The genetic history of Scandinavia from the Roman Iron Age to the present

[Grace O'Malley]

Highlights
• British-Irish ancestry has an impact on Scandinavia from the Viking period onward

• Eastern Baltic ancestry is more localized to Gotland and central Sweden

• Modern Scandinavians have less non-local ancestry than Viking Age samples

• The north-south genetic cline is mainly due to differential levels of Uralic ancestry

Summary
We investigate a 2,000-year genetic transect through Scandinavia spanning the Iron Age to the present, based on 48 new and 249 published ancient genomes and genotypes from 16,638 modern individuals. We find regional variation in the timing and magnitude of gene flow from three sources: the eastern Baltic, the British-Irish Isles, and southern Europe. British-Irish ancestry was widespread in Scandinavia from the Viking period, whereas eastern Baltic ancestry is more localized to Gotland and central Sweden. In some regions, a drop in current levels of external ancestry suggests that ancient immigrants contributed proportionately less to the modern Scandinavian gene pool than indicated by the ancestry of genomes from the Viking and Medieval periods. Finally, we show that a north-south genetic cline that characterizes modern Scandinavians is mainly due to the differential levels of Uralic ancestry and that this cline existed in the Viking Age and possibly earlier.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867422014684#mmc1

[Grace O'Malley]

Just reading this but its nice to have a more recent dna plot of Europe.

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0092867422014684-gr2_lrg.jpg

[Jingle Bell]

Oh yeah, finally a cool thread abt genetics :cool:
https://i.imgur.com/ijgUBiX.png

[Beowulf]

i read somewhere that in roman era started some commerciants links with Nords and Romans and in that era can be found a little bit of genes from southern Europe but those genes are more in important in Viking era

[Grace O'Malley]

What is interesting in the study is that there was more non-Scandinavian geneflow into Scandinavian in the Viking period but Scandinavian ancestry has bounced back to some extend.

Götherström suggests that what the data reveal about the nature of the Viking period is perhaps most intriguing. The migration from the west impacted all of Scandinavia, and the migration from the east was sex biased, with movement primarily of female people into the region. As the researchers write, the findings overall “indicate a major increase [in gene flow] during the Viking period and a potential bias toward females in the introduction of eastern Baltic and, to a lesser extent, British-Irish ancestries.

“Gene flow from the British-Irish Isles during this period seems to have had a lasting impact on the gene pool in most parts of Scandinavia,” they continued. “This is perhaps not surprising given the extent of Norse activities in the British-Irish Isles, starting in the 8th century with recurrent raids and culminating in the 11th century North Sea Empire, the personal union that united the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and England. The circumstances and fate of people of British-Irish ancestry who arrived in Scandinavia at this time are likely to have been variable, ranging from the forced migration of slaves to the voluntary immigration of more high-ranking individuals such as Christian missionaries and monks.”

https://www.classicult.it/en/2000-years-of-genetic-history-in-scandinavia-elucidates-viking-age-to-modern-day/

[Stryglogg]

Just reading this but its nice to have a more recent dna plot of Europe.

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0092867422014684-gr2_lrg.jpg

If we are closer to the Polish than to the Irish, I think the term 'Northwestern European' is obsolete.

[Beowulf]

What is interesting in the study is that there was more non-Scandinavian geneflow into Scandinavian in the Viking period but Scandinavian ancestry has bounced back to some extend.

Götherström suggests that what the data reveal about the nature of the Viking period is perhaps most intriguing. The migration from the west impacted all of Scandinavia, and the migration from the east was sex biased, with movement primarily of female people into the region. As the researchers write, the findings overall “indicate a major increase [in gene flow] during the Viking period and a potential bias toward females in the introduction of eastern Baltic and, to a lesser extent, British-Irish ancestries.

“Gene flow from the British-Irish Isles during this period seems to have had a lasting impact on the gene pool in most parts of Scandinavia,” they continued. “This is perhaps not surprising given the extent of Norse activities in the British-Irish Isles, starting in the 8th century with recurrent raids and culminating in the 11th century North Sea Empire, the personal union that united the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and England. The circumstances and fate of people of British-Irish ancestry who arrived in Scandinavia at this time are likely to have been variable, ranging from the forced migration of slaves to the voluntary immigration of more high-ranking individuals such as Christian missionaries and monks.”

https://www.classicult.it/en/2000-years-of-genetic-history-in-scandinavia-elucidates-viking-age-to-modern-day/

a good example for this is Iceland wich mostly of their genetic is Scandinavian and other part British like genes that's for the slaves they brought to the isle probably most of those slaves were Gaelic/Scottish but some of them were Anglo Saxons too

[Beowulf]

If we are closer to the Polish than to the Irish, I think the term 'Northwestern European' is obsolete.

the swedes seems to have more Baltic like genes than Norwegians or Danes

[Grace O'Malley]

If we are closer to the Polish than to the Irish, I think the term 'Northwestern European' is obsolete.

Obsolete for who? I'm Northwestern European. :)

Swedes have more Baltic ancestry but it is nice to have a dna plot with Icelanders. It is also interesting from the study to know that Scandinavian ancestry bounced back in the direction to what it was before the Viking period.

[Graham]

The way its looking these days Scandinavia has more of our genes than we got from them. :vikingship::vikingship::vikingship::pippi

[Italicus]

The way its looking these days Scandinavia has more of our genes than we got from them. :vikingship::vikingship::vikingship::pippi

Orkney and Shetland have a lot of Norse ancestry, around a quarter of the genepool. But generally speaking yeah.

[Damião de Góis]

Just reading this but its nice to have a more recent dna plot of Europe.

