The genetic history of Rus (Andreeva et al. 2025 preprint)

Over at bioRxiv at this LINK. As far as I can see, this is the most interesting preprint published in the last 12 months. At the same time, however, the authors could've done a much better job with the fine scale analysis of their samples. For instance, they rely solely on a West Eurasian-level Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to study intra-Northern European diversity. Hopefully, the paper will be better. Abstract:

The foundation of the first ancient Rus’ state occurred as a result of the consolidation of diverse communities inhabiting Eastern Europe during the second half of the first millennium CE. Historical sources imply that these communities mostly include East Slavs, whose settlement across a vast territory led to the emergence of the East Slavic/Rus’ culture within the Rus’ state. We generated genomic data for 200 medieval individuals from different locations to elucidate the origin and genetic structure of the Rus’ population during the early stages of the state formation. Our findings reveal a genetic continuum predominantly shaped by two key genetic groups: a broad Slavic-related continuity of different genetic subclusters of Rus’ occupying the enormous European Plain area, and a Fenno-Ugrian (Uralic)-related component in the Northern Rus’ region. Importantly, both groups have a shared genetic substrate inherited from preceding ancient Baltic region populations. To scale Scandinavian ("Viking") heritage, we traced minor Scandinavian genetic lineages that did not make up the dominating genetic stratum of the early Rus’ state. Our study presents the first comprehensive genomic image of the medieval Rus’, highlighting the intricate cultural and genetic interactions between Slavic, Fenno-Ugrian, and other groups that formed the first Rus’ state affecting Europe’s history.

Andreeva et al., Genetic history of Rus’, bioRxiv, Posted December 30, 2025, doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2025.12.30.695215

I don't yet have access to the dataset from this preprint, so I grabbed a bunch of already published samples from Medieval and Viking Age Russia and put them into the Vahaduo G25 North Europe PCA. Clearly, many of the Viking Age individuals have significant levels of Scandinavian ancestry, because they're shifted west/northwest on the plot relative to most other Eastern Europeans. And, obviously, this contradicts the Andreeva et al. claim that there's only minor Scandinavian admixture in the Rus population. The datasheet that I used for the PCA can be downloaded here.

See also...

They came, they saw, and they mixed