Ancient DNA | Visigothic Hispania | The making of Spain

Did the Visigoths leave their mark on Spanish DNA?

For centuries, Spanish nobles claimed descent from the Goths, and in Chile and the Canary Islands the word "godo" is still a dismissive name for Spaniards. In October 2026, a study of 243 ancient genomes gave the question a clear answer: Rome changed the population of Hispania far more than the Goths ever did. We tested 102 ancient Iberian genomes in Global25 to see it for ourselves.

12 to 22%the Central and Northern European contribution in the 2026 study, depending on the region and the social setting
1 in 33newcomers to locals in historians' estimates: about 120,000 Goths, Vandals, Alans and Suebi against some four million Hispano-Romans
6 of 102ancient Iberians in our Global25 test who carry more than 40% Central European ancestry, four of them in a single cemetery near Girona

Hero image: AI generated illustration of a Gothic noble family in sixth century Hispania, with eagle-shaped and bow fibulae of the kind found in Visigothic-period graves, beside a Hispano-Roman steward and a weathered Roman villa in the Catalan countryside. Clothing, jewellery and architecture are approximations, and the scene is not a reconstruction of any documented moment or of the individuals whose genomes are discussed here.

In the Spanish Middle Ages, to be a Goth was to be noble. The kingdoms of the north presented themselves as the heirs of Toledo, and families traced their lineage back to the warriors who had ruled Hispania before 711. The idea survived the Middle Ages: the Spanish dictionary still records "godo" as meaning a rich and powerful person from the families that made up the nobility when the Spanish nation was formed.

It travelled too. In the Canary Islands and in Chile, and formerly in Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador, "godo" became a dismissive word for a Spaniard, and in nineteenth century Colombia and Venezuela it came to mean a conservative. A Gothic ancestry had turned into a label for other people's arrogance.

What does the DNA say? In October 2026, Pablo Carrion, Inigo Olalde, Carles Lalueza-Fox, David Reich and colleagues published 243 new ancient genomes from 31 sites in the Iberian Peninsula, covering the first to the eighth centuries. Their answer is blunt: the Germanic arrivals of the fifth century left a real but modest mark, and the deep transformation of the Iberian population had already happened under Rome.

The Goths in HispaniaKey dates, from the crossing of the Danube to the first ancient genomes376The Goths cross the DanubeFleeing the Huns, Gothic groups enter the Roman Empire. Two years laterthey defeat and kill Emperor Valens at Adrianople.409Vandals, Alans and SuebiThree peoples cross the Pyrenees into Hispania. The Suebi settle inthe northwest, in Gallaecia.416 to 418The Visigoths arrive as Roman alliesFighting for Rome, they crush the Alans and the Siling Vandals, thensettle in Aquitaine, with Toulouse as their capital.429The Vandals leave for AfricaThey cross the Strait of Gibraltar and found a kingdom around Carthage.507Defeat at VouilleBeaten by the Franks of Clovis, the Visigoths lose most of Gaul. Theirkingdom now lies in Hispania, later ruled from Toledo.about 580Mixed marriages allowedKing Leovigild lifts the old ban on marriages between Goths andRomans, and in 585 conquers the Suebian kingdom.589The Third Council of ToledoKing Reccared and the Gothic elite abandon Arian Christianity forthe Catholic faith of the Hispano-Roman majority.711GuadaleteAn army from North Africa defeats King Roderic. The Visigothic kingdomcollapses within a few years.2019 and 2026The genomesOlalde and colleagues publish the first Visigothic-period genomes;Carrion and colleagues add 243 ancient genomes in Cell.
The main events, from the Gothic crossing of the Danube to the publication of the ancient genomes. Dates follow the standard historical chronology; the 2026 figure is the number of new genomes in Carrion and colleagues.

Who actually arrived

Traditionally on the last day of 406, a coalition of Vandals, Alans and Suebi crossed the Rhine. Three years later they crossed the Pyrenees. The Suebi settled in Gallaecia, in the northwest, where they held a kingdom for more than 170 years. The Vandals, joined by what remained of the Alans, crossed to North Africa in 429.

