Cranial deformation and genetic diversity in three adolescent male individuals from the Great Migration Period from Osijek, eastern Croatia

PLoS One. 2019 Aug 21;14(8):e0216366. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0216366. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Three individuals dating to the Great Migration Period (5th century CE) were discovered in a pit at the Hermanov vinograd site in Osijek, Croatia. We were inspired to study these individuals based on their unusual burial context as well as the identification of two different types of artificial cranial deformation in two of the individuals. We combine bioarchaeological analysis with radiographic imaging, stable isotopes analysis, and ancient DNA to analyze their dietary patterns, molecular sex, and genetic affinities in the context of the archaeological data and their bioarchaeological attributes. While all three individuals were adolescent males with skeletal evidence of severe malnutrition and similar diets, the most striking observation is that they had major differences in their genetic ancestry. Results of the genetic analyses of the nuclear ancient DNA data for these individuals indicate that the individual without artificial cranial deformation shows broadly West Eurasian associated-ancestry, the individual with tabular oblique-type has East Asian ancestry and the third individual with circular erect-type has Near Eastern associated-ancestry. Based on these results, we speculate that artificial cranial deformation type may have been a visual indicator membership in a specific cultural group, and that these groups were interacting intimately on the Pannonian Plain during the Migration Period.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Archaeology*
  • Croatia
  • Genetic Variation*
  • Human Migration*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Skull / abnormalities*
  • Skull / diagnostic imaging
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Grants and funding

DF was supported by an Irish Research Council Post-Graduate grant GOIPG/2013/36. RP was supported by the European Research Council Starting Grant ERC-2010-StG 263441. MN was supported by the Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship grant GOIPD/2013/1, and by the Croatian Science Fund grant HRZZ IP-2016-06-1450. http://research.ie/; https://erc.europa.eu/; http://www.hrzz.hr/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Two of the co-authors (Dženi Los and Josip Burmaz) are employed by a commercial company Kaducej Ltd. The funders provided support in the form of salaries for authors DF and MN, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.