When Ancient DNA Rewrote History: 20 Cases Where Paleogenetics Confirmed or Refuted the Historical Record

For centuries, the history of human populations rested on three sources: ancient chronicles, archaeological excavations, and comparative linguistics. Paleogenetics, by sequencing the DNA of the dead directly, has now settled debates that were thousands of years old. The verdict is mixed and fascinating. Herodotus was wrong about the Etruscans. Bede was right about the Anglo-Saxons. The Magyar conquest must be rewritten. North Africans are not really Arab. Jews never stopped being Levantine. The Roma did come from India. Native Americans descend from a single Beringian source. The Norse colony in Greenland left no descendants, while modern Greenlanders mix Inuit and Danish ancestry. Here are twenty cases where ancient DNA has either confirmed, refuted, or deeply complicated what we thought we knew about who came from where.

A silent revolution

Since Haak et al.'s landmark 2015 paper on the steppe migration, paleogenetics has profoundly reshaped our understanding of human peopling. Its results are not always spectacular: they often take the form of percentages, principal-component coordinates, or qpADM models. But behind these numbers lie decisive historiographical debates.

The picture that emerges is nuanced. Some written sources are confirmed with striking precision. Others are radically refuted. And between the two lies a gray zone where matters are subtler than either ancient chroniclers or 19th century manuals supposed.

Here are twenty concrete examples, organized in two parts: first, the cases where ancient DNA confirms the traditional record, then those where it dismantles or deeply complicates it.

Case 1: The Bretons and the Britons, an older bond than the chronicles imply

Traditional history says the Bretons of Armorica are descendants of Brittonic refugees who fled Romano-British territory during the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the 5th to 7th centuries. They brought with them their Celtic language, which evolved into modern Breton. This is true, but ancient DNA reveals something more interesting: the genetic affinity between the British Isles and the Atlantic facade of France goes back roughly two thousand years before that migration.

Patterson et al. (2022), in Nature, sequenced 793 ancient British genomes spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages and detected a substantial second migration wave from the continent during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, particularly between 1300 and 800 BCE. The continental source was located in the Channel coast region of present-day France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This wave introduced about half of the ancestry of Iron Age Britons.

Iron Age populations from northern France (France_HautsDeFrance_IA2) and from late Iron Age Britain (England_LIA) cluster very closely in Global25 space. The Channel was not a barrier in Antiquity but a corridor, and it had been one for at least a millennium and a half before Caesar arrived.

Case 2: Polynesian voyaging, confirmed and extended

The Polynesian expansion is one of the most spectacular human dispersals on record. Starting from Taiwan around 5000 years ago, Austronesian-speaking populations spread through Island Southeast Asia, then leapfrogged across the Pacific, reaching Tonga and Samoa by 2800 BP, the Society Islands by 1000 CE, and Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island shortly thereafter.

Some scholars long doubted whether Polynesians really reached Easter Island under their own power, or whether they had any contact with the Americas before Europeans. Thor Heyerdahl famously argued the opposite, that Polynesia was settled from South America. Ancient DNA has resolved both questions, in opposite directions.

Ioannidis et al. (2021), in Nature, reconstructed the genetic network of Polynesian dispersal and confirmed the standard archaeological model: a single eastward expansion from Samoa through the Cook Islands and Tahiti, fanning out to Hawaii, New Zealand, and finally Easter Island. More surprising, Ioannidis et al. (2020) detected a clear Native American genetic signal in present-day eastern Polynesians, including on Easter Island, dated to around 1200 CE, several centuries before any European arrival.

Case 3: The Anglo-Saxons, a confirmed and even amplified migration

Bede the Venerable, writing in the 8th century, recounted that in the 5th century, after the Roman legions withdrew, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from northern Germany and Denmark settled massively in Britain, supplanting or pushing back the Romano-Britons. This narrative was long contested by historians who saw in it either a simple elite substitution or an ideological exaggeration.

Gretzinger et al. (2022), in Nature, sequenced 460 medieval individuals from northwestern Europe and provided a definitive answer. In eastern England, continental ancestry (from northern Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark) reaches an average of 76% in the early Middle Ages. At some Cambridgeshire sites, it exceeds 90%. Modern English people still carry 25 to 50% continental Anglo-Saxon ancestry today, strongly structured from east to west.

The corollary is interesting: this confirmation invalidates the parallel "elite acculturation" thesis when applied to the Anglo-Saxons. The Franks did indeed constitute a simple elite (3 to 10% genetic input) who lost their name to vulgar Latin. In Britain, by contrast, the migration was massive enough to impose an entire Germanic language (Old English).

Case 4: The Vikings, confirmed and structured expansion

Icelandic sagas and Anglo-Saxon chronicles describe Viking expeditions as a geographically structured wave: Danes toward eastern England (Danelaw) and Normandy, Norwegians toward Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, and the Faroes, Swedes toward Kievan Rus and the Baltic. Paleogenetics has confirmed this scheme with remarkable precision.

Margaryan et al. (2020), in Nature, analyzed 442 Viking and pre-Viking genomes and showed that Danish Vikings (Denmark_Viking.SG) are genetically close to modern southern Scandinavians and northern Germans, and their signal indeed diffused into eastern England and Normandy. Norwegian Vikings (Norway_Viking.SG) carry a more "northern" signature, found in Icelandic founders and certain Scottish and Irish paternal lineages. Swedish Vikings (Sweden_Viking.SG) show greater diversity and eastward links consistent with the Varangian expeditions.

More surprisingly, the study revealed that some "Vikings" buried in Scandinavia carried partially non-Scandinavian ancestry: Saami in the north, eastern Slavs, even British captives. Viking culture was cosmopolitan, integrating slaves and matrimonial alliances along its commercial and military routes.

Case 5: Greenland, where the Norse failed and modern admixture took their place

Erik the Red founded the Norse colonies of Greenland in 985 CE. They flourished for nearly four centuries, then faded between 1350 and 1450 CE under combined pressure from climate cooling, Inuit (Thule) expansion from the north, and economic isolation. By the late 16th century, the Norse settlements were ghost towns.