The Visigoths came differently. In 416 to 418 they entered Hispania as allies of Rome, under a treaty, to destroy the Alans and the Siling Vandals, which they did. They then settled in Aquitaine with their capital at Toulouse. Only after their defeat by the Franks at Vouille in 507 did the heart of their kingdom move south of the Pyrenees, and Toledo became its capital in the second half of the sixth century.

How many were they? Historians have long worked with rough estimates: on the order of 100,000 Visigoths and perhaps 20,000 Vandals, Alans and Suebi combined, against a Hispano-Roman population of around four million. That is roughly one newcomer for every thirty-three residents, and it was an armed and privileged minority, Arian Christians among a Catholic majority, forbidden until the time of Leovigild to marry the locals.

A note on the numbers. Population figures for Late Antiquity are reconstructions, not census data. Estimates of the Hispano-Roman population range from about four to six million, and the size of the newcomer groups is inferred from army sizes and from scattered figures in ancient writers, such as the 80,000 Vandals said to have crossed to Africa. They give an order of magnitude, nothing more.

What Global25 can and cannot do here

We analysed 102 ancient genomes from Spain and Portugal, dated from the first century AD to about 1300, using Davidski's Global25 coordinates and the Moriopoulos 2026 collection. Each individual was modelled by non-negative least squares with four sources: the Iberian Iron Age, a Central and Northern European source (the Wielbark culture of Roman-era Poland), an Eastern Mediterranean source (Byzantine western Anatolia) and a North African source (present-day Shilha Berbers of Morocco).

Two warnings before the results. First, the "Central and Northern European" component is not a Gothic ethnic label. The Celtic populations of the Iberian interior already carried about 20% of it in the Iron Age, long before any Goth was born, and medieval arrivals from France added more later. Only an unusually high value in the right period points to a migrant.

Second, a single ancient genome is noisy. We measured that noise directly, by adding real single-genome noise to an Iron Age Iberian profile and remodelling it: with no Central European ancestry at all, the model can still return up to 11 to 19%, depending on how well the genome is covered. We draw that band at 16% in the figures. So an individual at 15% tells us nothing. An individual at 55% tells us a great deal.

When did Central and Northern European ancestry appear in Iberia?Share of Central and Northern European ancestry in 102 ancient Iberian genomes, by date (our analysis)0%20%40%60%80%100%AD 1AD 100AD 200AD 300AD 400AD 500AD 600AD 700AD 800AD 900AD 1000AD 1100409: Vandals, Alans, Suebi711: Islamic conquestPla de l'HortaRoman periodPla de l'Horta (6th century)Other Visigothic-period burialsChristian north after 711Islamic-period burialsNoise band, one genome (0 to 16%)
Each dot is one ancient individual from Spain or Portugal, placed by date and by the share of Central and Northern European ancestry in our four-source Global25 model. The shaded band is what a genome with none of that ancestry can still return through noise alone, measured by spiking an Iron Age Iberian profile with real single-genome noise. Only the Pla de l'Horta cluster, and a handful of other sixth and seventh century burials, stand clearly above it.

Rome got there first

The first thing the data show is not Gothic at all. Before Rome, the Iberian Iron Age genomes in our test carry little Eastern Mediterranean or North African ancestry. By the Roman period, the same peninsula contains people with one third Eastern Mediterranean ancestry, people who are half North African, and people from the interior who still look entirely local.

The 2026 study quantifies this. Of 66 Roman-period individuals, 55 carried Eastern Mediterranean ancestry, and in the Ebro valley and the southeast this component averaged about one third of their ancestry. In the south, 33 of 34 Roman-era individuals carried North African ancestry, averaging 27%. At Cortijo Coracho, near Lucena in Cordoba, all but one of 31 individuals carried North African ancestry, and a four-generation family network of 16 people combined local, Eastern Mediterranean and North African ancestry.

And, strikingly, almost none of this came from Italy: only 8 of 269 Roman and early post-Roman individuals look clearly Italian. Romanisation moved people around the empire, from the Aegean, from Anatolia, from the African provinces, far more than it moved Romans from Rome.

The cemetery that proves the migration

If the Goths are anywhere in the genetic record, they are at Pla de l'Horta, a sixth century cemetery at Sarria de Ter, just outside Girona. Olalde and colleagues published its first genomes in 2019, and five of them have usable Global25 coordinates. Four of the five are unlike anything in our pre-Gothic sample. The 2026 study, with 26 individuals from the site, found 4 entirely of Central European ancestry and 9 more with a substantial share.

