A new study by the HistoGenes archaeogenetic consortium, published in Nature, used ancient DNA data to examine how Slavic migration reshaped Central and Eastern Europe in the early Middle Ages.

Historians have long debated whether the spread of Slavic material culture and language was driven primarily by mass migration, by the gradual “Slavicization” of local populations, or by a combination of both. Until now, however, the evidence has been weak — particularly for the crucial early centuries, when the widespread practice of cremation made DNA analysis impossible and the available archaeological finds were limited.

Aerial view of the 7th–9th century cemetery at Velim, Croatia (© Archaeological Museum Zadar)

A new analysis of genome-wide data from more than 550 ancient individuals reveals a dramatic population shift. In the 6th–8th centuries, Central and Eastern Europe — including present-day eastern Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and the northern Balkans — underwent a profound demographic transformation: over 80% of the early medieval population was composed of newcomers from Eastern Europe.

The findings confirm that the rise of the Slavs was fundamentally part of the history of migrating peoples. Their genetic profile points to an origin in a region stretching from southern Belarus through central Ukraine, between the Dniester and Don rivers — an area long suggested by linguistic and archaeological reconstructions.

Slavic expansion was not a single, unified migration, but rather a mosaic of movements in which different groups adapted and intermixed in their own ways — suggesting the existence of multiple “Slavic” identities. In the north, earlier Germanic populations largely moved away, leaving space for Slavic settlers. In the south, across the Balkans, the newcomers blended with existing communities. This patchwork process explains the remarkable cultural, linguistic, and even genetic diversity that characterizes Central and Eastern Europe today. The spread of the Slavs was likely the last continent-scale demographic event to fundamentally and permanently reshape the genetic and linguistic landscape of Europe.

The genetic data examined come from three main regions: the northwestern Balkans, the Elbe–Saale region of eastern Germany, and the Polish–northwestern Ukrainian region. In addition, data from the Baltic Sea region and the Volga–Oka region in Russia were analyzed, covering a total of 1,840 ancient individuals. (Gretzinger, J., Biermann, F., Mager, H. et al. Ancient DNA connects large-scale migration with the spread of Slavs. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09437-6)

The Slavic migration represented a fundamentally different social model — a form of “demic diffusion” or bottom-up movement — often composed of smaller groups or temporary alliances. The Slavs settled in new territories without imposing fixed identities or rigid elite structures. Their success lay not in conquest but in a pragmatic, egalitarian way of life — free from the heavy burdens and hierarchies of the declining Roman Empire. In many regions, the Slavs offered a genuine alternative to the collapsing empires around them.

It is also noteworthy that the genetic data show no significant sex bias in these migrations, indicating that entire families moved together, with both men and women equally contributing to the emerging societies. In contrast to the fragmentary historical and archaeological records, the new genetic findings reveal the true scale of the Slavic migrations — one of Europe’s most influential yet often underemphasized chapters. The legacy of this historical process remains embedded today in the continent’s languages, cultures, and in the DNA of millions of people.

Vessels from the 7th–9th century Velim cemetery, Croatia (© Archaeological Museum Zadar)

HistoGenes is currently the world’s largest archaeogenetic project and the first large-scale initiative in which researchers from genetics, archaeology, history, and anthropology work closely together on a multidisciplinary basis. Results published so far include studies on the origins of the Avar elite (in Cell), the structure of Avar society (in Nature), and the origins of the Huns (in PNAS). The archaeological lead of the international project is Professor Tivadar Vida, Director of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE).

The study is available at this link.

Archaeogenetics laboratory: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig (MPG ©Rita Radzeviciute)