Walter Pohl

A truly sensational find is presented in volume 23 of Medieval Worlds: a newly discovered Christian world chronicle in Arabic, which Adrian C. Pirtea examines in a preliminary case study. We furthermore open a new series on Multilingualism in Premodern Societies, which investigates patterns of communication, mobility and power in connection with language use in a Eurasian context.

Abstract 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 horizons3,4,5,6. However, so far there has been no consensus on whether this archaeological horizon spread by migration, Slavicisation or a combination of both.

Abstract After a long-distance migration, Avars with Eastern Asian ancestry arrived in Eastern Central Europe in 567 to 568 ce and encountered groups with very different European ancestry1,2. We used ancient genome-wide data of 722 individuals and fine-grained interdisciplinary analysis of large seventh- to eighth-century ce neighbouring cemeteries south of Vienna (Austria) to address the centuries-long impact of this encounter1,2.