What happened in Europe after the fall of Rome: scientists have sequenced the DNA of 300 people

Scientists from the international HistoGenes project have sequenced the DNA of more than 300 people who lived in what is now north-western Hungary shortly after the fall of Rome. It turned out that the invading peoples did not simply occupy the deserted lands — together with the local population, they built a complex, multi-tiered society with its own ruling elite.

The findings have been published in the journal Science.

Details

First, let’s consider what ‘barbarians’ actually means. This is not a neutral term, but rather the perspective of the Romans themselves: it is how they referred to any peoples outside their empire. Historians use this term out of habit, but it is important to remember that behind it lie real and very different groups of people, not a faceless mob of destroyers.

A team of scientists — geneticists, archaeologists, historians and anthropologists — has sequenced the genomes of more than 300 people buried in the area known as the Little Hungarian Plain. This provides a useful ‘window’ into the past: ancient DNA reveals where people came from and how they were related to one another, whilst archaeological finds add details about their way of life.

The picture that emerged was as follows. During the Roman Empire, the local inhabitants belonged to a dense network of interconnected communities. Their genes were predominantly Southern European, but there were also traces of Asian and African ancestry — a reflection of just how diverse and ‘cosmopolitan’ the empire was.

After the fall of Rome, the situation changed. The proportion of Northern European ancestry in burials rose sharply — meaning that new people had arrived in the region from the north. By comparing genetic data with archaeological evidence, the researchers linked this influx to the expansion of the Lombard Kingdom, which in the early 6th century moved from lands north of the Danube into former Roman territories.

But the most interesting thing is exactly how this migration took place. It was not a single mass exodus. Scientists observed a complex and protracted pattern of movement: people arrived gradually, via different routes, maintaining kinship ties with the population further north. And crucially, the newcomers did not simply establish scattered villages. They created a diverse, hierarchical society with a ruling elite that laid the foundations for a new, post-Roman state.

Why this is important

Until now, historians knew embarrassingly little about this period. The so-called ‘barbarian kingdoms’ left almost no written records — and we had to judge them mainly by the accounts of the conquered Romans, that is, through the eyes of the losing side.

This new research allows us, for the first time, to view the era differently — from the inside, through the genes and bones of the people themselves. And the picture turns out to be far more complex than the familiar cliché of an ‘invasion of savages’.

There is also a more nuanced scientific conclusion, one that is significant far beyond the scope of this topic. The research has shown that material culture and genetic origin do not always coincide. Put simply: the objects a person used and the way they were buried do not necessarily indicate where they came from. This is a cautionary note for the whole field of archaeology — one cannot automatically equate ‘culture’ with ‘people’.

It is worth emphasising: we are talking about a specific region, not the whole of Europe. The findings relate to the Little Hungarian Plain and should not be automatically extrapolated to the origins of Europeans as a whole.

Background

The fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century is generally regarded as the dividing line between antiquity and the Middle Ages. The period that followed has traditionally been described as a decline — hence the name ‘the Dark Ages’. In recent decades, historians have increasingly challenged this label, and ancient DNA has become a powerful new argument in this debate.

The Lombards were a Germanic people whose advance into Italy and Central Europe in the 6th century is recorded in chronicles, but the details of this migration have long been a matter of debate: was it a mass invasion or a gradual infiltration by small groups? New research leans towards the second option — a complex mosaic of movements, rather than a single ‘great migration’.

The work was carried out as part of the large-scale HistoGenes project, which studies the population of Central Europe from 400 to 900 AD. During the project, scientists analysed the remains of over 6,000 people — one of the largest ancient DNA databases for this era.

Source

Study: Yijie Tian et al., ‘Unveiling the complexity of post-Roman polity formation in Pannonia using ancient DNA’, Science (2026).