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0092867422014684-gr2_lrg.jpg

I find it difficult to read it when they put these little squares and circles with very similar colors. I can't find the portuguese samples for example.

It would be easier if they put country codes like PT or IE.

[sailormoon]

Y-haplogroup N1a1 (previously called N1c) can be traced back to Paleolithic East Asia. N1a1 is the western extent of haplogroup N, which is also found in the Far East (China, Korea, Japan) at approximately 2%. It entered southern Scandinavia during the Nordic Bronze Age with the Uralic gene flow that generated the north-south cline.

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0092867422014684-figs5.jpg



In modern Scandinavians, we also see the cline reflected in the geographical distribution of the Uralic-associated27 Y-haplogroup N1a1 (Figures S5A and S6A) and its association with the autosomal ancestry cline (p < 1.6e−14 for logit regression of N1a1 presence on CHB+PEL ancestry, f4(Mbuti, X; Danish, Finnish) or PC1 coordinate on Figures S3C and S6B). Thus, it may be that N1a1 entered Scandinavian populations via the same Uralic gene flow that generated the north-south cline. Interestingly, however, the earliest Scandinavian N1a1 carriers we observe that six Pre-Vikings (200–520 CE) from four sites in eastern Sweden show less northern affinity than modern Norwegian and Swedish N1a1 carriers (t tests for CHB+PEL ancestry p = 0.040, f4[Mbuti, X; Danish, Finnish] p = 0.087, PC1 coordinate on Figure S3C p = 0.0009; Figure S6B). Conversely, the 13 Viking to Post-Medieval N1a1 carriers are not significantly different to modern carriers (CHB+PEL ancestry p = 0.168, f4(Mbuti, X; Danish, Finnish) p = 0.365, PC1 coordinate on Figure S3C p = 0.629). This may indicate a more ancient initial introduction of N1a1 into Scandinavia before its later dispersal along the modern cline of north-south ancestry.

It is not possible to tell from our results whether the north-south cline existed in some form before the Viking period, as none of the 25 Pre-Viking period individuals have substantial levels of Uralic ancestry. Figure 7A shows a very subtle upward curve of points that can, at best, be interpreted as suggestive evidence of some Uralic ancestry. At the end of this curve is a female (rtp003) from Rombäck in Västernorrland in northern Sweden dating to 450–500 CE, who has both the highest f4 value among Pre-Viking period individuals and is also assigned a small proportion (1.4%) of Native American (PEL) ancestry, which may be indicative of Uralic ancestry (Table S8). However, additional individuals from the Pre-Viking period are needed to provide more definitive evidence.

[Beowulf]

Orkney and Shetland have a lot of Norse ancestry, around a quarter of the genepool. But generally speaking yeah.

my dad got a bit of Orkney in Tell me Gen DNA test :costumed-smiley-083

[Grace O'Malley]

This is the best article I've read on this study.

https://i.imgur.com/zVUOZk8.png


The map to the right shows how traces of genes from Britain and Ireland are still found (light green) in Norwegians with origins in southern Norway.

The researchers found the same genetic traces from people in the west in today's Danes and quite far into Sweden.

In northern Norway and much of the rest of Sweden, it is above all Uralic genes from the north-east that can be traced in the genetic material of today's people.

But why has the genetic evidence of the people who came from the east and south more or less disappeared from Scandinavia?


The most important findings reported by the researchers from the deCODE Genetics/AMGEN institute in Reykjavik and Stockholm University are:

Vikings went east to today's Russia and Ukraine, to the Baltics and all the way down to Byzantium. The researchers found traces of genes from these areas above all in people who lived during the Viking Age on Gotland, around Stockholm and in the Mälardalen in central Sweden. But these genes from the east quickly began to disappear from Scandinavian DNA after the Viking Age. Why did this gene component disappear?

- The traces of genes from the south have also largely disappeared from Scandinavian DNA, mostly in Danes. Why?

- The Vikings' trading and plundering journeys to the west were above all targeted to Great Britain and Ireland. Genes from here left far more lasting evidence, especially in Norwegians' DNA, but also in Danes and Swedes.

- Nevertheless, all in all, much of the genetic material that flowed into Scandinavia during the Viking Age has since disappeared.

- The DNA component that has left the most lasting evidence in the genes of Scandinavians came from the north-east.


The researchers have no idea how many people from the British Isles or from areas in the east, south or north settled in today's Norway, Sweden and Denmark during the Viking Age.

What they can read from the human DNA from around a thousand years ago is that the gene flow from the east seems to have been dominated by women.

The researchers didn’t find a similar predominance of people from one sex in people who came from the west.

Specific individuals among the 297 people from the past clearly stand out. A woman who at the end of the Viking Age was given a prestigious boat burial in Sala in central Sweden was completely British.

Before the Viking Age, Scandinavian genes contained only a small element from other places in Europe. One interesting exception is a young woman from the 4th century found in Denmark. She was of British-Irish descent.


In another study from 2022, researchers studied the genes of residents who lived in Trondheim before the plague hit the city in 1347. These residents were compared to Trondheimers from the 17th to 19th centuries. They were also compared to Trondheim residents from our own time.

Here, the researchers found something similar.

The British-Irish genetic component in people in Trondheim during the Viking Age disappeared after the Black Death. You can read more about the Trondheim study in this article from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

In Sweden, people from the east in particular left genetic traces on Gotland and in central Sweden. These genetic traces have also increasingly disappeared up to the present day.

The rest of the article here.

https://sciencenorway.no/archaeology-genetics-viking-age/now-we-know-who-the-vikings-had-children-with/2139912