Journal of Archaeological Science 127 (2021) 105333 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect ELSEVIER Journal of Archaeological Science journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas (D Runes from Lány (Czech Republic) - The oldest inscription among Slavs. A new standard for multidisciplinary analysis of runic bones Jiří Macháčeka'**, Robert Nedomab, Petr Dreslera, Ilektra Schulz c'd, Elias Lagonik6, Stephen M. Johnson6, Ludmila Kaňákováa, Alena Slámová a, Bastien Llamas6, Daniel Wegmann c'd'1, Zuzana Hofmanová a'c'd'1'* a Department of Archaeology and Museology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic b Abteilung Skandinavistik, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, Universität Wien, 1010, Wien, Austria c Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, 1700, Fribourg, Switzerland d Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1700, Fribourg Switzerland e Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, Environment Institute, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Genetics SEM microscopy Ancient DNA Runes Early Middle Ages Slavs When Roman administration and legions gradually withdrew from the outer provinces after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, they created a power void filled by various groups. The dynamic Migration Period that followed is usually considered to have ended when the Germanic Lombards allegedly left Central Europe and were replaced by Slavs. Whether or how Slavic and Germanic tribes interacted, however, is currently disputed. Here we report the first direct archaeological find in support of a contact: a bone fragment dated to ~600 AD incised with Germanic runes but found in Lány, Czechia, a contemporaneous settlement associated with Slavs. We documented and authenticated this artifact using a combined approach of use-wear analysis with SEM microscopy, direct radiocarbon dating, and ancient DNA analysis of the animal bone, thereby setting a new standard for the investigation of runic bones. The find is the first older fupark inscription found in any non-Germanic context and suggests that the presumed ancestors of modern Slavic speakers encountered writing much earlier than previously thought. 1. Introduction The first written reports about Slavs, referred to as Sclavini or Antes, describe their attacks on the Byzantine Empire at the beginning of the 6th century(Curta, 2006; Haury and Dewing, 1914). By 800 AD, Slavs had settled vast territories of Europe, as attested by finds of their material culture (Barford, 2001; Brather, 2008; Gojda, 1991). In Central Europe, early mentions of Slavs include Sclauos in the foundation deed of the monastery of Kremsmünster, AD 777 (Kremsmünster, Stiftsarchiv Urkunden 0777-0778), Boemanos Sclavos in the Annales Fuldenses, AD 805, omnhim orientaUumSclavorum, idest... Beheimorum, Morvanorumin Annales Regni Francorum, AD 822 and Sclavos Marganses in the Annales Fuldenses, AD 855 (Bartohkovä et al., 2019; Wolfram, 1995). Whether this Slavicization was the result of cultural diffusion or human migration remains disputed (e.g. Preiser-Kapeller et al., 2020), particularly for Central Europe, where it was weighted with various political and nationalist reminiscences (Curta, 2001, 2009; Pohl, 2003). According to some anthropologists, palaeodemographic analyses do not provide evidence for a mass migration of Slavs (Mielnik-Sikorska et al., 2013; Piontek, 2006). According to many linguists, however, the Slavic language was spoken in many European territories by the first millennium AD, where Slavic speakers overlaid the older Germanic, Roman or Greek language substrate (Birnbaum, 1993; Gola;b, 1992; Koder, 2020; Lindstedt and Salmela, 2020; Smith, 2005). While such a change of language could have been the result of the arrival of a new population (Heather, 2009), it could also have been the result of a language shift, during which one ethnolinguistic group persuades another to switch language through force or prestige (Blench, 2004). While genetics proved powerful to disentangle cultural diffusion from human migration in several cases (e.g. Hofmanova et al., 2016; * Corresponding author. Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, 1700, Fribourg, Switzerland ** Corresponding author. Department of Archaeology and Museology, Masaryk University, Arne Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic. E-mail addresses: machacek@phil.muni.cz (J. Macháček), zuzana hofmanova@eva.mpg.de (Z. Hofmanová). 