A genetic study comparing DNA from California’s Muwekma Ohlone people and DNA from remains of their ancestors supports the community’s oral history, which contends that the tribe has lived in the area for millennia. Muwekma Ohlone tribal members worked alongside archaeologists at two sites near the town of Sunol in the San Francisco Bay Area, within the group’s traditional territory. The team recovered the remains of 29 individuals at one site, which was inhabited from around 490 B.C. through 1775, and the remains of 76 people at another site, which was occupied between roughly 1345 and 1850. They sequenced the genomes of 12 of these individuals, including one who lived some 2,000 years ago.

“We identified a genetic signature connecting the two sites and then compared that signature to present-day Muwekma Ohlone community members, whose ancestors underwent a harsh colonial process, including forced movements, missionization, and strict social control,” says genetic anthropologist Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “The genetic signature identified in the remains of Muwekma Ohlone ancestors was found in contemporary Muwekma Ohlone community members in high frequency and shows that the community has been in the region for at least 2,000 years.” For more, see “Letter From the Bay Area: California’s Coastal Homelands” (May/June 2022).

Beginning in Late Antiquity, around the sixth century A.D., a powerful group of nomads known as the Avars ruled much of Europe—and nearly conquered Constantinople. The Avars were based in the Carpathian Basin at the height of their grip on the region—from the sixth through ninth centuries A.D.—but where they came from has been a mystery. They left no written records, and scholars believe they were probably not literate. Some contemporaneous Byzantine sources portray the Avars as a menace who suddenly appeared in Europe from somewhere to the east. Archaeological discoveries, including weapons and harnesses, at Avar sites in modern-day Hungary are similar to those found on the steppes of eastern Eurasia.

Analysis of DNA extracted from the remains of 66 Avars found in Hungary has provided evidence that they originated in what is now Mongolia and migrated to Hungary, a distance of more than 3,000 miles, over a single decade. “The Avars are the longest-lasting of the steppe empires in this region, longer than the more well-known Huns or Mongols, yet they are poorly understood,” says Patrick J. Geary, professor emeritus of history at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study. “Our next step is to better understand the extent to which this elite group integrated with the local population.”

A rare carved Pictish stone was unearthed near the village of Aberlemno in eastern Scotland. The 5.5-foot-tall monument, which dates to the fifth or sixth century A.D., is covered with geometric symbols such as disks, ovals, and crescents. “The Picts appear to have created a communication system that is unique and as yet undecipherable,” says University of Aberdeen archaeologist Gordon Noble. “Our best bet is that this was a form of identity marking, perhaps communicating a person’s name or status.” The stone was reused as a paving slab in an eleventh- or twelfth-century structure that was built directly atop an ancient Pictish settlement.

The region of Angus, where the discovery was made, was an important landscape for the Picts in the early Middle Ages, and several other carved monoliths have been recovered there. The pivotal Battle of Nechtansmere is believed to have been fought nearby in A.D. 685. During the battle, the Pictish king Bridei Mac Bili III defeated an army of invading Anglo-Saxons. His victory helped pave the way for the creation of the Kingdom of Scotland some 160 years later.