To study migration and mobility history in the Ukraine region, with a particular focus on migrating groups during the Iron Age and the Medieval period, scientists generated genomic data for 91 individuals dating from around 7000 BCE to 1800 CE. Their results show that the ancient population had a diverse range of ancestries as a result of frequent movements, assimilation, and contacts.

For centuries, migration took place in the steppe and forest-steppe belt of Ukraine, moving in several directions.

These migrations were driven by various processes, including intertribal cultural contacts and conflicts, trade, demographic pressures, expansion of nomad influence zones etc.

Major migration flows came from the Carpathian-Danubian region, the Southern Urals and Volga region, Central Asia, the North Caucasus, and intensive population movements also occurred within the territory of Ukraine.

At the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Early Iron Age, the most archaeologically conspicuous activities of the North Pontic steppes were associated with Cimmerians and their military campaigns in Asia Minor.

The Cimmerians were followed by Scythians and Sarmatians, Early Iron Age political and military tribal unions with variable combinations of local and East Asian ancestry, as indicated by previous ancient DNA (aDNA) studies. At this time, the Northern Black Sea coast was covered with a network of urbanized Greek colonies.

In the forest-steppe zone, the contemporary settled populations were associated with the previous Tshinets Cultural Circle (including Lusatian and Vysotska cultures), as well as with Central European influences of Hallstatt and La Tène periods (Illirians, Thracians, and Celts).

According to written and archaeological sources, peoples that are considered the predecessors of the Slavs — associated with the Zarubinetska culture — had already been present in the Ukraine region during the La Tène and Roman periods, from the 3rd century BCE onward.

The beginning of the Migration period in the Ukraine region is associated with the arrival of Germanic tribes such as Goths, and the formation of the multiethnic Chernyakhiv culture, which included other peoples who already inhabited the region.

In the 2nd to 4th centuries CE, the Huns — nomadic people from Central Asia — appeared in the North Pontic steppe, and their westward migration led to notable economic, cultural, and social changes in Europe.

This period is associated with the emergence of a new ethnolinguistic group, the Slavs, who spread throughout much of Eastern Europe during 5th to 7th centuries CE.

In the 8th to 10th centuries CE, а substantial part of Ukraine was under the control of Khazar Khaganate.

In Ukrainian archaeology, this is represented by the Saltiv culture, which is thought to have been shared among multiple ethnic groups (Alans, Bulgars, Turks, Slavs, Magyars, etc.).

During the same period, there was a process of unification of the Slavic tribes, and in the 9th century CE, the state of Kyivan Rus was formed.

The development of Slavic statehood took place against the background of constant nomadic incursions from the east.

In the period from the 11th to the 13th century CE, waves of Pechenegs, Torques, and Cumans entered the North Pontic region from Central Asia, and the most substantial invasion in terms of military strength and consequences was that of the Mongols of the Golden Horde in the 13th century CE.

By the 15th century CE, remnants of the Golden Horde population, such as the Nogai, were still living in the North Pontic steppes.

Since the 16th c. CE, Slavs have been the majority ethnolinguistic group in the region of Ukraine.

“We set out to examine the genetic ancestries of people living in the North Pontic region during these time periods and associated with various cultural groups,” said study’s first author Dr. Lehti Saag, a researcher at the University of Tartu and University College London, and colleagues.

For the research, the authors extracted and sequenced DNA from the tooth roots and bone fragments of 91 individuals from 33 archaeological sites in present-day Ukraine.

The samples included one Neolithic individual (7000 to 6000 BCE), nine individuals from the Bronze Age and from the Final Bronze Age to the beginning of the Iron Age (3000 to 700 BCE), six individuals from the beginning of the Early Iron Age (900 to 700 BCE), 29 individuals from the Scythian period of the Early Iron Age (700 to 300 BCE), six individuals from the end of the Early Iron Age (400 to 1 BCE), 12 individuals from the later Iron Age (1 to 400 CE), nine individuals from the Early Middle Ages (800 to 900 CE), and 19 individuals from the Middle Ages to the early modern period (900 to 1800 CE).

Their DNA analysis shows that the ancient population had a diverse range of ancestries as a result of frequent movements, assimilation, and contacts.

“From the Mesolithic until the time of Vysotska and Bilozerska cultures at the end of the Bronze Age, broad-scale ancestry proportions are similar to contemporary populations in the rest of Europe — first hunter-gatherers, then early farmers, and lastly a mixture between early farmers and Steppe pastoralists,” the researchers said.

“Starting from the Cimmerian time until the Middle Ages, the appearance of eastern nomads in the Pontic region became a regular occurrence.”

“Their genetic composition varied from Yamna-like superimposed on the locals, as with Scythians and Cumans, to high degrees of East Asian ancestry and minimal local admixture, as with Alans-Bulgars and Nogai.”

“During that time, nomadic populations were recorded in the steppe zone, whereas individuals from the rest of the Ukrainian region had mostly European ancestry, associated with local predecessors, as well as Thracians, Greeks, Goths, etc.”

“The palimpsest of migration and population mixing in the Ukraine region will have contributed to the high genetic heterogeneity in geographically, culturally, and socially homogeneous groups, with different genetic profiles present at the same site, at the same time and among individuals with the same archaeological association,” they added.

“It is important to note that our study has a particular focus on historically attested migrating groups rather than local populations, and sampling is geographically skewed mostly toward the eastern part of Ukraine and temporally toward the Iron Age and the Medieval period.”

“Nevertheless, the broad-scale local genetic profile, which is similar to modern Ukrainians, persists in the region through time also within this sample set.”

“This ancestry composition can be traced back to the Zrubna individuals at least and is seen among Vysotska and Lusatian individuals, Scythians from the west and contemporary agriculturalists from the east, among the Chernyakhiv population, as well as Medieval and early modern Slavs.”

“Despite clear signatures of high migration activity, including from East Asia, as well as extensive admixture, we infer a major autochthonous component to Ukrainian ancestry, at least since the Bronze Age.”

The findings appear this week in the journal Science Advances.

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Lehti Saag et al. 2025. North Pontic crossroads: Mobility in Ukraine from the Bronze Age to the early modern period. Science Advances 11 (2); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adr0695