Viking myths busted

[Skjaldemjøden]

This new research was in the news yesterday.

Abstract

The maritime expansion of Scandinavian populations during the Viking Age (about ad 750–1050) was a far-flung transformation in world history_1,2. Here we sequenced the genomes of 442 humans from archaeological sites across Europe and Greenland _{(to a median depth of about 1×)} to understand the global influence of this expansion. We find the Viking period involved gene flow into Scandinavia from the south and east. We observe genetic structure within Scandinavia, with diversity hotspots in the south and restricted gene flow within Scandinavia. We find evidence for a major influx of Danish ancestry into England; a Swedish influx into the Baltic; and Norwegian influx into Ireland, Iceland and Greenland. Additionally, we see substantial ancestry from elsewhere in Europe entering Scandinavia during the Viking Age. Our ancient DNA analysis also revealed that a Viking expedition included close family members. By comparing with modern populations, we find that pigmentation-associated loci have undergone strong population differentiation during the past millennium, and trace positively selected loci—including the lactase-persistence allele of LCT and alleles of ANKA that are associated with the immune response—in detail. We conclude that the Viking diaspora was characterized by substantial transregional engagement: distinct populations influenced the genomic makeup of different regions of Europe, and Scandinavia experienced increased contact with the rest of the continent.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2688-8

Here's a long and sensational article with some highlights. The main points:

• Vikings were far from pure Scandinavians. They were genetically diverse, with an influx of southern European and Asian genes stretching back to the end of the Iron Age. This suggests that only a small number of them were fair-haired, according to professor Eske Willerslev.
• Viking myths were formed in the 19th century by authors such as Adam Oehlenschläger and J.J.A. Worsaae. This was a low point in Danish history (having lost our fleets to Napoleon in 1807, Norway in 1814 and Slesvig, Holsten and parts of Sønderjylland in 1864), and they therefore had a wide appeal according to researcher Kasper H. Andersen.
• The Viking age was distinct. Contrary to the belief that the viking age was an extension of the Iron Age, it was in fact a unique period in several fields, especially maritime.
• Norway and Sweden had only few Vikings. DNA analysis shows that the populations of Denmark, Sweden and Norway didn't have much contact at the time. Denmark was the hub of Viking culture , along with Øland and Åland. The rest of Scandinavia was populated by farmers who hadn't changed much since the Stone Age.
• Farmers had different genes. The inland population of Sweden and Norway barely changed genetically in thousands of years and was distinct from that of the Viking coastal settlements.
• Fair hair was the ideal. The spread of fair hair in Scandinavia is the result of sexual selection, according to professor Willerslev, despite brown hair being more common at the time.

[Ascended]

I always liked you man

"Vikings" were a 19th century hoax. You won't find the term used before then.

[Skjaldemjøden]

Found an English article:
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-world-...ng-viking.html
World's largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons reveals they weren't all Scandinavian

Invaders, pirates, warriors—the history books taught us that Vikings were brutal predators who travelled by sea from Scandinavia to pillage and raid their way across Europe and beyond.

Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than 400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books as it has shown:

Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were actually local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.
Many Vikings actually had brown hair not blonde hair.
Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. The study shows the genetic history of Scandinavia was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe before the Viking Age.
Early Viking Age raiding parties were an activity for locals and included close family members.
The genetic legacy in the UK has left the population with up to six percent Viking DNA.

The six-year research project, published in Nature today, debunks the modern image of Vikings and was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John's College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen.

He said: "We have this image of well-connected Vikings mixing with each other, trading and going on raiding parties to fight Kings across Europe because this is what we see on television and read in books—but genetically we have shown for the first time that it wasn't that kind of world. This study changes the perception of who a Viking actually was—no one could have predicted these significant gene flows into Scandinavia from Southern Europe and Asia happened before and during the Viking Age."

The word Viking comes from the Scandinavian term 'vikingr' meaning 'pirate'. The Viking Age generally refers to the period from A.D. 800, a few years after the earliest recorded raid, until the 1050s, a few years before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The Vikings changed the political and genetic course of Europe and beyond: Cnut the Great became the King of England, Leif Eriksson is believed to have been the first European to reach North America—500 years before Christopher Columbus—and Olaf Tryggvason is credited with taking Christianity to Norway. Many expeditions involved raiding monasteries and cities along the coastal settlements of Europe but the goal of trading goods like fur, tusks and seal fat were often the more pragmatic aim.

Professor Willerslev added: "We didn't know genetically what they actually looked like until now. We found genetic differences between different Viking populations within Scandinavia which shows Viking groups in the region were far more isolated than previously believed. Our research even debunks the modern image of Vikings with blonde hair as many had brown hair and were influenced by genetic influx from the outside of Scandinavia."

^{DNA from a female skeleton named Kata found at a Viking burial site in Varnhem, Sweden, was sequenced as part of the study. Credit: Västergötlands Museum}

The team of international academics sequenced the whole genomes of 442 mostly Viking Age men, women, children and babies from their teeth and petrous bones found in Viking cemeteries. They analysed the DNA from the remains from a boat burial in Estonia and discovered four Viking brothers died the same day. The scientists have also revealed male skeletons from a Viking burial site in Orkney, Scotland, were not actually genetically Vikings despite being buried with swords and other Viking memorabilia.