1 These authors contributed equally. https://doi.Org/10.1016/j.jas.2021.105333 Received 3 September 2020; Received in revised form 23 December 2020; Accepted 12 January 2021 Available online 8 February 2021 0305-4403/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by/4.0/). J. Macháček et al. Journal of Archaeological Science 127(2021) 105333 0 70 140 Fig. 1. The rune bone found in Břeclav-Lány. A) Distribution of South Germanic runic inscriptions from the 6th and 7th century AD, location of the Germanic tribes around 568 AD and the Early Slavic settlements. B) The rune-inscribed bone from Lány. C) Prague type pottery from the same pit as B. Narasimhan et al., 2019), it has so far been inconclusive regarding the hypothesized expansion of Slavs. At a very local scale, a Slavic language isolate in Germany was found to be genetically closer to Slavic speakers than to local Germans (Veeramah et al., 2011), indicative of at least some migration during the spread of Slavic languages. At the continental scale, modern Slavic speakers were found to share more haplotypes among each other than with other Europeans. This was initially also interpreted as evidence for a demic expansion (Hellenthal et al., 2014; Ralph and Coop, 2013), but might be equally consistent with low population size (Al-Asadi et al., 2019; Ringbauer et al., 2017). Nevertheless, in some regions, a physical replacement of the population after the Migration Period is more obvious. In Northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein), for instance, the Angles, Jutes and other Germanic tribes initially inhabiting the region left during the Migration Period (Brugmann, 2011), as confirmed by ancient DNA research for their migration to the British Isles (Schiffels et al., 2016). As confirmed by palaeobotany and archaeology (Wieckowska et al., 2012; Wiethold, 1998), the region remained not or only sparsely occupied for at least 200 years, after which it was settled by various groups. Some of those are connected with Slavs based on archaeological finds and written records of later periods, as well as linguistic (toponomastic) evidence (Herrmann, 1985). In other locations of Central Europe, the discontinuity is less obvious. In the central Danube region, for instance, Germanic, Avar and Slavic settlement followed each other very closely in time (Koncz, 2015; Urbariczyk, 2004). However, the archaeological assemblage associated with Early Slavs (the Prague Culture) is distinct from that of Germanic communities previously inhabiting Central Europe (Barford, 2001; Biermann, 2016; Brather 2008; Gojda, 1991; Parczewski, 1991). As defined by M. Parczewski (2004) based on finds from Ukraine and Poland, typical Early Slavic settlements i) are located on the edge of a river valles, ii) allowed for a self-sufficient lifestyle, and iii) consisted of small sunken-floor huts with a stone or clay oven and built on a square plan. Further, iv) cremation was the predominant funeral rite, and v) no well-developed handicrafts other than rudimentary iron works and handmade undecorated pottery of the Prague type existed. To date no archaeological find is generally accepted as evidence for a direct contact between Germanic tribes and Early Slavs in Central Europe (Brather, 2004). Here we report a novel archaeological find in support of a direct contact: a rune-inscribed fragment of a bone from the late 6th century found in a Slavic settlement (Fig. 1). Runes are an alphabetic script, called fupark, used among Germanic tribes. While many inscriptions exist in younger fupark, there are only about 430 extant inscriptions in older fupark (used until ~700), of which only 17 contain complete, incomplete or abbreviated abecedaries. Less than 100 inscriptions that span from the late 3rd to early 7th century make up the South-Germanic corpus. Most of them were found on metal objects in 6th century graves (Diiwel et al., 2020) and contain personal names (Nedoma, 2004). The find reported here renders six of the last eight runes of the older fupark, making it the first find containing the final part of the older fupark in South-Germanic inscriptions, and the only one found in a non-Germanic context. While runology has generally focused on the interpretation of runic inscriptions in terms of runic characters, linguistic forms and text function (Barnes, 2013; Grimm and Pesch, 2015), we show here that material science and the scientific analysis of both the inscriptions and the inscribed objects may provide additional, valuable information. The organic material of rune-inscribed bones, for instance, allowed us to precisely date the find using radiocarbon dating and to determine the animal species using ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis. We further used optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to authenticate the inscription by means of use-wear analyses. Such analysis will likely set the new standard in the field. 2. Material and methods 2.1. SEM microscopy and use-wear analysis Use-wear analysis is a group of methods dedicated to the identification and determination of superficial traces on archaeological mobile objects. The traces observed on the item surface could result from functional use, transport, hafting, or accidental impact during and after the deposition. Use-wear analysis is able to differentiate between intentional and random traces, or traces of different ages. We studied the discovered artifact surface using both optical reflected light microscope and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Optical microscopy was used to inspect texture differences on the surface, identify possible recent impact and traces of manufacturing and use. Electron microscopy was used to inspect the stratigraphy of traces. The chemical composition was measured with the aim to identify possible color highlighting of 2 J. Macháček et al. engraved rune lines and two stave lines. 