The second half of the first millennium CE in Central and Eastern Europe was accompanied by fundamental cultural and political transformations. This period of change is commonly associated with the appearance of the Slavs, which is supported by textual evidence1,2 and coincides with the emergence of similar archaeological horizons3-6. However, so far there has been no consensus on whether this archaeological horizon spread by migration, Slavicisation or a combination of both. Genetic data remain sparse, especially owing to the widespread practice of cremation in the early phase of the Slavic settlement. Here we present genome-wide data from 555 ancient individuals, including 359 samples from Slavic contexts from as early as the seventh century CE. Our data demonstrate large-scale population movement from Eastern Europe during the sixth to eighth centuries, replacing more than 80% of the local gene pool in Eastern Germany, Poland and Croatia. Yet, we also show substantial regional heterogeneity as well as a lack of sex-biased admixture, indicating varying degrees of cultural assimilation of the autochthonous populations. Comparing archaeological and genetic evidence, we find that the change in ancestry in Eastern Germany coincided with a change in social organization, characterized by an intensification of inter- and intra-site genetic relatedness and patrilocality. On the European scale, it appears plausible that the changes in material culture and language between the sixth and eighth centuries were connected to these large-scale population movements.

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Zagreb Croatia

Department for Prehistory and Historical Archaeology University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Department of Anthropology University of Łódź Łódź Poland

Department of Archaeogenetics Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany

Department of Archaeology and Museology Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Department of Biology University of Turku Turku Finland

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany

Department of Slavic Philology University of Łódź Łódź Poland

Doctoral School of Humanities and Art Maria Curie Skłodowska University Lublin Poland

Faculty of Archaeology University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland

Institute for Advanced Study Princeton NJ USA

Institute for Austrian Historical Research University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Institute for Medieval Research Austrian Academy of Sciences Vienna Austria

Institute of Archaeological Sciences Eötvös Loránd University Budapest Hungary

Institute of Archaeology Maria Curie Skłodowska University Lublin Poland

Institute of Archaeology University of Rzeszów Rzeszów Poland

Institute of Archeology Jagiellonian University Krakow Poland

Institute of History Czech Academy of Sciences Prague Czech Republic

Institute of History University of Szczecin Szczecin Poland

Institute of Latvian History University of Latvia Riga Latvia

Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals Polish Academy of Sciences Krakow Poland

Institute Prehistoric Archaeology Free University Berlin Berlin Germany

Laboratory of Anthropology Institute of Zoology and Biomedical Research Jagiellonian University Krakow Poland

Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe Leipzig Germany

Matica Hrvatska Zadar Zadar Croatia

Max Planck Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean Initiative for the Science of the Human Past at Harvard Department of History Harvard University Cambridge MA USA

Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland

Rev Stanisław Staszic Museum Hrubieszów Poland

State Archaeology Department of Schleswig Holstein Schleswig Germany

State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony Anhalt and State Museum of Prehistory Halle Germany

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