The DNA portrait of an individual from the Medieval necropolis of “Patriarchal Garden” (Vladimir city) with a rare funeral rite — a stone pillow

The history of Ancient Rus’ is inextricably linked with the history of ancient Vladimir, the capital of North-Eastern Rus’ in the 12th–14th centuries. Historical, anthropological, and archaeological data suggest a complex composition of the population of Ancient Rus’ cities, however, the genetic structure of this population is currently practically unexplored. We performed whole-genome sequencing with high coverage for an individual from a burial with a stone pillow from the necropolis “Patriarch's Garden” in Vladimir, dated to the second half of the 13th–14th centuries. Based on this, the individual was identified as a male. Identified haplogroups of mitochondrial DNA (H1ba) and Y-chromosome (R-L21) of the buried man have not been previously described in burials from the territory of Ancient Rus’. The paternal lineage of the individual is likely traced to the territory of Northwest Europe. In combination with data on autosomal markers, these results testify to the genetic connection of the man buried in Vladimir with the Western European populations.