After six years, 7.000 genetically analysed samples, archaeological and anthropological studies of over 100 cemeteries, and numerous publications, the ERC Synergy Grant 856453 HistoGenes will be concluded in 2026. In our final conference, we would like to share our results and discuss their implications with colleagues. Our team will address the main research questions we have set out to answer at the beginning of the project and present their related case studies – the interaction of Roman population with migrants from the north, the influx of Asian populations into the Carpathian Basin, community formation in the Avar period, the spread of Slavs and the development of new central places in the 9^th century. We will also focus on comparative topics such as migration, chronology, demography, and discuss disciplinary and interdisciplinary advances that the HistoGenes Approach has brought about. A public lecture in German will be held on Wednesday evening, 25 February at the NHM by our PIs Patrick Geary (history) and Tivadar Vida (archaeology) and group leader Margit Berner (anthropology). Two keynote lectures by our PIs Johannes Krause (genetics) and Walter Pohl (history) will conclude the three-days programme.
 

Programme Overview

Wednesday, 25 Feb, Natural History Museum

13:30 Introduction and welcome
Katrin Vohland (GD Natural History Museum), Walter Pohl, Ingrid Hartl

1. Main Themes and Results

14:00-16:00 1.1. Interaction of Roman Population with Migrants
Guido Gnecchi-Ruscone, István Koncz, Tina Milavec, Vujadin Ivanišević, Yijie Tian, Luca Traverso, Deven Vyas, Veronika Wieser, response: Frans Theuws

16:30-18:00 1.2. Influx of Eastern Populations into the Carpathian Basin
Falko Daim, Guido Gnecchi-Ruscone, Zsófia Rácz, Luca Traverso

18:30-20:00 NHM Public Lecture (in German)
Margit Berner, Patrick Geary, Tivadar Vida, Interdisziplinäres Arbeiten zum frühen Mittelalter – neueste Forschungsmethoden und Ergebnisse

Thursday, 26 Feb, Natural History Museum 

9:30-11:00 1.3. Community Formation at the Avar Period
Adrienn Blay, Balázs Gyuris, Yusuf Can Özdemir, Bendeguz Tobias, Ke Wang, response: Sören Stark

11:30-13:00 1.4. The Spread of the Slavs and the 9th Century
Clemens Gantner, Joscha Gretzinger, Levente Samu, Denisa Zlámalová, response: Sebastian Brather 

14:00-18:00 2. Comparative Approaches

Migration: Balázs Gyuris & Sabine Eggers – response: Stefan Burmeister
Chronology: Bendeguz Tobias & Ronny Friedrich – response: Jiří Macháček
Demography: Tamás Szeniczey – response: Irene Barbiera
Ways of life and local communities: Doris Pany-Kucera & Paul Klostermann – response: Petr Veleminski
Gender and relatedness: Zuzana Hofmanová & Zsófia Rácz – response: Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
Plague and diseases: Alexander Herbig, Alina Hiss & István Koncz – response: Michael McCormick

Friday, 27 Feb, Austrian Academy of Sciences

9:30-11:00 3. Related Research
Susanne Hakenbeck, Barbara Horejs, Adam Izdebski, Jiří Macháček, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy, Frans Theuws

11:30-15:00 4. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Advances & Future Perspectives

Archaeogenetics: Zuzana Hofmanová – response: Martin Sikora
Archaeology: Tivadar Vida – response: Philipp von Rummel
Anthropology: Margit Berner – response: Albert Zink
History: Salvatore Liccardo – response: Steffen Patzold
Interdisciplinary method and problems of terminology: Krishna Veeramah, Patrick Geary – response: James Harland

16:00-17:00 Panel Discussion Knowledge Transfer & Uses and Misuses of Archaeogenetic Results
Eszter Bánffy, Falko Daim, Sabine Eggers, Jörg Feuchter, Ingrid Hartl, Barbara Horejs, Marcin Wołoszyn 

17:30 Keynote Lectures
Welcome: Christiane Wendehorst (Division President OEAW), Sebastian Schuetze (Rector University of Vienna), Katrin Vohland (GD Natural History Museum), Christina Lutter (Dean Faculty Historical and Cultural Studies/University of Vienna), Claudia Rapp (Director IMAFO)

Johannes Krause, Insights to Early Medieval History from Ancient Human Genomes

Walter Pohl, Decoding the Genome, Telling New Stories: The HistoGenes Journey