2.2. Runology Runology is the term applied to the study of runes (Fig. S3) and runic inscriptions which includes studies of the object, runic characters, linguistic forms and text function. We investigated the runic artifact as follows: First, we examined the inscribed object from an archaeological point of view, focusing on the context of the find, its mode of use, provenance and the dating of the runic item. Second, we identified the characters by means of autopsy using the unaided eye and a microscope. This epigraphical evidence yields a verifiable philological basis which is usually given in the form of transliteration. Third, we compared the characters to existing runic inscriptions to identify commonalities and peculiarities about the incised runes. Fourth, we interpreted the runic sequence using methods of historical linguistics. As a result of phonological, morphological, semantic and syntactic analysis (and interpretation) we get linguistic forms that constitute a text of various length (or, occasionally, an abecedary). Fifth, we use the cultural context to determine the function of the inscription and its social-historical setting (Duwel, 2008; Duwel and Heizmann, 2006). 2.3. Radiocarbon dating through accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) The samples of the runic bone and of two additional cattle bones from settlement pit 25 (Poz- 99473, Poz-98266, Poz-98267) were successfully dated at the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory (AMS 14C measurements in graphite targets on spectrometers 1.5 SDH-Pelletron Model) thanks to its relatively high content of bone collagen (5,3%-7.1% coll.). We calibrated the date using the software OxCal - v 4.3 Web interface build number: 114 (Bronk Ramsey and Lee, 2013), with the application of the InCall3 calibration curve (Reimer et al., 2013). After the calibration we determined the calendar age of bones at probability levels of 68.2% and 95.4%. 2.3.1. Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon data (OxCal) We used available radiocarbon dates to investigate the chronology between settlements of early Slavs and Lombards using Bayesian modelling. We compared three groups of dated samples (Supplementary Table SI): 1) human bones from Lombard cemeteries in Moravia and Lower Austria (31 samples + 4 outliers according to Bayesian modelling) (Stadler et al., 2008), 2) human bones from Lombard cemeteries in Pannonia (13 samples + 1 outlier according to Bayesian modelling) (Amorim et al., 2018; Schmidtová et al., 2009; Stadler et al., 2008) and 3) animal bones from early Slavic settlements in Moravia (Pavlov, Břeclav/Lány) (this study, Jelínková, 2012) and human cremations from a Slavic burial mound (Bernhardsthal) in Lower Austria (7 samples) (Macháček et al., 2018). We ordered these groups using the OxCal (Bronk Ramsey, 2008) into a chronological sequence. We assumed that the different phases were completely independent (overlapping phases) and estimated their start and end date individually. 2.4. aDNA analysis of the animal bones We identified the animal species of the rune-inscribed bone both morphologically and using aDNA analysis. In order to minimize destructive sampling, a small part of the bone extracted for 14C dating was sent to a dedicated aDNA facility (Mainz, Germany). The bone characteristics of the sample (rib) were highly unfavorable for aDNA preservation (Pinhasi et al., 2015). Consequently, and despite applying various modifications to the extraction protocol (with and without pre-lysis step), preliminary shallow sequencing via MiSeq did not produce enough endogenous sequences to allow for taxonomie (or any further) analysis of the sample. We therefore prepared a mixture of independently indexed libraries and sent them for taxonomical target enrichment to the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD). Journal of Archaeological Science 127(2021) 105333 2.4.1. Bone preparation and extraction The bone preparation, decontamination, surface preparation and milling was performed following the instructions in Scheu et al. (2015). DNA extraction was performed following Gamba et al. (2014), with modifications from Hofmanova et al. (2016) and Scheu et al. (2015). Both prelysis (initial dissolution of the bone powder with EDTA) and lysis (dissolution after 48 h) material was used in further analysis. 