ARCHEOLOGICAL DNA REMAINS SHOWS THAT IMMIGRATION TO SCANDINACIAN COUNTRIES WAS EXCEPTIONAL DURING THE VIKING ERA
A new study based on 297 ancient Scandinavian genomes analysed together with the genomic data of 16,638 present day Scandinavians resolve the complex relations between geography, ancestry, and gene flow in Scandinavia — encompassing the Roman Age, the Viking Age and later periods. A surprising increase of variation during the Viking period indicates that gene flow into Scandinavia was especially intense during this period.
An international study coordinated from Stockholm and Reykjavik investigates the development of the Scandinavian gene pool over the latest 2000 years. In this effort the scientists relied on historic and prehistoric genomes, and from material excavated in Scandinavia. These ancient genomes were compared with genomic data from 16,638 contemporary Scandinavians. As the geographical origin and the datings were known for all these individuals, it was possible to resolve the development of the gene pool to a level never realised previously.
Dr Ricardo Rodríguez Varela at the Centre for Palaeogenetics*, who analysed all the data and extracted some of the ancient DNA used in the study, explains: “With this level of resolution we not only confirm the Viking Age migration. We are also able to trace it to the east Baltic region, the British-Irish Isles and southern Europe. But not all parts of Scandinavia received the same amounts of gene flow from these areas. For example, while British-Irish ancestry became widespread in Scandinavia the eastern-Baltic ancestry mainly reached Gotland and central Sweden.” Gotland is where the Carruthers DNA was a wide-width match. Please not that the Scandinavian Countries have a different DNA system than Europe proper. They are working on combining, but have not succeeded to date.
The gene pool bounced back after the Viking period
Another new discovery in this study was what happened to the gene pool after the Viking period. The scientists were surprised to find that it bounced back in the direction of what it looked like before the Viking period migration.
Professor Anders Götherström at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, who is a senior scientist on the study, is intrigued: “Interestingly, the non-local ancestry peaks during the Viking period while being lower before and after. The drop in current levels of external ancestry suggests that the Viking-period migrants got less children, or somehow contributed proportionally less to the gene pool than the people who were already in Scandinavia.”
Yet a new discovery was the history of the northern Scandinavian gene pool. There is a genetic component in northern Scandinavia that is rare in central and western Europe, and the scientists were able to track this component in northern Scandinavia through the latest 1000 years.
Dr Ricardo Rodríguez Varela comments, “We suspected that there was a chronology to the northern Scandinavian gene pool, and it did indeed prove that a more recent influx of Uralic ancestry into Scandinavia define much of the northern gene pool. But if it is recent, it is comparatively so. For example, we know that this Uralic ancestry was present in northern Scandinavia as early as during the late Viking period.”
Based on well-known Swedish archaeological sites
The study is based on a number of well-known Swedish archaeological sites. For example, there are genomes from the 17th century warship Kronan, from the Viking and Vendel period boat burials in the lake Mälaren Valley, and from the migration period ring fortress Sandby borg on Öland.
Anders Götherström conclude: “We were working on a number of smaller studies on different archaeological sites. And at some point it just made sense to combine them into a larger study on the development of the Scandinavian gene pool.
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The study, published today in Cell, is an international effort with several collaborators, but it was led by Dr Ricardo Rodríguez Varela and Professor Anders Götherstörm at Stockholm University, and Professor Agnar Helgason, and Kristján Moore at deCODE in Reykavijk.
*The Centre for Palaeogenetics (CPG) is a joint venture between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
Source:Stockholm University. “DNA from archaeological remains shows that immigration to Scandinavia was exceptional during the Viking period.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 5 January 2023. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230105151301.htm>.
The old sagas, or hero tales of the north, are full of stories of enchantment and strange marvels. We have told one of these tales in the record of King Rolf ( Rollo ) and Princess Torborg. We have now to tell that of Ragnar Lodbrok, a hero king of the early days, whose story is full of magical incidents. That this king reigned and was a famous man in his days there is no reason to doubt, but around his career gathered many fables, as was apt to be the case with the legends of great men in those days. To show what these tales were like we take from the sagas the marvellous record of Ragnar and his wives.
This they did and little Aslög grew up as a beggar’s child. And as she kept strangely silent, never speaking, all people thought her dumb.
Even though there was some overlap in haplogroup distribution between TRB and PWC (for haplogroups K, T and H), other haplogroups were unique to either TRB (J1d5 and J2b1a), BAC (N1a1a1a) or to PWC (U4, U4a1, U5, U5a and U5b1. The high frequency of U and K haplotypes in PWC individuals from both Gotland and Öland is in accordance with previous observations from human remains associated with PWC and similar to a wide range of Mesolithic hunter–gatherers from Scandinavia, Central Europe, Iberia and Russia. The U and K haplogroups are rare in Scandinavian TRB and Central European LBK farmers, but more common among individuals from the late Neolithic Treilles culture excavated in France, in Neolithic Iberian farmers and in Neolithic individuals from the Blätterhöhle cave in Germany . The haplogroups seen in TRB (H, T, J and K) are also found in other farmer communities . It has been hypothesized that communal Megalithic burials may represent specific individuals that are related to, or belong to, a certain strata of the community. As eight distinct haplotypes were found among nine individuals from two different Megalithic burial structures, a close maternal kinship among several of the individuals can be ruled out. That these individuals represent more than a close family is further supported by isotopic studies (strontium, Sr) of migration patterns which have shown that as many as 25% of the buried in the megalithic burial structures were of non-local birth . Interestingly, the BAC individual (N1a1a1a) did not share haplogroup affiliation with previously published Corded Ware associated individuals from Central Europe but rather with individuals associated with LBK .
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Here we start back in Gotland again.
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