Did any Norse genes survive in the Inuit population? Did the colonists assimilate? Margaryan et al. (2020) and subsequent studies answered with surprising clarity: no detectable Norse genetic signal exists in modern Inuit Greenlanders that can be traced to the medieval period. The colony left burials, ruins, and a saga, but no genetic descendants.

Modern Greenlanders, however, are emphatically a mixed population. They carry roughly 25% European ancestry, predominantly Danish and Norwegian, alongside their Inuit majority. This European component dates almost entirely to the period after 1721, when Hans Egede founded the Danish colonial mission and reopened Greenland to Scandinavian settlement.

Case 6: The Roma, an ethnic memory preserved over fifteen centuries

The oral tradition of the European Roma places their origin in India. Linguists confirmed this as early as the 18th century: Romani belongs to the Indo-Aryan family, related to Sanskrit and more specifically to the languages of the northwestern subcontinent. Medieval European chroniclers, who believed they came from Egypt, called them "gypsies" (from "Egyptians"), a misunderstanding that lasted for centuries.

Modern and ancient DNA have settled the matter. Mendizabal et al. (2012), in Current Biology, demonstrated that European Roma descend from a founding population originating in northwestern India, which left the subcontinent roughly 1500 years ago, most likely between 500 and 1000 CE. Their ancestral signal combines a dominant Indian component with admixture layers acquired during their migration: Iranian, Anatolian, Balkan, and finally Southeast and East European depending on their final region of settlement.

This result is scientifically remarkable and politically important. A population often deprived of its own narratives, dispersed and persecuted, has had its historical memory confirmed by genetics, against the doubts of many. Science vindicates a minority voice against erroneous majority stereotypes.

Case 7: The Bantu expansion, a real demographic migration

The Bantu expansion, which saw populations originating from the Cameroon-Nigeria border spread their language family across nearly half the African continent between 3000 and 1000 years ago, was long debated. Was it a genuine population migration or a simple linguistic diffusion?

Ancient DNA has settled the question in favor of the first hypothesis. Studies of pastoral and agricultural populations of East and Southern Africa show that before the arrival of the Bantu, local populations were either Khoisan-related hunter-gatherers or Cushitic-related pastoralists. With the arrival of Bantu farmers, a new ancestral profile appears, with a Central African component (Cameroon_SMA type) that progressively becomes dominant.

Today, Bantu-speaking populations of Southern Africa typically carry 60 to 90% ancestry derived from this Central African source, with residual Khoisan and East African substrate depending on the region.

Case 8: The Druze, a living archive of the pre-Islamic Levant

The Druze, a religious minority concentrated in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, follow an esoteric form of Islam that emerged in the 11th century. Endogamous since their founding (marriage outside the community is rare), they form a remarkable genetic isolate.

Shlush et al. (2008), in PLoS One, showed that the Druze preserve an ancient Near Eastern ancestry with exceptional mitochondrial haplogroup diversity, comparable to a stratified sample of the Levant across different eras. Their autosomal ancestry strongly resembles that of Bronze Age Levantine populations (Lebanon_MBA, Lebanon_IA3, Israel_MLBA), with less subsequent admixture than the average modern population of the region.

In other words, the Druze are, genetically, what most Levantines were before the major admixture events of the last two millennia (Hellenistic, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, Crusader). Their religious isolation has made them a time capsule.

Case 9: The Basques, "living fossils" who are not

The myth is firmly established: the Basques speak the last pre-Indo-European language of Western Europe, and would therefore be direct descendants of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers or first Neolithic farmers. For most of the 20th century, they were presented as a genetic "relict," a preserved sample of ancient Europe.

The major study by Olalde et al. (2019), based on 271 ancient Iberian genomes, swept this interpretation aside. Modern Basques are not preserved Mesolithics: they descend essentially from Iberian Bronze Age populations, that is, Bell Beaker people who received substantial steppe input around 2500 BCE. Ancestrally, they are very close to Iron Age Iberians.

The dominant Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b-DF27 (60 to 75% of Basque males) is itself a post-steppe lineage that emerged about 4500 years ago and was carried throughout Iberia by Bell Beaker people. No direct link to a Mesolithic population.

Case 10: The Etruscans, a false Anatolian migration

Herodotus, in Book I of his Histories, recounts that the Etruscans (whom he called Tyrrhenians) came from Lydia in Anatolia, fleeing famine. This tradition, repeated by Tacitus and many other ancient authors, fueled the idea of an oriental origin for two millennia. The Etruscan language, non-Indo-European and undeciphered until the early 19th century, seemed to corroborate this exotic hypothesis.

Dionysius of Halicarnasus, even in antiquity, contested this version and defended a local origin. Paleogenetics has proved him right.

Posth et al. (2021), in Science Advances, sequenced 82 Etruscan and Latin individuals from the Iron Age. The result is unambiguous: Etruscans of Tuscany and Latium are genetically indistinguishable from contemporary Latins. Both carry an ancestral profile of about 30 to 35% steppe ancestry, 50 to 55% Anatolian Neolithic farmer, and 10 to 15% Western Hunter-Gatherer. This profile is typical of Bronze Age Italy.

How then to explain their non-Indo-European language? The most likely answer is that Etruscan, like Basque, is the residue of a pre-Indo-European linguistic substrate that survived in central Italy while most of the peninsula switched to Italic languages (Latin, Oscan, Umbrian). The language is ancient. Its speakers are no more so than their neighbors.

Case 11: The Hungarians, cultural conquerors and demographic minority

In 895 CE, the Magyars of Arpad crossed the Carpathians and settled in the Pannonian basin. They found a mixed population of Lombard, Avar, and largely Slavic origin. Within a few generations, Hungarian (a Uralic language) imposed itself as the vehicular language, and the medieval Hungarian state took shape.

It was long assumed that this linguistic transition implied mass migration, and that modern Hungarians were direct descendants of Uralic horsemen from the southern Urals or the Pontic steppe. Paleogenetics has heavily nuanced this picture.

