The Genetic Study of a Museum Anthropological Sample from the Urban Burial of Old Ryazan of the 11th–13th Centuries

Abstract

Old (Staraya) Ryazan has a special place in the history of Rus’ cities. Following its destruction by Batu’s troops in December 1237, the city declined and was ultimately abandoned in the 14th century. The new city was built in a different place. Studies of the population of Old Ryazan based on anthropological museum collections, allow us to assess the genetic structure of the urban population mainly of the pre-Mongol period. The article discusses the results of the analysis of one sample from the materials obtained during the excavations of A.V. Selivanov. The results of anthropological and whole-genome analysis showed that the sample under study belonged to a woman. Reconstruction and analysis of the complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) indicated its belonging to the Western European haplogroup HV4a1a. This study is the first finding of this mitochondrial haplogroup among the medieval population of Rus’. The discovered mtDNA maternal lineage is currently rare and predominantly distributed among the European population of the Franco-Cantabrian region (the territory of northern Spain and southern France). The closest matches in the complete mtDNA sequence (a difference of one nucleotide position) with the studied sample were found in modern representatives of the Basques and one individual from Denmark. The results obtained may indicate the Western European maternal ancestry of the studied woman from medieval Old Ryazan and the existence of possible common ancestors with the modern population of Western Europe. Our study is an example of the use of modern genomic methods to reconstruct the individual history of people whose anthropological materials are presented in museum collections. In addition, the obtained results contribute to understanding the peculiarities of the formation of the genetic structure of the urban population of Rus’.