2.4.2. Library preparation and initial screening The library protocol mainly followed Kircher et al., (2012) with the adaptations described in Hofmanova et al. (2016). From both the prelysis extract and the lysis extract, one parallel was amplified for shallow MiSeq screening on Illumina MiSeq for 50 cycles (single end). Additionally, three parallels of each extract were amplified at a later stage to increase variability of the endogenous molecules for target enrichment. Reads of the MiSeq sequencing were processed as follows: Adapters were trimmed using trimgalore (Babraham Bioinformatics, v.0.4.3), applying a length filter of 30bp. The general quality of sequencing results and a control of successful adapter removal was performed using FastQC (Babraham Bioinformatics, vO.11.5). Mapping the reads against the human (hgl9) and Bos Taurus genomes resulted in spurious alignments only. Screening sequencing data are available in ENA (SAMEA4704853). 2.4.3. Hybridisation capture of mitogenomes and sequencing The six libraries were pooled and sent to ACAD for enrichment of mitochondrial genome sequences by hybridisation to biotinylated RNA baits (Arbor Biosciences, MI, USA) designed from 24 placental mammal mitochondrial genome sequences (Supplementary Table S2) (Mitchell et al., 2016b). We used the Mybaits v3 protocol (Arbor Biosciences, MI, USA) with modifications. First, an equimolar mix (50 ^M) of RNA oligonucleotides (P5_short_RNAblock: 5'-ACACUCUUUCCCUACACGAC-3'; P7_short_RNAblock: 5'-GUGA CUGGAGUUCAGACGUGU-3') was used to block Illumina adapter sequences. Second, the hybridisation capture reaction was incubated for 30 h. Third, streptavidin beads were incubated with yeast tRNA to block non-specific binding sites, as described previously (Richards et al., 2019). The enriched DNA libraries were amplified and sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq using 150 cycles paired-end with v3 chemistry at the ACRF Cancer Genomics Facility (Adelaide, SA, Australia). Enrichment sequencing data are available in ENA (SAMEA6807023). 2.4.4. Data processing after hybridisation The sequencing service provider performed demultiplexing of the data based on the indexes using CASAVA vl .8. The raw FASTQ files were processed and mapped using the PALEOMIX vl.2 pipelines (Schubert et al., 2014). Finally, fragment length and characteristic patterns of ancient DNA damage were assessed using mapDamage2.0 (Jonsson et al., 2013). 2.4.5. Phylogenetic analyses We aligned the mitogenome sequence (without the d-loop) of all the taxa selected for the bait design and the Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence (Supplementary Table 2, SI Fig. S4-S6). We constructed a 75% consensus sequence from the mapping against the taurine cattle mitogenome (depth > 3) using Geneious Rll (Biomatters). This consensus sequence was included in two separate multiple sequence alignments using previously published cattle mitogenome datasets, with or without the d-loop (Achilli et al., 2008; Bro-J0rgensen et al., 2018). We performed phylogenetic analyses under a Maximum Likelihood (ML) framework as implemented in RAxML V8.2.11 (Stamatakis, 2014). The outgroup taxa were the water buffalo (Bro-J0rgensen et al., 2018) and the yak (Achilli et al., 2008), respectively. In all analyses, we used the GTRGAMMA model of substitution. The ML analyses included a search for the best scoring tree out of 500 bootstrap replicates. 3 J. Macháček et al. 080% bootstrap support. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.) (Fig. 5). The engraved inscriptions were further differentiated from all other traces as they were slightly rounded and most likely intentionally colored, as indicated by a high presence of iron (Fig S2). The surface of the bone fragment showed organized parallel striations indicative of surface smoothing (Fig. S1-S2). Due to the fracture, the first two runes are incomplete, but were most likely a t (T) followed by a b (B) with wide-spaced pockets, a typical feature of the South Germanic inscriptions. The remaining are e (11), m (M), d (M) and o ($). The carver was likely not very experienced and produced runes with distorted proportions: the M has an elongated left staff, and the M is broader than the other runes and its diagonals, cut in segments, do not reach the tops of the staffs. The right-descending branch of the M and the left staff of the M were attempted multiple times. The runes (tbemdo) render six of the last eight runes of the older fupark (tbembjdo), suggesting that the bone originally exhibited the whole abecedary, but it is unclear why the carver omitted the I and tj runes. Remarkably, this is the first find containing the final part of the older fupark in South-Germanic inscriptions as none of the other extends after the /-rune (Diiwel and Heizmann, 2006). To confirm the fragment was of European cattle (Fig. 6), we generated aDNA individually indexed sequencing libraries, which we subjected to taxonomical target enrichment (Mitchell et al., 2016a) (at ACAD, Uni Adelaide). This yielded 3190 reads uniquely mapping to the taurine cattle mitogenome (excluding the d-loop), covering 92.1% at 14. lx. In contrast, only 201 reads mapped uniquely against the human mitogenome, mostly in highly conserved regions, suggesting low human contamination. As expected for authentic aDNA, mapped reads were short (71bp on average) and showed an accumulation of C-to-T substitutions at the 5' end (>15% at the first two bases). In a phylogenetic tree inferred with RAxML V8.2.11, the consensus mitogenome of the bone fragment was nested among European cattle (Fig. 6, Supplementary Table 2). 