Cranial deformation and genetic diversity in three adolescent male individuals from the Great Migration Period from Osijek, eastern Croatia.

Daniel Fernandes,Ron Pinhasi,Olivia Cheronet,Rachel Howcroft,Mario Novak,Mislav Čavka,Dženi Los,Josip Burmaz,Kendra Sirak,Peter F Biehl

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0216366

Abstract

Three individuals dating to the Great Migration Period (5th century CE) were discovered in a pit at the Hermanov vinograd site in Osijek, Croatia. We were inspired to study these individuals based on their unusual burial context as well as the identification of two different types of artificial cranial deformation in two of the individuals. We combine bioarchaeological analysis with radiographic imaging, stable isotopes analysis, and ancient DNA to analyze their dietary patterns, molecular sex, and genetic affinities in the context of the archaeological data and their bioarchaeological attributes. While all three individuals were adolescent males with skeletal evidence of severe malnutrition and similar diets, the most striking observation is that they had major differences in their genetic ancestry. Results of the genetic analyses of the nuclear ancient DNA data for these individuals indicate that the individual without artificial cranial deformation shows broadly West Eurasian associated-ancestry, the individual with tabular oblique-type has East Asian ancestry and the third individual with circular erect-type has Near Eastern associated-ancestry. Based on these results, we speculate that artificial cranial deformation type may have been a visual indicator membership in a specific cultural group, and that these groups were interacting intimately on the Pannonian Plain during the Migration Period.

Highlights

Humans exhibit similarities in cultural practices that span across space and throughout time
Due to widely-known issues in sexing non-adult skeletons from both forensic and archaeological contexts based on metric and non-metric traits, we looked to confirm our sex assessment using results obtained by ancient DNA analysis
The presented study reports an unusual archaeological feature with human remains belonging to three individuals from eastern Croatia dated to the Migration Period

Summary

Introduction

Humans exhibit similarities in cultural practices that span across space and throughout time. One such practice is Artificial Cranial Deformation (ACD), a widespread cultural phenomenon performed to denote group and/or individual identity; that is, to distinguish particular people from others or provide visible evidence of status, nobility, or affiliation to a certain class. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Two of the co-authors (Dzeni Los and Josip Burmaz) are employed by a commercial company Kaducej Ltd. The funders provided support in the form of salaries for authors DF and MN, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

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