Maroti et al. (2022), in Current Biology, distinguished two populations among the conquerors: the elite (Hungary_Conqueror_Elite) carries strongly East Eurasian ancestry, around 50%, divided between Hun-like and Mansi-like signals. The "common" conquerors (Hungary_Conqueror_Commoner) are already largely European. By the early Arpadian period (11th century), the Asian component has heavily receded. In modern Hungarians, it represents only 3 to 7% depending on region.

Case 12: Western Roman Gaul, cultural without being demographic

The Roman Empire profoundly transformed Gaul linguistically (the shift from Gaulish to vulgar Latin, ancestor of French), legally, urbanly, and religiously. One might have expected massive genetic impact, especially since Antonio et al. (2019) revealed extreme genetic cosmopolitanism in the city of Rome itself during the imperial era, with substantial Eastern Mediterranean influx.

This influx did not propagate en bloc to the western provinces. Studies on northeastern Gaul comparing Iron Age Gauls (France_GrandEst_IA2), Gallo-Romans of Metz (France_Metz_GalloRoman.SG), and medieval samples show remarkable continuity. The shift across these three stages is minimal, mostly along PC2 (slight increase in Mediterranean Neolithic farmer ancestry). No rupture comparable to that in Rome itself is visible.

Case 13: Native Americans, a single Beringian origin and nothing else

For more than a century, theories have proliferated about the origins of Native Americans. Some argued for a Solutrean migration across the Atlantic ice from Iberia. Others proposed a Polynesian contribution. Some suggested multiple Asian source populations, lost Israelite tribes, or pseudoarchaeological Atlantic crossings from Egypt or Phoenicia.

Ancient DNA has demolished all these alternatives. Reich et al. (2012), Raghavan et al. (2014), and especially Posth et al. (2018) in Cell have demonstrated that all Native American populations south of the Arctic descend from a single ancestral source population that diverged from East Asians around 25,000 years ago, spent thousands of years in genetic isolation in Beringia, and entered the Americas in a single founding event between approximately 20,000 and 15,000 BP.

From the Anzick child of 12,800 BP in Montana to the LapaDoSanto remains of 9,500 BP in Brazil, from the Tiwanaku of Andean Bolivia to the Yamana of Tierra del Fuego, the ancestral signal is the same.

The only meaningful exception is the late Polynesian contact mentioned in Case 2, which reached eastern Polynesia around 1200 CE and brought back Native American DNA into Polynesia, not the other way around. This is one of the most decisive findings in modern paleogenetics, transforming a century of speculation into settled science.

Case 14: The Turks of Anatolia are mostly not Turkic

The Battle of Manzikert in 1071 CE opened Anatolia to the Seljuk Turks. Over the following four centuries, the Byzantine Greek population was politically dominated and progressively converted to Islam and to Turkish speech. By the time the Ottoman Empire took Constantinople in 1453, Anatolia was overwhelmingly Turkish-speaking.

One could expect this transformation to have been demographic. It was not. Turkish populations today carry roughly 10 to 15% Central Asian and East Asian ancestry, the genetic legacy of the medieval Turkic migration. The remaining 85 to 90% of their ancestry is essentially indistinguishable from that of Bronze and Iron Age Anatolians: same Anatolian Neolithic farmer base, same Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer overlay, same modest steppe and Iranian Neolithic components found in Greeks, Armenians, and other eastern Mediterranean populations.

Lazaridis et al. (2022), in their three-paper Southern Arc series in Science, demonstrated this with extraordinary precision. The Anatolian genetic profile is remarkably stable from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age, the Hellenistic period, the Byzantine era, and into the medieval period.

Case 15: Phoenicians and Carthaginians, cosmopolitan port people

For centuries, the Phoenicians have been imagined as a coherent ethnic group based in Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, expanding through the Mediterranean to found colonies at Carthage, Cadiz, Motya, and beyond. The Carthaginians, in particular, have been seen as a Lebanese-derived population transplanted to North Africa.

The genetic reality is far messier and more interesting. Matisoo-Smith et al. (2018) sequenced ancient mitochondrial DNA from Punic burials in Sardinia, Lebanon, and Tunisia, and found that Punic populations carried a remarkable diversity of maternal lineages, including European, North African, and Levantine origins.

Italy_Sardinia_SantImbenia_Phoenician.SG, a Phoenician burial from Sardinia, sits very close to the local Sardinian Bronze Age signal, suggesting that Phoenician-identified individuals on Sardinia were largely of local descent, not Lebanese transplants. Tunisia_Punic.SG samples show a wide spread, with some individuals carrying a Lebanese-like signal and others clear sub-Saharan or North African components.

Case 16: Sardinians, the Neolithic time capsule of Europe

Sardinians have long been recognized as genetic outliers within Europe. They cluster apart from continental populations in nearly every PCA and ADMIXTURE analysis. The reason was unclear until ancient DNA filled in the timeline.

Marcus et al. (2020), in Nature Communications, sequenced 70 ancient Sardinians spanning the Middle Neolithic, the Nuragic Bronze Age, the Phoenician-Punic period, and the medieval era. The Sardinian genetic profile from the Middle Neolithic onward is essentially preserved through 6000 years of history. While continental Europe absorbed massive steppe ancestry from 2500 BCE onward, Sardinia received only modest steppe input. The island remained, demographically, a Neolithic pocket.

Today's Sardinians retain roughly 75 to 85% Early European Farmer ancestry, the highest fraction in any modern European population. They are, in this sense, the most "Neolithic" Europeans alive.

Case 17: North Africans are not Arabs

The countries of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya) have politically and linguistically belonged to the Arab world since the Islamic conquests of the 7th century, completed in North Africa around 705 CE. Today, Arabic is the official language of all these countries, and Arab identity is widely claimed. Yet on the genetic level, the gap between what Maghrebis say they are and what they are is striking.

