.
Most of the individuals they sequenced carried a distinct steppe ancestry that linked them to their distant Sarmatian relatives who never left the Ural and Kazakh regions. This signal was strongest in the earliest generations and gradually diluted as later Sarmatians mixed with the region’s existing population.
But a handful of individuals didn’t fit this pattern at all. Two men buried at the same cemetery in southern Hungary had ancestry that traced entirely to Scandinavia, thousands of kilometers to the north, suggesting a previously undetected wave of migration into this Sarmatian community. Others carried substantial East Asian-related ancestry, thousands of kilometers to the east.
Genetic Foreshadowing of a Migration to Come
Perhaps the most surprising discovery didn’t come from a Sarmatian burial at all. Two individuals from an even earlier Iron Age population in the Carpathian foothills, who lived centuries before the Sarmatians’ documented arrival in the region, turned out to have ancestry that closely resembled the later Sarmatian populations that migrated into the region. It’s a hint that Sarmatians may have trickled into the region in small numbers long before their main migration, a genetic foreshadowing of a migration to come.
A Much More Well Known Genetic Group Also Gets an Update
This month’s Historical Matches update isn’t only about a people history nearly forgot, though. We’ve also added five new individuals to our existing Hungarian Royalty group, including King Béla II, a medieval Hungarian ruler identified for the first time after going unnamed among royal remains for centuries. We also added Béla, Duke of Macsó, a prince murdered by rival noblemen in 1272 whose identity was only recently confirmed through DNA. Their genomes were recently sequenced as part of a large scale study of over 400 individuals who were buried in the Royal Basilica of Székesfehérvár, the traditional coronation and burial site of Hungarian monarchs.
Learn More
Want to see if your DNA connects you to the Sarmatians, Hungarian Royalty, or to hundreds of other historical individuals? 23andMe Premium members can explore these new additions through the Historical Matches feature.
