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The article focuses on the chronological attribution of male graves from the late Mazunino stage of the Tarasovo burial ground and is a sequel to an earlier article about dating of the early Nyrgynda stage (1st – 2nd centuries) of the same site. The three main methods employed in this research include those of formal typology, cultural stratigraphy and the nearest neighbor method. Eighty-six male graves of the third-fifth centuries were analyzed, with 12 identified as a result: first half of the 3rd c. AD (group 1), second half of the 3rd c. AD (2); 3rd c. (3); first half of the 4th c. (group 4); second half of the 3rd – 4th c. (5); third quarter of the 4th c. (6); fourth quarter of the 4th c. (group 7); second half of the 4th c. (8); second half of the 4th – 5th c. (9); 4th – 5th cc. (10); second half of the 3rd – 5th cc. (11) and 3rd – 5th cc. (12). This article minutes investigates the first six groups, while the rest will be covered in the next publication. Artifacts form the third – fifth century female graves of the Tarasovo burial ground will be studied separately.

The article focuses on the chronology of graves dating back to the early (1st – 2nd centuries AD) – Nyrgynda stage of the 1st – 5th century Tarasovo burial ground, a classical monument attributed to the Cheganda culture of the Pyany Bor cultural-historical community. Cultural stratigraphy is applied as a research method. Artifacts from the early stage were correlated for 37 male and 102 female complexes, separately. The analysis of grave goods from male burials showed the following three chronological groups, that can be distinguished at the Nyrgynda stage: 1st century (group 1), 2nd century (group 2) and 1st – 2nd centuries AD (group 3). The goods from female graves are more representative and various, so three more groups with shorter chronological lives can be singled out: the fi rst half of the 2nd century (group 2а), the second half of the 2nd century (group 2б) and the 1st – fi rst half of the 2nd century (group 4). Certainly, the suggested chronology leaves room for any eventual corrections subject to new findings.

Many scientific theories exist about the origin of Hungarians and their migration from Northern Central Asia to Europe in the 8th-9th centuries AD. Ethnic heterogeneity of the Hungarian Conquerors is attested by a number of historical and archaeological evidence due to their associated migration with other populations from the Ural region through the Middle-Volga region (and the Khazar Khaganate) until their arrival in the Carpathian Basin in 895 AD. The source region, direction, and chronology of the migration is still unclear and intensively studied by historians, archaeologists and linguists. In our studies, we approach these issues using archaeogenetic methodology. We investigate early medieval (6th-10th AD) populations from the regions of the Ural Mountains, the presumed migration route and the Carpathian Basin. The sites can be associated with each other and the Hungarian Conquerors as well. Remains of the first cultures (Kushnarenkovo and Karayakupovo) associated with Hungarian prehistory are from the Middle and Southern Urals. Investigating whole mitochondrial genomes, our first series came from the eastern (Uyelgi) and western (Bayanovo, Sukhoy Log, Bartim) side of the Middle-Southern Urals. As a continuation we included samples from the Volga-Kama region, with special attention to Bolshie Tigani site. We might get a better picture of the migration route and can map its stages and stopovers in a genetic context by extending our database with mitochondrial data from the presented series.

The studies by the outstanding archaeologist V.F. Gening in the field of the Volga-Ural antiquities of the turn of the eras, namely the Glyadenovo-Pyanoborye community of the Kama region are analyzed. In this region, V.F. Gening supervised field research of a number of settlements and burial grounds. He singled out a number of cultures that had previously been considered local variants, namely the Osinovo, Garevaya, Azelino and Mazunino cultures, whose status within this community, as well dating are still debatable. The cultural and historical assessment of the unique monuments such as bone beds by him is regarded as incorrect by the author. V.F. Gening attributed them as burial grounds, whereas today they are viewed as traces of human sacrifice.

Funder: Wellcome Trust, Human herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), a lifelong infection spread by oral contact, infects a majority of adults globally. Phylogeographic clustering of sampled diversity into European, pan-Eurasian, and African groups has suggested the virus codiverged with human migrations out of Africa, although a much younger origin has also been proposed. We present three full ancient European HSV-1 genomes and one partial genome, dating to the 3rd-17th century CE, sequenced to up to 9.5× with paired human genomes up to 10.16×. Considering a dataset of modern and ancient genomes we apply phylogenetic methods to estimate the age of sampled modern Eurasian HSV-1 diversity to 4.68 (3.87 - 5.65) kya. Extrapolation of estimated rates to a global dataset points to the age of extant sampled HSV-1 as 5.29 (4.60-6.12) kya, suggesting HSV-1 lineage replacement coinciding with the late Neolithic period and following Bronze Age migrations.