Who was buried in Visigothic Hispania?Ancestry of selected individuals in a four-source Global25 model (our analysis)0%25%50%75%100%Pla de l'Horta, manY J2a, mt U5b1b1d126916Pla de l'Horta, womanmt J2b1a6425Pla de l'Horta, manY E-V13, mt H1e26129Pla de l'Horta, man *Y R1b-L51, mt C4a1a295714Pla de l'Horta, womanmt W6a7519Madrid region, about 624 *155821Northern Portugal, about 600 *former Suebian kingdom28441414Barcelona, about 650 *4639Central Portugal, about 5507722Las Gobas, Burgos, 641611913Granada province, 482412725Bishop Theodemir of Iria, d. 847Santiago de Compostela38291616Iberian Iron AgeCentral and Northern EuropeanEastern MediterraneanNorth African* Low coverage (under 30% of the markers): the margin of error is wider.
Selected individuals, modelled with the Iberian Iron Age, the Wielbark culture of Roman-era Poland, Byzantine western Anatolia and Moroccan Berbers (our analysis). Y-chromosome and mitochondrial haplogroups for Pla de l'Horta follow Olalde and colleagues 2019. Values below about 16% for a single genome are within the noise band.

Three of them carry 61 to 69% Central and Northern European ancestry in our model, far above the noise band, and a fourth sits at 57%. The fifth, a woman, is 75% local Iberian. These are not people whose great-grandfather came from the Danube. They are migrants, or the children of migrants, buried beside a local woman.

Only two other individuals in our whole set pass 40%: one from the Madrid region, dated to about 624, and one from northern Portugal, in the former Suebian kingdom, dated to about 600. Both have low coverage, so their exact values are uncertain, but both sit well clear of the noise band. Six of the 26 genomes we have from 409 to 711, none of the 19 Roman-period genomes before them, none of the 57 after them: that is the whole visible footprint of the migration in the genomes we can test.

Their uniparental lineages tell the same mixed story. One man carries Y-chromosome haplogroup J2a and another E-V13, lineages that are at home in the Mediterranean and the Balkans rather than in Scandinavia; a third carries R1b-L51, common across western and central Europe. Two individuals from the site, the R1b man and a woman, share mitochondrial haplogroup C4a1a, a maternal lineage of eastern Eurasian origin. In the man, whose genome is in our set, we found no measurable East Asian component, so whatever brought that lineage west probably lies several generations back.

So where in Europe did they come from? We compared the average of the three clearest Pla de l'Horta migrants against the Germanic-era populations available in Global25.

Where did the newcomers of Pla de l'Horta come from?Global25 distance between three Pla de l'Horta individuals (average) and Germanic-era populations (our analysis)0255075100125Lombards, Hungary (6th c.)40Early medieval Germany (Bavaria)42Ostrogoth period, Hungary44Alemanni, Niederstotzingen46Gepid period, Hungary48Anglo-Saxons, England53Wielbark culture, Poland56Iron Age Denmark59Iron Age Sweden (Oland)61Chernyakhiv culture, Ukraine66Iberian Iron Age75Alans, North Caucasus121Shorter bars mean closer. Distances x 1000. Noise for this three-genome average is about 15 units.
We averaged the three clearest migrants of Pla de l'Horta and measured the Global25 distance to Germanic-era populations (our analysis). Blue: Central European and middle Danube groups. Grey: northern and eastern groups. The reference populations are themselves averages of mixed groups, so the ordering is informative but the small gaps between the top five are not.

The closest matches are not Scandinavian. They are the Lombards of sixth century Hungary (40 units), early medieval Bavaria (42) and the Ostrogothic-period population of Hungary (44), with the Alemanni and the Gepids just behind. The Wielbark culture of Poland, often invoked as the Gothic homeland, sits further away at 56, and Iron Age Denmark and Sweden further still. The Alans of the North Caucasus, at 121, are nowhere near.

That ordering fits the history better than any origin myth. Before reaching the West, the Goths had spent decades on the Danube frontier and in the Balkans, absorbing people as they went. What arrived in Girona resembles a Danubian population more than a Baltic one. The Eastern Mediterranean share of 16 to 29% in these same individuals points the same way: they can be modelled equally well as about two thirds Wielbark-like and one third Balkan Iron Age ancestry, which no Scandinavian source can provide.