The studies of Henn et al. (2012), Fregel et al. (2018), and Arauna et al. (2017) converge on a clear conclusion: the dominant ancestry of modern Maghrebis is Berber, derived from indigenous North African populations established locally since the Upper Paleolithic. This ancestry breaks down into several layers:

• A deep Iberomaurusian substrate dated to 15,000 years ago (Morocco_Iberomaurusian, Taforalt sample), which surprisingly combines a Natufian Levantine component and an ancient sub-Saharan component.
• A Neolithic layer from Levantine farmers arriving via the Mediterranean around 5000 BCE (Morocco_EN).
• Intermittent European inputs, Punic and Roman, mostly along the coast.
• An Arab input postdating the 7th century, estimated between 4 and 15% depending on region, higher in urban areas and lower in rural and mountainous zones (Atlas, Kabylia, Aures).

This finding does not diminish the legitimacy of Maghrebi Arab identity, which rests on language, religion, shared history, and common culture. It simply reminds us that identity does not equal genealogy.

Case 18: Jewish populations are not European in DNA

A widespread intuition, sometimes amplified by public polemics, would have it that European Jews, especially Ashkenazim, became genetically European over two thousand years of diaspora. A more extreme variant (the Khazar hypothesis popularized by Arthur Koestler in the 1970s) makes Ashkenazim descendants of converted Khazars, of Turkic-Caucasian rather than Levantine origin. Paleogenetics has refuted both.

Behar et al. (2010), in Nature, analyzed the genomes of 14 Jewish diaspora populations and showed they all share a substantial Levantine ancestral signature. Atzmon et al. (2010) confirmed this with a complementary approach. Carmi et al. (2014), Xue et al. (2017), and Waldman et al. (2022) in Cell, on medieval samples from Erfurt, refined the Ashkenazi history: a narrow founder event around 700 to 1000 years ago, combining a Levantine component and a European one (mostly Italian and Mediterranean), followed by rapid demographic expansion.

Concretely, the typical ancestral decomposition of a modern Ashkenazi Jew is approximately:

• 40 to 55% Levantine ancestry, inherited from Southern Levantine antiquity (Israel_IA, Israel_MLBA), with clear continuity to pre-Islamic Levantine populations.
• 40 to 50% European ancestry, primarily Italian and Eastern Mediterranean, acquired during the early diaspora in Italy and Central Europe.
• 5 to 10% varied ancestry reflecting minor local admixtures across different stages of the European diaspora.

No significant Khazar (Turkic or North Caucasian) signal is detected. Behar et al. (2013) explicitly tested the Khazar hypothesis and rejected it. Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews form three branches of the same tree, whose common root is Levantine, not European or Caucasian.

Case 19: Modern Egyptians, more continuous with the pharaohs than expected

Egypt experienced Islamization and Arabization from the 7th century. Its current population speaks Arabic and shares the cultural and religious identity of the Arab world. Many have assumed that modern Egyptians descend mainly from Arab migrants, and that the pharaonic lineage was diluted or extinguished.

Schuenemann et al. (2017), in Nature Communications, sequenced the DNA of 90 Egyptian mummies dated between 1400 BCE and 400 CE. The result was surprising: these ancient Egyptians were genetically closer to Anatolian Levantines and Near Eastern Neolithic populations than to sub-Saharan Africans. And interestingly, they were relatively close to modern Egyptians, with one notable difference: modern Egyptians carry a more pronounced sub-Saharan component than their ancient ancestors.

This sub-Saharan component was added progressively, mainly over the last 1500 years, likely via the trans-Saharan trade and commercial migrations along the Nile.

Schuenemann's study has been criticized methodologically (sampling concentrated at Abusir-el-Meleq, possible Hellenized elite bias), and it is likely that the sub-Saharan component in southern Egyptian populations has always been higher than in the analyzed mummies. But the main conclusion (substantial continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians) remains solid.

Case 20: The Japanese, a tripartite mixture mythology ignores

Shinto mythology traces the Japanese people back to the goddess Amaterasu and presents the archipelago as inhabited from the origin by a single people. Archaeology has long identified a transition between Jomon culture (indigenous hunter-gatherers, 16,000 to 1000 BCE) and Yayoi culture (farmers from the continent around 1000 BCE). But the exact nature of this transition has long been debated.

Cooke et al. (2021), in Science Advances, produced a remarkable answer by analyzing ancient genomes spanning the entire Jomon, Yayoi, and Kofun sequence. They identified not two but three ancestral sources for modern Japanese:

• A Jomon component (indigenous hunter-gatherers), distantly related to Late Paleolithic Siberian populations and bearing a highly distinctive genetic signature.
• A Yayoi component, arriving around 1000 BCE from the Korean peninsula, bringing wet rice agriculture.
• A Kofun component, arriving around 300 CE from continental East Asia (likely the North China plain), bringing centralized political structures and tumulus culture.

The typical proportion in modern Japanese (excluding the Ainu of Hokkaido and Okinawans) is roughly 10 to 15% Jomon, 70 to 75% Kofun, and 10 to 15% Yayoi. The Ainu retain a Jomon-majority ancestry, and Okinawans an intermediate Jomon share.

Summary table of all twenty cases

Three lessons on human identity

Twenty cases examined here, drawn from across the world and across millennia. Three principles emerge from this corpus, all robustly supported by paleogenetic evidence.

First, linguistic and religious identity travels faster than ancestry. Latin replaced Gaulish without much population movement. Arabic replaced Berber and Coptic the same way. Turkish replaced Greek in Anatolia without massive Turkic genetic input. Hungarian replaced Slavic in Pannonia without large Magyar demographic replacement. Japanese mythology presents a homogeneous people that genetics reveals as tripartite. In each case, a politically dominant elite imposed its language and often its religion on a local population that retained most of its biological inheritance.

Second, endogamous populations preserve the ancient. The Druze of the Levant, Sardinians of the western Mediterranean, Basques of Aquitaine, Ainu of Hokkaido, and isolated coastal populations of various continents are time capsules. They restore to science ancestral profiles that surrounding majority populations have long since diluted. Isolation, whether geographic or religious, acts as a genetic preservative.