5. Discussion and conclusions Here we report a rune-inscribed bone fragment discovered at the site of Bfeclav-Lany in South Moravia, Czechia. We documented this rare artifact by making extensive use of recent technological advances not previously applied to runic items. These included the use of scanning electron microscopy to authenticate the runic inscriptions and the direct dating of the fragment from a minute bone powder sample of the inner section. From that bone powder sample, we also managed to extract DNA. The DNA was very poorly preserved, but thanks to DNA enrichment techniques targeting the mitochondrial genome of mammals, the artifact was identified unambiguously as of cattle origin. From a runologic perspective, the discovered inscription is readily attributed to the South Germanic corpus, albeit likely carved by an inexperienced artist. What is surprising, however, is the archaeological context of the find: it is the first runic item discovered in a non-Germanic context, namely in a settlement of the Prague Culture generally associated with Early Slavs. The find therefore attests to a direct interaction between the Slavic and Germanic ethnolinguistic groups that were presumably differentiated in Central Europe during the 6th century. But the context of this find does not inform about the nature of this interaction. Given the cultural significance of runes to Germanic people but not Slavs, it appears unlikely that the bone was brought by Germanic merchants. Instead, the runes may have been incised by people of Germanic origin that remained in the region after the departure of the Lombards, or later immigrated. However, there is only anecdotal evidence for rare immigrants (Haury and Dewing, 1914-1928) and no convincing evidence for the survival of Germanic elements in Slavic territories, except in Pan-nonian Basin, where Slavs and Germanic peoples lived among other ethnolinguistic groups in the Avar khaganate (Koncz, 2015). Alternatively, the runes may have been engraved by a Slav. If runic knowledge was transferred from Germanic peoples to Slavs, it must have happened in Central Europe as judged by the rune shapes. Or it may have persisted in the region as a result of population continuity between Lombards and Slavs. In contrast to other places (Brather, 2004), the Germanic and Slavic settlements followed each other closely in the region and the different ethnolinguistic groups could have merged towards the end of the Migration Period (Koncz, 2015). This is thought to have happened in the Balkans, where locals and non-locals cannot be archeologically distinguished and the term "Slavs" may have been used as an umbrella term for groups living on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire (Curta, 2001). While our find does not allow to disentangle these or other hypotheses, it challenges a sharp dichotomy between the Germanic and Early Slavic peoples and attests to at least some form of direct contact. It further questions whether the first contact of Slavs with writing was indeed through Constantine (f869 AD) and Methodius (f885 AD) that created an alphabet to write liturgical texts in "Slavic" for their mission to Great Moravian Slavs. There is no hard evidence for any writing in a Slavic language before that (Cubberley, 1996), yet the 9th century monk Chrabr mentioned that pagan Slavs used "lines and cuts" to count and predict (in his treatise On the Letters). It is assumed that he refers to counting signs rather than an alphabet (Cubberley, 1996), but he could refer to the use of the runic alphabet by some Slavs, which would imply 6 J. Machdcek et al. that runes were not strictly limited to the Germanic world. Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Acknowledgments We thank Joachim Burger and Laura Winklebach for their assistance with the lab procedures at the Palaeogenetic Facility in Mainz. We are grateful to Klaus Diiwel for his assistance in the runological analysis and to Vojtech Nosek and Jindřich Stelcl for the photographic documentation and SEM. ZH was supported by an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship (ALTF 445-2017). EL was supported by a University of Adelaide Summer Research Scholarship. SJ was supported by the Australian Research Council. BL was supported by a Future Fellowship of the Australian Research Council (FT170100448). JM, PD, LKH, ZH and AS were supported by the Czech Science Foundation GA ČR (Project: The Formation of Multi-ethnic Complex Societies in Early Medieval Moravia. Collective Action Theory and Interdisciplinary Approach, No. 21-17092X). Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jas.2021.105333. 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