Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin

[14][7][11] In this power vacuum, The Hungarian conqueror elite took the system of the former Avar Kaganate, there is no trace of massacres and mass graves, it is believed to have been a peaceful transition for local residents in the Carpathian Basin.

[15] According to historian Bálint Csanád "Not one single element (of the original theory) is tenable" and that a "compelling piece of evidence is that a genuine similarity between the Avar- and Conquest-period skeletal material could only be demonstrated in 4.5% of the theoretically potential cases".

[36] Madgearu proposes that Kavar groups were already settled in the Tisza plain within the Carpathian Basin around 881, which may have given rise to the anachronistic reference to Cumans in the Gesta Hungarorum at the time of the Hungarian conquest.

[37] The Hetumoger confederation was under a dual leadership, according to Ibn Rusta and Gardizi (two Muslim scholars from the 10th and 11th centuries, respectively, whose geographical books preserved texts from an earlier work written by Abu Abdallah al-Jayhani from Bukhara).

[69] The Avars were initially nomadic horsemen, but both large cemeteries used by three or four generations and a growing number of settlements attest to their adoption of a sedentary (non-nomadic) way of life from the 8th century.

[81] Archaeological investigation of early medieval rural settlements at Balatonmagyaród, Nemeskér and other places in Transdanubia demonstrate that their main features did not change with the fall of the Avar Khaganate.

[111] The Royal Frankish Annals narrates that the Abodrites inhabiting "Dacia on the Danube",[112] most probably along the lower courses of the river Tisza, sought the assistance of the Franks against the Bulgars in 824.

[120][121] The anonymous author of the Gesta Hungarorum, instead of Svatopluk I of Moravia and other rulers known from contemporary sources, writes of personalities and polities that are not mentioned by chroniclers working at the end of the 9th century.

[127] In the case of Doboka (Dăbâca), two pairs of bell-shaped pendants with analogues in sites in Austria, Bulgaria and Poland have been unearthed, but Florin Curta dates them to the 9th century, while Alexandru Madgearu to the period between 975 and 1050.

[132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140] This is confirmed by the archaeological findings, in the 10th century Hungarian cemeteries, the graves of women, children and elderly people are located next to the warriors, they were buried according to the same traditions, wore the same style of ornaments, and belonged to the same anthropological group.

[141] Kristó, Tóth and the theory's other adherents refer to the unanimous testimony provided by the Annals of Fulda, Regino of Prüm and Porphyrogenitus on the connection between the Hungarians' conflict with the Bulgar-Pecheneg coalition and their withdrawal from the Pontic steppes.

[144] For instance Róna-Tas argues, "[the] fact that, despite a series of unfortunate events, the Magyars managed to keep their heads above water goes to show that they were indeed ready to move on" when the Pechenegs attacked them.

[34][146] Widukind of Corvey and Liutprand of Cremona condemned the Frankish monarch for destroying the defense lines built along the empire's borders, because this also enabled the Hungarians to attack East Francia within a decade.

But fifty years ago the so-called Uzes made common cause with the Chazars and joined battle with the Pechenegs and prevailed over them and expelled them from their country (…).The relationship between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire sharpened in 894, because Emperor Leo the Wise forced the Bulgarian merchants to leave Constantinople and settle in Thessaloniki.

[166] An interpolation in Porphyrogenitus's work states that the Hungarians had a prince named "Liountikas, son of Arpad"[104] at that time, which suggests that he was the commander of the army, but he might have been mentioned in the war context by chance.

[178] Regino of Prüm states that the Hungarians "roamed the wildernesses of the Pannonians and the Avars and sought their daily food by hunting and fishing"[47] following their arrival in the Carpathian Basin.

[200] If his death was in fact the consequence of a ritual murder, his fate was similar to that of the Khazar khagans who were executed, according to Ibn Fadlan and al-Masudi, in the case of disasters affecting their whole people.

[206] One of the Hungarian contingents crossed the Danube and plundered the territories on the river's north bank, but Luitpold, Margrave of Bavaria gathered troops and routed them between Passau and Krems an der Donau[207] on 20 November 900.

The victorious monarch allowed the Hungarians to pillage all the towns that had earlier accepted his opponent's rule,[234] and agreed to pay a yearly tribute of about 375 kilograms (827 lb) of silver.

[230] The longer version of the Annals of Saint Gall reports that Archbishop Theotmar of Salzburg fell, along with Bishops Uto of Freising and Zachary of Säben, in a "disastrous battle" fought against the Hungarians at Brezalauspurc on 4 July 907.

[235] Most historians (including Engel,[188] Makkai,[236] and Spinei) identify Brezalauspurc with Pressburg (Bratislava, Slovakia), but some researchers (for instance Boba and Bowlus) argue that it can refer to Mosaburg, Braslav's fortress on the Zala in Pannonia.

[246] In this easternmost territory of the Carpathian Basin, the earliest graves attributed to Hungarian warriors—for instance, at Sic, Turda and Ocna Sibiului—are concentrated around the Transylvanian salt mines in the valley of the rivers Someșul Mic and Mureş.

[255] The earliest work is Emperor Leo the Wise's Tactics, finished around 904, which recounts the Bulgarian-Byzantine war of 894–896, a military conflict directly preceding the Hungarians' departure from the Pontic steppes.

[266][267] The first[219] Life of Saint Naum, written around 924, contains nearly contemporary information on the fall of the Great Moravia caused by Hungarian invasions, although its earliest extant copy is from the 15th century.

[281] Early cemeteries of the culture were unearthed, for instance, at Beremend and Csongrád in Hungary, at Devín and Bešenovo in Slovakia, at Pilu and Moldoveneşti in Romania and at Vukovar and Kloštar Podravski in Croatia.

[294] A 2011 study on lactase persistence polymorphism of 23 elite and commoner samples from the 10-11th century found that their low prevalence of lactase persistence "corresponds well with those of present-day populations of the Uralic linguistic family, such as the Khantys, Mansis and Maris, and certain Central-Asian and Turkish populations" and "additional mtDNA testing identified six major mtDNA haplogroups (H, U, T, N1a, JT, X) among Hungarian conquerors, six among commoners from the time of the conquest (H, HV, M, R, T, U)", including those of Asian origin (like N, M and U4).

[300] In the same year the journal published an analysis of N3a4-Z1936 which is still found in very rare frequencies in modern Hungarians, and showed that Hungarian "sub-clade [N-B539/Y13850] splits from its sister-branch N3a4-B535, frequent today among Northeast European Uralic speakers, 4000-5000 ya, which is in the time-frame of the proposed divergence of Ugric languages", while on N-B539/Y13850+ sub-clade level confirmed shared paternal lineages with modern Ugric (Mansis and Khantys via N-B540/L1034) and Turkic speakers (Bashkirs and Volga Tatars via N-B540/L1034 and N-B545/Y24365).

According to autosomal analysis, the Hungarian elite core can be modeled as ~50% Mansi-like, ~35% Sarmatian-like, and ~15% Hun/Xiongnu-like, and the Mansi-Sarmatian admixture event is suggested to have taken place in the Southern Ural region at 643–431 BCE, while Mansi-Hun around 217-315 CE.

The study also showed "that a common 'proto-Ugric' gene pool appeared in the Bronze Age from the admixture of Mezhovskaya and Nganasan people, supporting genetic and linguistic data".

According to the study there was "little or no biological connection between the ancestors of Hungarians and proto-Ob-Ugric groups in Western Siberia, despite their close geographical proximity for 1500–2000 years after their split estimated by linguistic models and chronology."