Third, diasporas keep their root. Jews in Europe, Roma in Romania or France, Indians of the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, Africans of the Americas all carry, in their DNA, the signal of their lands of origin, sometimes one or two thousand years after departure. Diasporas partially admix with their hosts, but their founding component typically remains detectable and substantial. The deep human pattern is one of layered identity, not a one-to-one map between blood and culture.

These three principles together draw a more accurate image of human identity. It is not the simple expression of an ancestry, but a complex assemblage of linguistic, religious, cultural, and biological transmissions, whose speeds and directions differ. Paleogenetics does not devalue any of these dimensions. It teaches us not to confuse them.

Global25 coordinates of key populations

The following Global25 (scaled) coordinates correspond to the populations cited across the twenty cases of this article. Copy them into Vahaduo for your own modeling.

France_HautsDeFrance_IA2.SG,0.1160995,0.141666,0.0482715,0.038114,0.0460085,0.0161755,-0.0057575,0.004846,0.0114535,0.018406,-0.0021925,0.006594,-0.021184,-0.0124545,0.0109255,0.002917,-0.002021,0.009755,0.007856,-0.003189,0.0010605,0.006121,0.010106,-0.002169,0.0032335
England_BellBeaker,0.1277348,0.1230484,0.064341,0.0710779,0.0259021,0.0226986,0.0034598,0.0032563,-0.0043746,-0.0100229,-0.0033109,0.0038798,-0.0110009,-0.0162548,0.0270989,0.010585,-0.0057948,0.0015414,0.0024651,0.0071702,0.0079027,0.0022669,-0.0002327,0.0074641,0.0000332
England_LIA,0.1278413,0.1347448,0.0603195,0.048331,0.0393271,0.0164399,0.0048114,0.0058904,0.0064586,0.0043066,-0.0037351,0.0049851,-0.0129882,-0.0130815,0.0205865,0.0087997,-0.0015028,0.0022937,0.0023882,0.0067664,0.0040456,0.0037291,-0.0016476,0.0061706,-0.0022185
England_EarlyMedieval_Saxon,0.1299946,0.1329385,0.0658823,0.0573538,0.0401816,0.019917,0.0043808,0.0054903,0.0036389,-0.0034728,-0.0053618,0.0048128,-0.0099658,-0.0097504,0.0246781,0.0090236,-0.006497,0.0031625,0.00462,0.0042992,0.0069548,0.0025477,-0.0005884,0.0154329,-0.0016833
Denmark_Viking.SG,0.1289272,0.1339854,0.0633443,0.0486192,0.0407694,0.0173267,0.0031334,0.0063111,0.0045482,-0.0005062,-0.0042014,0.004113,-0.007879,-0.00514,0.0155087,0.0060213,-0.0038618,0.0024956,0.0038069,0.0041309,0.0049416,0.0026673,-0.0006436,0.0101218,-0.0007547
Norway_Viking.SG,0.1297145,0.1250663,0.070246,0.0595314,0.0414868,0.0226546,0.0047091,0.0077482,0.0022654,-0.003799,-0.0027543,0.0046631,-0.0087081,-0.0103164,0.0203946,0.0107551,-0.002367,0.0022998,0.0040078,0.0079749,0.0065797,0.0041946,0.000313,0.0129302,0.0012113
Sweden_Viking.SG,0.1276228,0.1302296,0.069972,0.0578601,0.0414289,0.0210815,0.0058282,0.008826,0.0042326,-0.0079316,-0.003305,0.0001885,-0.0018915,0.0009949,0.0097473,0.0043906,-0.0038022,0.0014418,0.0025091,0.0036457,0.0034143,0.0022682,0.0019392,0.0063152,0.0000251
Iceland_Viking.SG,0.1289703,0.1270194,0.0679977,0.0538416,0.0366695,0.0197798,0.0026212,0.0066742,0.0063874,-0.0014859,-0.0022109,0.0033777,-0.0081078,-0.0129576,0.020452,0.0110763,-0.0058474,0.0022609,0.0019725,0.0056855,0.0065557,0.0023972,-0.0009576,0.0123279,-0.0011144
Greenland_Saqqaq.SG,0.045529,-0.380824,0.108234,0.014535,-0.108943,-0.043786,-0.019741,-0.007154,0.006545,-0.009294,0.0177,-0.002997,0.005203,-0.025185,-0.024701,-0.015115,-0.001565,0.010895,0.027779,0.02176,0.017469,-0.035365,0.006286,0.016267,0.025626
Greenland_LateNorse.SG,0.132604,0.1310035,0.0633565,0.060401,0.0410845,0.0220325,0.009518,0.0053075,0.0012275,-0.011663,0.003654,0.0087675,-0.0165015,-0.005849,0.023955,-0.00358,-0.024186,0.0077915,0.0055935,0.0035015,0.0068005,0.00371,-0.0026495,0.008013,-0.002395
French_Polynesia_400BP,-0.004553,-0.364575,-0.087492,0.01615,0.145258,-0.054941,-0.004465,0.009692,-0.027406,-0.017495,0.026469,0.006744,0.002973,-0.012386,0.01045,0.009944,-0.002217,0.008108,0.000126,-0.001876,0.014849,-0.026709,-0.002588,-0.00253,-0.043948
Tonga_2500BP,0.013659,-0.430584,-0.052043,-0.045866,0.153567,0.057173,0.003995,-0.016153,-0.031088,-0.024055,0.05505,0.006894,-0.00223,-0.016652,0.016286,0.007292,-0.009909,0.007855,0.007668,-0.010255,-0.000125,-0.031655,-0.002588,-0.017713,-0.058677
