World's largest DNA sequencing of Vikingskeletons reveals they weren't allScandinavian16 September 2020

An artistic reconstruction of 'Southern European' Vikingsemphasising the foreign gene flow into Viking AgeScandinavia. Credit: Jim Lyngvild

Invaders, pirates, warriors—the history books taughtus that Vikings were brutal predators who travelledby sea from Scandinavia to pillage and raid theirway across Europe and beyond.

Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sitesscattered across Europe and Greenland will rewritethe history books as it has shown:

Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites inScotland were actually local people whocould have taken on Viking identities andwere buried as Vikings.Many Vikings actually had brown hair notblonde hair.Viking identity was not limited to peoplewith Scandinavian genetic ancestry. Thestudy shows the genetic history ofScandinavia was influenced by foreigngenes from Asia and Southern Europebefore the Viking Age.

Early Viking Age raiding parties were anactivity for locals and included close familymembers.The genetic legacy in the UK has left thepopulation with up to six percent VikingDNA.

The six-year research project, published in Naturetoday, debunks the modern image of Vikings andwas led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow ofSt John's College, University of Cambridge, anddirector of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGeneticsCentre, University of Copenhagen.

He said: "We have this image of well-connectedVikings mixing with each other, trading and goingon raiding parties to fight Kings across Europebecause this is what we see on television and readin books—but genetically we have shown for the firsttime that it wasn't that kind of world. This studychanges the perception of who a Viking actuallywas—no one could have predicted these significantgene flows into Scandinavia from Southern Europeand Asia happened before and during the VikingAge."

The word Viking comes from the Scandinavian term'vikingr' meaning 'pirate'. The Viking Age generallyrefers to the period from A.D. 800, a few years afterthe earliest recorded raid, until the 1050s, a fewyears before the Norman Conquest of England in1066. The Vikings changed the political and geneticcourse of Europe and beyond: Cnut the Greatbecame the King of England, Leif Eriksson isbelieved to have been the first European to reachNorth America—500 years before ChristopherColumbus—and Olaf Tryggvason is credited withtaking Christianity to Norway. Many expeditionsinvolved raiding monasteries and cities along thecoastal settlements of Europe but the goal oftrading goods like fur, tusks and seal fat were often

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the more pragmatic aim.

Professor Willerslev added: "We didn't knowgenetically what they actually looked like until now.We found genetic differences between differentViking populations within Scandinavia which showsViking groups in the region were far more isolatedthan previously believed. Our research evendebunks the modern image of Vikings with blondehair as many had brown hair and were influencedby genetic influx from the outside of Scandinavia."

DNA from a female skeleton named Kata found at aViking burial site in Varnhem, Sweden, was sequencedas part of the study. Credit: Västergötlands Museum

The team of international academics sequencedthe whole genomes of 442 mostly Viking Age men,women, children and babies from their teeth andpetrous bones found in Viking cemeteries. Theyanalysed the DNA from the remains from a boatburial in Estonia and discovered four Vikingbrothers died the same day. The scientists havealso revealed male skeletons from a Viking burialsite in Orkney, Scotland, were not actuallygenetically Vikings despite being buried withswords and other Viking memorabilia.

There wasn't a word for Scandinavia during theViking Age—that came later. But the research studyshows that the Vikings from what is now Norway

travelled to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland andGreenland. The Vikings from what is now Denmarktravelled to England. And Vikings from what is nowSweden went to the Baltic countries on their allmale 'raiding parties'.

Dr. Ashot Margaryan, Assistant Professor at theSection for Evolutionary Genomics, Globe Institute,University of Copenhagen and first author of thepaper, said: "We carried out the largest ever DNAanalysis of Viking remains to explore how they fitinto the genetic picture of Ancient Europeansbefore the Viking Age. The results were startlingand some answer long-standing historicalquestions and confirm previous assumptions thatlacked evidence.

"We discovered that a Viking raiding partyexpedition included close family members as wediscovered four brothers in one boat burial inEstonia who died the same day. The rest of theoccupants of the boat were genetically similarsuggesting that they all likely came from a smalltown or village somewhere in Sweden."

DNA from the Viking remains were shotgunsequenced from sites in Greenland, Ukraine, TheUnited Kingdom, Scandinavia, Poland and Russia.

Professor Martin Sikora, a lead author of the paperand an Associate Professor at the Centre forGeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, said: "Wefound that Vikings weren't just Scandinavians intheir genetic ancestry, as we analysed geneticinfluences in their DNA from Southern Europe andAsia which has never been contemplated before.Many Vikings have high levels of non-Scandinavianancestry, both within and outside Scandinavia,which suggest ongoing gene flow across Europe."

The team's analysis also found that geneticallyPictish people 'became' Vikings without geneticallymixing with Scandinavians. The Picts were Celtic-speaking people who lived in what is today easternand northern Scotland during the Late British IronAge and Early Medieval periods.

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A mass grave of around 50 headless Vikings from a sitein Dorset, UK. Some of these remains were used forDNA analysis. Credit: Dorset County Council/OxfordArchaeology

Dr. Daniel Lawson, lead author from The Universityof Bristol, explained: "Individuals with twogenetically British parents who had Viking burialswere found in Orkney and Norway. This is adifferent side of the cultural relationship from Vikingraiding and pillaging."

The Viking Age altered the political, cultural anddemographic map of Europe in ways that are stillevident today in place names, surnames andmodern genetics.

Professor Søren Sindbæk, an archaeologist fromMoesgaard Museum in Denmark who collaboratedon the ground-breaking paper, explained:"Scandinavian diasporas established trade andsettlement stretching from the American continentto the Asian steppe. They exported ideas,technologies, language, beliefs and practices anddeveloped new socio-political structures.Importantly our results show that 'Viking' identitywas not limited to people with Scandinavian geneticancestry. Two Orkney skeletons who were buried

with Viking swords in Viking style graves aregenetically similar to present-day Irish and Scottishpeople and could be the earliest Pictish genomesever studied."

Assistant Professor Fernando Racimo, also a leadauthor based at the GeoGenetics Centre in theUniversity of Copenhagen, stressed how valuablethe dataset is for the study of the complex traits andnatural selection in the past. He explained: This isthe first time we can take a detailed look at theevolution of variants under natural selection in thelast 2,000 years of European history. The Vikinggenomes allow us to disentangle how selectionunfolded before, during and after the Vikingmovements across Europe, affecting genesassociated with important traits like immunity,pigmentation and metabolism. We can also beginto infer the physical appearance of ancient Vikingsand compare them to Scandinavians today."

The genetic legacy of the Viking Age lives on todaywith six percent of people of the UK populationpredicted to have Viking DNA in their genescompared to 10 percent in Sweden.

Professor Willeslev concluded: "The results changethe perception of who a Viking actually was. Thehistory books will need to be updated."

More information: Population genomics of theViking world, Nature (2020). DOI:10.1038/s41586-020-2688-8 , www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2688-8

Provided by University of Cambridge

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APA citation: World's largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons reveals they weren't all Scandinavian(2020, September 16) retrieved 17 October 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2020-09-world-largest-dna-sequencing-viking.html

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