Caution. These reference populations are themselves averages of mixed groups, and the differences between the top five are small relative to the noise. The safe conclusion is regional, not ethnic: the migrants resemble the Germanic-era populations of Central Europe and the middle Danube, and resemble northern ones less.

The other side of the story

Pla de l'Horta is an exception, and the 2026 study makes clear why it feels like one. Across 164 individuals from the migration and Visigothic period, 53 carried Central and Northern European ancestry and 18 were entirely of that origin. But they cluster: at Pla de l'Horta in the northeast, and at Los Blanes in Merida, the old Emerita Augusta. In cemeteries without Germanic-style grave goods, the average share falls to about 12%.

Our own results, on a different and partly overlapping set of individuals, agree. Outside Pla de l'Horta, the Visigothic-period burials average 20% (95% interval 14 to 26), only slightly above the Roman-period value of 13% (95% interval 8 to 17, from a sample drawn mostly from Portugal) and indistinguishable from the 20% carried by Celtic Iberians eight centuries earlier. At Las Gobas, a cave community in Burgos occupied from the sixth to the eleventh century, the 27 individuals average 18%, with no newcomer among them. In Granada province, the Visigothic-period burials average 9%, and their North African and Eastern Mediterranean shares are higher than their northern one.

A small and fading signalAverage Central and Northern European ancestry by period, with 95% intervals (our analysis)0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%Iberian Iron Agen = 83%Celtic Iron Age, interiorn = 220%Roman period (AD 1 to 408)n = 1913%Pla de l'Horta (6th century)n = 554%Other Visigothic-period burialsn = 2120%Christian north, 712 to 1000n = 2718%Islamic-period burialsn = 1316%Basques today12% (range 7 to 20)Spaniards today (33 regions)20% (range 13 to 27)Today, the same component also reflects Celtic Iron Age ancestry and later medieval arrivals from France.
Average share of Central and Northern European ancestry by period in our Global25 model, with 95% intervals from bootstrap resampling of the individuals (our analysis). The modern values are the mean and the range across regional averages. The same component is present in Iron Age Celtic Iberians, so it cannot be read as a measure of Gothic descent.

The 2026 study also found two first-degree relatives buried about 725 km apart, a woman near the Ildum way station in Castellon and her brother at Merida, both entirely of Central European ancestry, both with gold pins of a Danubian and Pontic style. Nothing like that distance between close relatives had been seen before in the archaeological record. The woman was buried in the early fifth century, at the very start of the migration period. These were mobile elite families travelling the Roman roads, not the leading edge of a mass settlement.

And at Los Blanes, three young women buried with rich Black Sea, Danubian and Elbe-region jewellery, described in the literature as Suebian princesses, included one who was genetically local. Wearing the identity of the ruling group did not require being born into it. The same study notes that fully Central European individuals are more common in burials before King Reccared's conversion in 589, and mixed ones more common after, which is what one expects once the legal and religious barriers to intermarriage fall.

The Goths did not vanish, they dissolved

There is a loud negative result here too. After 711, nothing changes. The Christian communities of the north between 712 and 1000 average 18% in our model, and the Islamic-period burials 16%. The arrival of the Umayyads did not erase a Gothic signal, because there was no concentrated Gothic signal left to erase: two centuries of intermarriage had already spread it thin.

Present-day Iberians sit exactly where that history predicts. In our model, Spaniards average 20% of the same component across 33 regions, from 13% to 27%, Portuguese 22%, and Basques 12%, from 7% to 20%. But those figures cannot be read as Gothic ancestry. They include the Celtic Iron Age inheritance, everything that crossed the Pyrenees in the Middle Ages, and the resolution limits of the method. The honest statement is the one the 2026 study makes for the period itself: a Germanic contribution of 12 to 22%, varying by region and by social group, diluted ever since. It is a layer, not a foundation.

Compare this with Britain, where early medieval burials in the east average about three quarters Anglo-Saxon ancestry, or with the Balkans, where Slavic-related ancestry runs from 40 to 60%. The Visigothic kingdom ruled a peninsula for nearly three centuries, gave Spain its law codes, its church councils and its idea of a single kingdom, and left a genetic trace that a careful statistical model can only just resolve above its own noise.