Brazil_LapaDoSanto_9500BP,0.055773,-0.298566,0.117662,0.097223,-0.116022,-0.016176,-0.277783,-0.322833,-0.018407,-0.017312,0.002273,-0.006444,0.001041,0.017478,0,0.008088,0.000913,-0.007728,0.004902,-0.002376,0.001622,0.000989,0.008874,-0.003012,0.001317
Argentina_ArroyoSeco2_7700BP,0.0557733,-0.3134603,0.1199243,0.095608,-0.110995,-0.022962,-0.283658,-0.34337,-0.012067,-0.0180413,0.005413,0.0020983,0.0000493,0.021882,-0.0106763,0.005215,0.0070403,-0.0000420,0.008212,0.004002,-0.0000417,0.005894,-0.0054227,-0.003695,-0.0007983
Bolivia_MH_Tiwanaku,0.050082,-0.3112595,0.1101195,0.1004535,-0.1261775,-0.01506,-0.3084515,-0.367831,-0.015237,-0.0202285,-0.004222,-0.00547,0.0029735,0.01796,-0.006718,0.0078225,0.000717,0.0004435,-0.002137,0.004627,0.0071125,0.006492,-0.0011705,0.0040365,0.005209
Pakistan_Loebanr_IA,0.0675729,-0.0006093,-0.1124071,0.0675824,-0.0826821,0.0435256,0.0037757,0.0006847,-0.0186117,-0.0145485,-0.0052181,0.001034,-0.0032209,-0.007606,0.012812,0.0117872,-0.0026207,0.0012373,0.0010181,-0.0107051,-0.0015598,-0.0066319,0.0001767,-0.0066112,0.0040035
India_RoopkundB,0.1094979,0.1449162,-0.0094658,-0.0396644,0.0105557,-0.0128847,-0.0018565,-0.0017998,-0.0035791,0.0158545,0.0012016,0.0022031,-0.0025124,0.003647,-0.0138977,-0.000769,0.0075621,0.0010515,0.0001886,-0.00509,-0.0044296,0.0021391,-0.0004683,-0.0002047,-0.0004911
Cameroon_SMA,-0.6075308,0.0553465,0.0153678,0.0260015,-0.002385,0.00251,0.1367175,-0.1052838,0.0087948,-0.001777,0.000812,-0.0306102,-0.023674,-0.000757,0.0041735,-0.0019558,0.008475,0.0187182,-0.0059392,-0.0026888,-0.0018405,-0.0009275,-0.0029272,-0.0018375,-0.0045202
Kenya_IA_Pastoral,-0.401796,0.081242,-0.014331,-0.043282,0.006155,-0.027052,-0.015746,0.005077,0.104512,-0.083282,-0.014453,-0.00015,-0.01219,-0.001239,0.027687,-0.024396,0.021253,-0.003547,0.013073,-0.015257,0.001747,0.005812,-0.007025,-0.006748,0.004431
Lebanon_MBA.SG,0.0819526,0.1470486,-0.060641,-0.1000658,-0.0099094,-0.040774,-0.003619,-0.0062306,0.0148892,0.0084558,0.0111076,-0.0113298,0.0221206,0.00556,-0.0091474,0.008751,0.0002348,-0.0010894,0.0011062,0.0035518,0.0046668,0.008334,-0.0037714,0.0015662,-0.0013414
Lebanon_IA3.SG,0.0879281,0.15106,-0.0490729,-0.0918128,-0.0102324,-0.0320375,-0.0045531,-0.009288,0.0108651,0.0133488,0.0070232,-0.0040839,0.0111311,0.0019781,-0.0098059,0.0023701,0.0016461,-0.0003326,0.0031268,0.0003438,0.0026984,0.0054406,-0.0038975,-0.0026359,-0.0047451
Italy_Tuscany_Grosseto_Etruscan,0.1236404,0.1520754,0.0385843,-0.0131824,0.0481242,-0.0060833,-0.0003672,-0.0020048,0.0219479,0.0437253,-0.0003959,0.0083926,-0.0190749,-0.0085411,-0.0042498,-0.0005635,0.0045553,0.0028506,0.0032524,-0.0033298,0.0008657,0.0082692,-0.002981,-0.0065369,-0.0012948
Italy_Lazio_Viterbo_Etruscan,0.121353,0.1572508,0.0327805,-0.0206968,0.043582,-0.0097612,0.0002169,0.0004793,0.0235202,0.0447319,0.0013742,0.0101102,-0.0197604,-0.0047108,-0.0033513,-0.0054259,0.0012136,0.0009745,0.003152,-0.0062145,-0.0008639,0.0027775,-0.0037164,-0.005756,0.000875
Italy_IA_Republic.SG,0.1287827,0.1526196,0.0386817,-0.0130123,0.0465141,-0.0051793,0.0013764,-0.0002636,0.0220884,0.0411854,-0.0006729,0.0110687,-0.0197506,-0.0099481,-0.0009113,-0.0023489,0.0041536,0.0023167,0.0060516,-0.0023761,0.0003923,0.0031796,-0.004384,-0.0042517,-0.0018474
Spain_IA,0.1258262,0.1492827,0.0583851,0.0049625,0.0602349,-0.0044623,-0.0022645,0.0031048,0.0336535,0.0464537,-0.0050636,0.0132018,-0.0238533,-0.0138374,0.0089698,0.0056533,0.006626,0.0005185,0.0040911,-0.0026263,0.0052294,-0.0004945,-0.0051203,-0.0136163,-0.0022753
Spain_LBA,0.124067,0.1506367,0.0541797,0.0005383,0.059498,-0.0016733,-0.00376,0.004923,0.0375643,0.046956,-0.0043307,0.0025977,-0.026313,-0.0164687,0.0050673,0.0034033,-0.0042157,-0.0034203,-0.004274,0.0020843,0.0122703,-0.003627,-0.009942,-0.016468,0.0007583
Hungary_LBA,0.1263437,0.145559,0.0554367,0.020995,0.0482137,0.002045,0.0059533,0.0035383,0.0169073,0.0215643,-0.0068203,0.0062443,-0.0052527,0,-0.002262,0.002961,0.0018253,0.0033783,0.0042317,-0.0000833,0.002121,0.0035447,-0.003903,-0.0048197,-0.0030337