There wasn't a word for Scandinavia during the Viking Age—that came later. But the research study shows that the Vikings from what is now Norway travelled to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland. The Vikings from what is now Denmark travelled to England. And Vikings from what is now Sweden went to the Baltic countries on their all male 'raiding parties'.

Dr. Ashot Margaryan, Assistant Professor at the Section for Evolutionary Genomics, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen and first author of the paper, said: "We carried out the largest ever DNA analysis of Viking remains to explore how they fit into the genetic picture of Ancient Europeans before the Viking Age. The results were startling and some answer long-standing historical questions and confirm previous assumptions that lacked evidence.

"We discovered that a Viking raiding party expedition included close family members as we discovered four brothers in one boat burial in Estonia who died the same day. The rest of the occupants of the boat were genetically similar suggesting that they all likely came from a small town or village somewhere in Sweden."

DNA from the Viking remains were shotgun sequenced from sites in Greenland, Ukraine, The United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Poland and Russia.

Professor Martin Sikora, a lead author of the paper and an Associate Professor at the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, said: "We found that Vikings weren't just Scandinavians in their genetic ancestry, as we analysed genetic influences in their DNA from Southern Europe and Asia which has never been contemplated before. Many Vikings have high levels of non-Scandinavian ancestry, both within and outside Scandinavia, which suggest ongoing gene flow across Europe."

The team's analysis also found that genetically Pictish people 'became' Vikings without genetically mixing with Scandinavians. The Picts were Celtic-speaking people who lived in what is today eastern and northern Scotland during the Late British Iron Age and Early Medieval periods.

^{A mass grave of around 50 headless Vikings from a site in Dorset, UK. Some of these remains were used for DNA analysis. Credit: Dorset County Council/Oxford Archaeology}

Dr. Daniel Lawson, lead author from The University of Bristol, explained: "Individuals with two genetically British parents who had Viking burials were found in Orkney and Norway. This is a different side of the cultural relationship from Viking raiding and pillaging."

The Viking Age altered the political, cultural and demographic map of Europe in ways that are still evident today in place names, surnames and modern genetics.

Professor Søren Sindbæk, an archaeologist from Moesgaard Museum in Denmark who collaborated on the ground-breaking paper, explained: "Scandinavian diasporas established trade and settlement stretching from the American continent to the Asian steppe. They exported ideas, technologies, language, beliefs and practices and developed new socio-political structures. Importantly our results show that 'Viking' identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. Two Orkney skeletons who were buried with Viking swords in Viking style graves are genetically similar to present-day Irish and Scottish people and could be the earliest Pictish genomes ever studied."

Assistant Professor Fernando Racimo, also a lead author based at the GeoGenetics Centre in the University of Copenhagen, stressed how valuable the dataset is for the study of the complex traits and natural selection in the past. He explained: This is the first time we can take a detailed look at the evolution of variants under natural selection in the last 2,000 years of European history. The Viking genomes allow us to disentangle how selection unfolded before, during and after the Viking movements across Europe, affecting genes associated with important traits like immunity, pigmentation and metabolism. We can also begin to infer the physical appearance of ancient Vikings and compare them to Scandinavians today."

The genetic legacy of the Viking Age lives on today with six percent of people of the UK population predicted to have Viking DNA in their genes compared to 10 percent in Sweden.

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

[sean]

Hair and eye colour were not too different from today.



Here is the whole study.

The whole thing seems a little fishy, now that European nationalist parties becoming popular and old values are being adopted, (((they))) are scared and on damage control.




The liberal newspapers are already having a field day lel.

[Loki]

I don't think any "myths" were busted here. It's just another pseudo-scientific attempt to discredit our history. Don't fall for the deception but rebuke it.

[Lemminkäinen]

Nothing new, read:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...60982218308443

I wonder how Åland with its 2000-3000 Viking Age inhabitants could have been a centre of Viking action.

[JamesBond007]

Thanks for the articles I had read about it already before your post here :

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...igins-travels/

[WeirdLookingFellow]

If this picture was made to represent a Greek, Italian or whatever sort of Med, it would be cataloged as racist and stereotypical.

But because it's meant to represent a Viking with dark hair and not pearl white skin, it's saying "look guys, our Vikings didn't look just Norse, but like these ugly Meds too, we weren't pure"

[JamesBond007]

The whole thing seems a little fishy, now that European nationalist parties becoming popular and old values are being adopted, (((they))) are scared and on damage control.

It depends, the Norwegian samples on G25 are shifted towards the British isles via Scotland, Iceland and Ireland probably and there are ancient viking samples in G25 that are British shifted such as :

SWE_Viking_Age_Sigtuna:vik_grt035,0.130897,0.13608 1,0.07203,0.047158,0.036622,0.019801,0.00188,0.004 154,0.009613,-0.000547,-0.007795,0.001499,-0.011893,-0.01101,0.022937,0.002387,-0.001695,0.004561,-0.004651,0,0.006364,0.002473,0.001972,0.007109,0.0 02036

Also, I guess the Viking Age was during the Iron Age and Iron Age Brits were different from Anglo-Saxons they were essentially a Celtic people.

[Lemminkäinen]

Gotland was a trading centre with diverse population already before the Viking Age. It is mentioned in local mythologies and was from the Viking Age a bone of contention between Danes and Swedes.