Europe churned when Rome fell. The Huns, the Goths, the Vandals violently etched their names into history before being crushed by fresh waves of invaders.
There were some less well-known bloodlines that were far more mysterious. The mounted warriors known as the Avars.
The Germanic groups from the Carpathian basin in Europe's southeast were pushed out by a horde of horseback fighters.
They were there for more than 200 years before falling to the Franks.
We know a lot from Byzantine texts, which could be biased by fear or hate. There were claims that they were not true, and that they had been taken from a people far to the east.
The first solid evidence of a migration that would have taken place in record time has been provided by a new analysis of the remains of 66 individuals uncovered from a diverse spread of Avar graves.
They covered more than 5,000 kilometers in a few years from Mongolia to the Caucasus, and after 10 more years settled in Hungary.
This is the fastest long-distance migration in human history that we can reconstruct.
The birthplace of the Avars was the Rouran, the first confederation of early Mongol tribes ruled by a khan.
The rise of Turkish power in the east was caused by the fall of the early khaganate, which was established in the 4th century.
15 years after the collapse of the group, diplomats from the Roman city of Byzantium recorded that a group of people who called themselves the Avars had taken refuge in the Carpathian basin.
A series of offensives across the land would eventually lead to a siege of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.
An Egyptian-born Byzantine historian by the name of Theophylact Simocatta argued around this time that these skilled warriors might not be who they claim to be.
The Pseudo-Avars are divided in their ancestry, some bearing the time-honored name of Var while others are called Chunni, according to the historian.
We know a lot of their affairs from their enemies, but no written records were left.
They left a detailed archaeological record. Hundreds of settlements containing around a hundred thousand burials have been analyzed by researchers over the years.
The captives from around the Balkans who provided labor and knowledge reinforced the culture of their society.
Their true past is known now that their bones can speak.
History is rarely so clean. There is little doubt that a population of riders fled central Asia at a rapid pace, covering hundreds of kilometers each year to escape the Turkish attackers.
The new home of the Avars seemed to bring in new families.
The lead author of the new study is a geneticist from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
The 7th-century Avar period elites show 20 to 30 percent of additional non-local ancestry, likely associated with the North Caucasus and the Western Asian.
The genetics don't link in cultural data or provide a timeline, but they still help reinforce a story of a perpetuated elite descended from a long lost Mongolian khaganate half a world away.
The Avar threat was over by the 8th century.
The once ferocious Mongolian equestrians turned and fled once again after failing to negotiate with the Carolingian monarch.
Cell published this research.
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