Hungary_Conqueror_Elite,0.1015397,-0.0171159,0.0567331,0.025268,-0.014913,-0.0025914,0.0072999,0.0082256,-0.0055008,-0.0123617,0.0031531,-0.0020201,0.0041625,-0.0097482,-0.0039812,-0.0017624,0.0003857,0.0000712,0.0005918,-0.0003049,-0.0061635,0.0023004,0.0001079,-0.0019706,-0.0006636
Hungary_Conqueror_Commoner,0.116149,0.0873797,0.0465744,0.0191764,0.018224,0.0038378,0.0047154,0.0065164,0.0018362,0.0008002,-0.000519,0.000707,-0.0006367,-0.0019178,-0.00167,-0.0000634,0.0037953,0.0003305,0.0034375,0.0003698,-0.0027208,-0.0002231,0.0007314,0.000922,-0.0000365
Hungary_EarlyArpadian,0.1173047,0.0864394,0.0486928,0.022591,0.0189538,0.0041506,0.0040641,0.0069093,0.0003369,0.0001716,-0.0008883,-0.0007581,-0.0018276,-0.0022099,-0.0024669,0.0007643,0.0030526,-0.0015276,0.0029059,0.0012214,-0.0045729,0.0015349,0.0013411,0.0016514,0.0005634
France_GrandEst_IA2,0.1277096,0.1367916,0.057624,0.0362406,0.0469625,0.0108209,0.005499,0.0028846,0.0085288,0.0121734,-0.0034263,0.0071935,-0.0125322,-0.008794,0.0130562,-0.0031025,-0.0104828,0.0017104,0.0024637,-0.0009129,0.0050038,0.0049585,-0.0013803,-0.0012772,-0.0015806
France_Metz_GalloRoman.SG,0.129303,0.1425802,0.0538528,0.024548,0.0424694,0.0064702,0.0051702,0.0047074,0.0113306,0.0114806,-0.0056512,0.0076732,-0.0110306,-0.0083122,0.0068944,0.0041632,0.000313,0.001191,0.0008044,0.0033018,0.0054902,0.003141,-0.0025144,0.0043862,-0.003401
France_Medieval_o,0.129758,0.146236,0.057699,0.037145,0.040315,0.017291,0.00188,0.002308,-0.001841,0.010934,-0.001137,0.004946,-0.018583,-0.023533,0.022937,0.017767,0.002608,0.001267,0.001885,0.01088,0.00262,0.005812,-0.006286,0.002048,-0.013532
Turkey_EBA,0.1019616,0.1528638,-0.0524397,-0.0853061,-0.0085521,-0.0318669,-0.0002721,-0.0076271,-0.0099354,0.0199788,0.0066664,0.0035258,-0.0038808,0.003006,-0.0153435,-0.0020656,0.0054693,0.0015602,0.0041348,-0.0035281,-0.0002561,0.0039569,-0.0026205,-0.0033486,-0.0023698
Turkey_IA,0.0990263,0.1381118,-0.0632933,-0.0713292,-0.0275437,-0.0181278,0.0003525,-0.0083842,-0.0219862,-0.0000608,0.0031397,0.0004748,0.0003222,0.0008028,-0.0057455,0.0027402,0.0036508,-0.00057,0.0048183,-0.0046063,0.0014142,0.0038745,-0.0015818,-0.002691,-0.000978
Turkey_Byzantine,0.1023143,0.1475902,-0.0302536,-0.0595397,0.0003078,-0.0208239,-0.0007311,-0.0042819,-0.0064313,0.0158747,0.0028868,0.0025642,-0.0044102,0.0018657,-0.0118679,0.0026224,0.011836,-0.0010557,0.0040643,0.0017787,-0.0035908,0.0015389,-0.0008763,0.0013521,-0.0036989
Turkey_Medieval,0.103579,0.14319,-0.068259,-0.074936,-0.026466,-0.026216,0.003995,0.002538,-0.022293,0.000911,0.006333,0.006444,0.001784,0.011973,-0.001493,0.000133,-0.01682,0.008995,0.002514,-0.011255,0.005366,0.001978,0.002588,-0.002892,-0.000239
Italy_Sardinia_SantImbenia_Phoenician.SG,0.133173,0.17264,0.0450655,-0.0511955,0.087247,-0.0283075,-0.0062275,-0.0032305,0.055733,0.093487,-0.001786,0.0140125,-0.033597,-0.0136935,-0.017372,-0.013789,0.001695,-0.001584,0.0028285,-0.0081915,0.0055525,0.005935,-0.009983,-0.026871,0.005329
Tunisia_Punic.SG,0.1060832,0.1529386,0.010861,-0.0444448,0.0367454,-0.0185184,-0.002632,-0.003923,0.024911,0.0384154,0.0020462,0.0072834,-0.0110306,-0.0064956,-0.0083874,-0.0080086,0.0002348,0.0000252,-0.0033938,-0.0014758,-0.0020964,0.0029924,-0.0017256,-0.0023618,-0.0012214
Italy_Sardinia_N,0.1245924,0.1770148,0.0430786,-0.0589599,0.0789968,-0.0310642,-0.0053689,-0.0030176,0.0624742,0.0996131,0.0036849,0.0183414,-0.0352669,-0.0129788,-0.0199822,-0.0060072,0.0088762,0.0019295,0.0056758,-0.0115633,0.0018525,0.0027775,-0.012211,-0.0296705,-0.0002857
Italy_Sardinia_LBA,0.1288098,0.1777177,0.0419232,-0.0548562,0.0812973,-0.0302597,-0.005601,-0.0017307,0.058971,0.0965547,-0.0031665,0.0154113,-0.0325813,-0.0130512,-0.0149745,-0.002696,0.0096917,0.004814,-0.0001463,-0.0116515,0.0010397,0.0036065,-0.011236,-0.0265097,0.0031932
Italy_Sardinia_Medieval,0.1155302,0.1568992,0.0350722,-0.017119,0.0473163,-0.002022,-0.0035838,-0.0031728,0.0227532,0.0440558,0.000487,0.00562,-0.0203668,-0.0101152,-0.0022392,-0.0116015,-0.0080185,-0.000982,0.0052165,-0.0001565,0.007861,0.0038332,-0.0032045,-0.0051815,-0.0016465
Morocco_Iberomaurusian,-0.189857,0.0812424,-0.0233816,-0.085918,0.026897,-0.0562244,-0.0688578,0.0189222,0.1556838,0.0023324,0.0228318,-0.0328806,0.0757278,-0.0494342,0.0694074,-0.035799,0.007719,-0.0649408,-0.1416618,0.0393438,-0.037908,-0.1254826,0.0707936,-0.0144358,0.0191596
