Now, researchers say they have uncovered rare genetic markers linking the Piasts to royal dynasties and opened what could become the first large-scale genetic family tree of Europe’s medieval rulers.

“The genetics of the Piast dynasty is one large and complex mosaic, which we will continue to reconstruct in the coming years”, says Marek Figlerowicz, who leads the project at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The team’s latest findings, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, combine genetics, archaeology, anthropology, bioinformatics and medieval history in one of the most ambitious attempts yet to reconstruct the genealogy of a European ruling dynasty.

The work began in 2014 with an enormous search effort. Researchers identified around 340 possible Piast burial sites from historical records. Most, however, no longer contained usable remains.

After years of verification, scientists collected skeletal material from 33 individuals buried in eight Piast necropolises. Ten were definitively identified as members of the dynasty.

Among them were Konrad I of Masovia and his descendants, whose DNA became the oldest reliable genetic reference point for the Piast paternal line, as well as Dukes Stanisław of Masovia and Janusz III of Masovia, the final representatives of the Masovian Piasts.

The Piasts’ Y chromosome, passed down through the male line, belongs to the rare haplogroup R1b-BY3549, scarcely found in the modern world. Archaeogenomic databases have identified it in only a handful of earlier individuals from what is now France, the Netherlands and England, as well as in a Viking buried in Britain during the Piast era.

But the scientists also identified maternal genetic lines linking the Piasts to more than 200 members of Europe’s royal dynasties, including the Rurik dynasty, Gediminid dynasty, Árpád dynasty, Přemyslid dynasty, Habsburg dynasty and Hohenzollern dynasty.

“Contrary to popular belief, we know relatively little about the genetic genealogy of any medieval European dynasty. Similar data to ours have previously been collected for only a few cases: Richard III, two members of the Árpád dynasty, and data for one Rurik dynasty members have also been published. It is worth noting that all previous studies focus on single individuals. The difficulties that arise in this type of research are twofold. First, we must be certain that the remains in question belong to a specific historical figure and have not been mixed with the remains of another individual over the centuries. Secondly, in the case of individuals, we can never be certain whether the identified genetic traits are representative of the dynasty from which they originate”, Figlerowicz says.

With only 10 confirmed Piasts, the researchers say they have already laid the foundations for a continent-wide genetic map of Europe’s medieval elites.

“This shows that the Piasts were genetically and probably culturally extremely connected to the European aristocracy; one could say they were immersed in Europe. The wife of one Piast was from Ruthenia, another from Denmark, a third from Germany, a fourth from Bohemia, and a fifth from Hungary. This demonstrates a pan-European genome that characterizes the ruling families of Europe at the time. The genetics of the Piast dynasty is one large and complex mosaic, which we will continue to reconstruct in the coming years”, the scientist says.

The next chapter of the search is likely to unfold on an island in Lake Lednica, believed by many historians to be the probable site of Poland’s baptism in 966.

“Two cemeteries functioned on the shores of this lake during the Piast era. Therefore, we can assume that there were two settlements located relatively close to each other. We assume that if the Piasts lived there, then - knowing the customs and way of life at the time - they must have participated in the genes of the surrounding population”, Figlerowicz adds.

Researchers now want to know whether the rare R1b-BY3549 marker appears among ordinary people buried around Lednica.

“If it does appear, we will be certain that the early Piast dynasty already had it. If it does not, we will begin to doubt whether the R1b-BY3549 haplogroup occurred among all Piast dynasty members”, the researcher admits.

The team also plans to reanalyse remains believed to belong to Władysław I Herman and Bolesław III Wrymouth using newer DNA techniques unavailable during earlier studies.

“We have samples probably belonging to Władysław I Herman and Bolesław III Wrymouth, which we will soon reanalyse. If it turns out that they also belonged to the R1b-BY3549 haplogroup, it would mean that this haplogroup was present in the main Piast line. However, based on these data, we still will not be certain about the first Piasts, because to do so, we would need genetic data from Bolesław the Brave or Mieszko I, which has not been possible so far”, Figlerowicz says.

The publication cautiously suggests that the Piasts may have had “non-local origins” and that state-building in Central and Eastern Europe may have involved outside elites alongside local populations.

But Figlerowicz warns against simplistic conclusions about ethnicity or identity.

“We can imagine many scenarios explaining how this rare male lineage emerged among the Piasts we studied. It could have been that many years before the Piasts, someone with this group, for example a Viking, arrived in the area and stayed permanently, or it could have been that they only stayed long enough to have children with a representative of the local population. The ancestors of the Piasts could have arrived in the territories of modern-day Poland during the Great Migrations or shortly before they began establishing state structures. Depending on when this occurred, they could have considered themselves representatives of the local population or foreigners. Interestingly, most current discussions focus on the Y chromosome, which constitutes less than 1% of the genome. Why do we not consider the origins of women, from whom half the genome comes, or the origins of men, who also contributed a significant portion of the Piast dynasty's genome? For example, 25% of a child's genome comes from the mother's father”, he says.

For now, the scientists say their task is not to settle modern debates about identity, but to establish measurable historical facts hidden in medieval DNA.

“We do not want to answer questions that cannot be answered today; we are only establishing facts about the Piast dynasty's genetics. Unless we find some notes in which Chrobry or Mieszko wrote: ‘I consider myself a Slav’. This, however, is unlikely”, Figlerowicz concludes.

PAP - Science in Poland, Ewelina Krajczyńska-Wujec (PAP)

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