One last individual makes the point. In 2024, a team led by Patxi Perez-Ramallo examined the remains beneath a tombstone in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, probably those of Theodemir, the bishop of Iria Flavia who in the 820s declared that the tomb of Saint James had been found. He was a man over 45 whose diet included a good share of marine food and who lived near the coast, and his ancestry, as the authors put it, resembled Roman Iberians, southern Visigothic-period Iberians and Islamic-period Iberians alike. In our model he is 38% Iberian, 29% Central European, 16% Eastern Mediterranean and 16% North African: a Galician churchman of the ninth century carrying, in one genome, every layer of the peninsula's history at once.

Key points

  • A 2026 study of 243 new ancient genomes finds the Germanic contribution to Iberia at 12 to 22%, varying by region and social setting, and concentrated in elite contexts.
  • Roman rule changed the peninsula far more: most Roman-period individuals carry Eastern Mediterranean ancestry, and almost all in the south carry North African ancestry, while only 8 of 269 look clearly Italian.
  • In our Global25 test of 102 ancient Iberians, only six carry more than 40% Central and Northern European ancestry, and four of those are in one cemetery, Pla de l'Horta near Girona, at 57 to 69%.
  • Those migrants resemble the Germanic-era populations of the middle Danube and Central Europe more than those of Poland or Scandinavia.
  • Elsewhere, Visigothic-period burials average 20%, no higher than Celtic Iberians of the Iron Age, and the signal does not change after 711.
  • Present-day Spaniards average 20% of the same component, Portuguese 22% and Basques 12%, but that component is not a measure of Gothic descent.

Global25 coordinates used in this article

The four model sources, the Pla de l'Horta individuals and a few comparison populations. They can be pasted directly into the Vahaduo tool.