Morocco_EN.SG,-0.1735805,0.092413,-0.026398,-0.082365,0.030621,-0.0602405,-0.0794335,0.020538,0.1517565,0.005376,0.0208665,-0.025702,0.0747765,-0.045966,0.0671815,-0.0325505,0.013364,-0.05701,-0.149455,0.0322025,-0.0400545,-0.117223,0.0815285,-0.009519,0.0212555
Morocco_LN.SG,0.019919,0.1457285,-0.00264,-0.0931855,0.0401615,-0.0474115,-0.0217385,0.004615,0.081094,0.0359005,0.006739,0.013188,0.014123,-0.018717,0.0007465,-0.0017235,0.0158415,-0.0064615,-0.0331215,0.0190715,-0.0101695,-0.023123,0.008196,-0.010664,0.0001795
Algeria_NumidoRoman_Berber.SG,0.0916275,0.150298,-0.024324,-0.0521645,0.008155,-0.021335,0.0034075,-0.0003465,0.006954,0.021048,0.0022735,0.003822,-0.0039395,0.0001375,-0.002375,-0.0028505,0.005411,-0.002154,-0.0000630,-0.005565,-0.005116,-0.005626,0.00228,0.001145,0.0044305
Israel_PPNB,0.07057,0.174671,-0.032809,-0.147612,0.03693,-0.068886,-0.018331,-0.00923,0.077719,0.043554,0.011205,-0.012589,0.0278,-0.006744,-0.02348,0.009944,0.02034,-0.008742,-0.001885,0.024637,0.000749,0.007048,-0.004807,-0.005422,-0.008742
Israel_MLBA,0.0860788,0.1471248,-0.0638747,-0.1007764,-0.0139128,-0.0386611,-0.0055128,-0.0095669,0.0132599,0.0101292,0.0099125,-0.0098099,0.0215621,0.0043408,-0.0084543,0.0056351,-0.0049055,0.0042811,0.0036138,0.0091138,0.0044765,0.0054717,-0.0049606,-0.0012853,-0.0005837
Israel_IA,0.084229,0.147252,-0.063356,-0.09367,-0.016311,-0.047969,-0.008695,-0.003923,0.01084,0.009294,0.008607,-0.005995,0.022596,0.005367,-0.008279,0.001458,-0.024773,0.006081,0.007416,-0.00988,0.003119,-0.002844,-0.002958,-0.001566,-0.005748
Egypt_ThirdIntermediatePeriod,0.050651,0.146744,-0.041672,-0.1187035,-0.001846,-0.0490845,-0.012573,-0.004154,0.048063,0.006196,0.0089315,-0.014387,0.028989,-0.003578,-0.002375,-0.0049725,-0.007888,0.0007605,-0.0063475,0.014257,0.0056775,0.003462,0.004437,0.0013255,0.0004195
Japan_Jomon.SG,0.011382,-0.338171,-0.050911,0.014535,0.040315,0.009203,-0.00611,-0.001615,0.020657,0.017312,-0.052939,-0.001649,0.009217,-0.010459,-0.023344,-0.012596,0.004433,0.010515,0.007165,-0.013757,0.071748,-0.042166,0.015159,0.010724,-0.098434
Japan_Honshu_Kofun.SG,0.018591,-0.443786,0.010685,-0.0564173,0.0330317,0.0144093,0.000235,0.001846,-0.004431,0.0061357,-0.068636,-0.0063943,0.011645,-0.004679,-0.0076453,-0.0059223,-0.00326,0.0032093,0.0011733,-0.008087,0.0289903,-0.0158277,0.0027113,0.0029317,-0.0354457
Japan_Nagabaka_historic,0.0136587,-0.4143357,0.0052797,-0.0420977,0.0398023,0.0056707,0.0019583,0.0035387,0.0018403,0.0123923,-0.0637647,-0.0062943,0.009663,-0.0017433,-0.012984,-0.005878,0.006041,0.0061233,0.0000417,-0.0047103,0.0319853,-0.0214743,0.007354,0.0047797,-0.0432697

Conclusion

Twenty cases. Twenty different verdicts on the relationship between identity, language, culture, and ancestry. Some confirmed the chronicles with surprising precision. Others dismantled them. A few revealed dynamics neither the written sources nor archaeology had suspected: the cosmopolitanism of imperial Rome, the absorption of slaves into Viking culture, the modest demographic footprint of conquering elites in Hungary, Anatolia, and the Maghreb, the surprising preservation of Neolithic ancestry in Sardinia, the deep antiquity of the Channel-Atlantic genetic continuum.

The general lesson is simple but counterintuitive. There is no automatic correspondence between language, culture, and genetics. Peoples do not always migrate when their words travel, and vice versa. Their religious or political identity does not necessarily reflect their biological ancestry. Paleogenetics forces us to think these three dimensions separately, and to accept that the identity of a people cannot be reduced to its DNA, its language, or its official chronicles. It is, almost always, more complex and more mixed than founding myths would have it.

The dead, when their genomes are sequenced, turn out to tell a very different story than the one their descendants like to repeat. Not a worse story. Just a more accurate one. And from that gap between memory and reality, paleogenetics has given us a tool to see ourselves more clearly, and to understand more fully what it means to be human in the very long run.

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