Abstract:
This article reviews scientific publications that have attempted to use genetic and genomic
data in order to investigate European migrations between the fourth and ninth centuries. It
considers early single-locus studies that used mtDNA and y-chromosome data. These studies
were successful in formulating hypotheses concerning migration and heterogeneity, primarily
between the Continent and the British Isles and Iceland, but could only examine a small
portion of the entire genetic inheritance. The article continues with a presentation of more
recent genome-wide studies. In particular, it evaluates the problems of using modern genomic
data to understand past migratory processes, arguing that modern DNA is a problematic
source for understanding population histories of the past fifteen hundred years and urges
the sequencing and analysis of ancient DNA. It also presents some of the problems of research
teams that did not include archaeologists and historians as integral participants in the
planning, collection, and evaluation of data. It concludes with a brief outline of the authors’
current project that examines migration between Pannonia and Italy in the sixth century.