Spain_IA_source,0.125826,0.149283,0.058385,0.004962,0.060235,-0.004462,-0.002265,0.003105,0.033654,0.046454,-0.005064,0.013202,-0.023853,-0.013837,0.008970,0.005653,0.006626,0.000518,0.004091,-0.002626,0.005229,-0.000495,-0.005120,-0.013616,-0.002275
Poland_Wielbark_Kowalewko_source,0.128465,0.128788,0.069939,0.062824,0.043183,0.022375,0.005234,0.009493,0.000642,-0.008366,-0.004591,-0.000661,-0.005440,-0.004560,0.016595,0.007546,-0.003147,0.002764,0.005074,0.006526,0.005853,0.001860,-0.000712,0.014274,-0.000925
Turkey_WestByzantine_source,0.108960,0.151129,-0.030478,-0.067067,0.001175,-0.026419,0.000598,-0.004993,-0.005541,0.023111,0.005418,0.004782,-0.009474,0.004104,-0.017002,-0.010932,0.000059,0.002004,0.007359,-0.008754,-0.005570,0.006486,-0.003036,0.000110,-0.000729
Berber_Morocco_Shilha_source,-0.062912,0.135621,-0.004288,-0.080651,0.032556,-0.039096,-0.032576,0.007191,0.081723,0.034385,0.006718,-0.009673,0.027948,-0.020002,0.023047,-0.019962,-0.003584,-0.026156,-0.058336,0.010661,-0.017983,-0.053258,0.033250,-0.004601,0.008132
Spain_PlaDeLHorta_Visigothic:I12031,0.127482,0.132019,0.035449,0.017765,0.035699,0.009482,0.010340,0.012230,0.001841,0.005103,-0.009094,-0.002248,-0.006987,-0.007294,0.003664,-0.004110,0.006128,0.005828,-0.007165,0.004127,-0.000499,0.003957,-0.001849,0.003012,-0.007065
Spain_PlaDeLHorta_Visigothic:I12032,0.141141,0.144205,0.050911,0.028101,0.033545,0.011435,0.004700,0.007846,0.010840,0.006014,-0.005521,0.014387,-0.020664,-0.003441,0.005293,0.010740,0.002738,0.007601,0.000880,0.008254,0.008111,-0.000866,-0.001972,-0.002530,-0.000599
Spain_PlaDeLHorta_Visigothic:I12034,0.132035,0.138112,0.045254,0.015181,0.055703,-0.001952,-0.001410,-0.000231,0.022293,0.036083,-0.002761,0.017984,-0.018434,-0.011973,0.017915,0.006895,-0.000652,0.000633,-0.009427,-0.001751,0.007986,0.005812,-0.005423,-0.015544,-0.003233
Spain_PlaDeLHorta_Visigothic:I12162,0.117238,0.126941,0.045632,0.031977,0.044931,0.013666,0.009635,0.001615,0.002659,0.008565,-0.006171,0.007643,-0.004608,-0.012799,0.004614,-0.001061,0.003912,0.001267,0.003645,0.003377,0.018842,0.001607,0.000986,0.015183,-0.002874
Spain_PlaDeLHorta_Visigothic:I12163,0.121791,0.139128,0.050911,0.020995,0.029236,0.007251,0.007050,-0.002769,0.000000,0.002005,-0.008931,-0.002098,-0.017245,-0.002752,-0.000543,0.015115,0.018775,-0.002027,0.005154,0.008504,-0.001622,0.005935,0.000863,0.010483,-0.005508
Spain_Roman_average,0.088782,0.147252,0.030170,-0.025517,0.044008,-0.021753,-0.001645,0.003923,0.029247,0.037176,-0.002923,0.001499,-0.005798,-0.010872,0.006650,-0.004641,-0.012256,-0.005828,-0.010810,0.000250,-0.000499,-0.007666,0.003204,-0.007471,-0.005389
Spain_Visigoth_Granada_average,0.079534,0.147379,0.018809,-0.024588,0.034814,-0.011783,-0.007726,0.002365,0.032264,0.037244,-0.002700,0.005545,-0.006021,-0.009582,0.006990,-0.007243,-0.006438,0.000269,-0.015461,-0.001985,0.000936,-0.010634,0.004837,-0.008239,-0.001931
Hungary_Langobard_average,0.128810,0.131850,0.060276,0.047966,0.037879,0.015060,0.002898,0.006384,0.001551,-0.001336,-0.007578,0.003809,-0.007631,-0.004484,0.017712,0.004386,-0.005357,0.000496,0.006484,0.004398,0.006520,0.005296,-0.001140,0.011889,-0.000010
Spain_SantiagoDeCompostela_Theodemir,0.091058,0.135065,0.029415,-0.000969,0.038469,0.001116,-0.007990,-0.001615,0.028429,0.028611,-0.001624,0.007643,-0.008325,-0.019130,0.003257,0.010077,0.014864,-0.003294,-0.004777,0.002126,0.005740,-0.005688,0.003451,0.005422,0.000599

References

  1. Ancient DNA Carrion P, Olalde I, et al., Lalueza-Fox C, Reich D (2026). Contrasting demographic impacts of Roman colonization and early medieval migrations in the Iberian Peninsula. Cell. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.09.052
  2. Ancient DNA Olalde I, Mallick S, Patterson N, Rohland N, Villalba-Mouco V, et al., Lalueza-Fox C, Reich D (2019). The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years. Science 363(6432): 1230 to 1234. doi.org/10.1126/science.aav4040
  3. Ancient DNA Rodriguez-Varela R, Pochon Z, et al., Gotherstrom A (2024). Five centuries of consanguinity, isolation, health, and conflict in Las Gobas: a northern medieval Iberian necropolis. Science Advances. su.se (summary and reference)
  4. Ancient DNA Perez-Ramallo P, Rodriguez-Varela R, Staniewska A, Ilgner J, Krzewinska M, Chivall D, Higham T, Gotherstrom A, Roberts P (2024). Unveiling Bishop Teodomiro of Iria Flavia. Antiquity. mpg.de (summary and reference)
  5. Press release Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE, CSIC-UPF) (2026). The arrival of the Suebi, Alans and Visigoths did not erase the deep genetic legacy of Roman Hispania. ibe.upf-csic.es
  6. Reference Real Academia Espanola, Diccionario de la lengua espanola, entry "godo". dle.rae.es/godo
  7. Data Global25 coordinates by Davidski (Eurogenes), and the Moriopoulos Collection 2026 of averages. Admixture models, noise tests and figures: ExploreYourDNA.