Early Middle Ages: progressive migrations instead of "barbarian invasions"

Despite what our school textbooks say, it was not "barbarian hordes" that precipitated the fall of the Western Roman Empire. A paleo-genomic study reveals that these "great barbarian invasions" of the High Middle Ages (400-700) were not brutal, but the result of progressive migrations. Using DNA from 258 skeletons, researchers trace the evolution and interbreeding of European populations.