The new data come from a massive effort to sequence the DNA of Vikings across Europe. The results, published today in Nature, trace how the Vikings radiated across Europe from their Scandinavian homeland, and how people with roots elsewhere also took up Viking ways. “The big story is in line with what’s told by archaeologists and historians,” says Erika Hagelberg, an ancient DNA expert at the University of Oslo who was not part of the research team. “It’s the small details of particular sites that are really compelling.” The Estonian site, for example, offers powerful evidence that the crew was a tight-knit group from the same village or town. “Four brothers buried together is new and unique … [and] adds a new dimension,” says Cat Jarman, an archaeologist working for the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, who was not part of the research team.
Over the course of almost 10 years, a team led by geneticist Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen assembled samples from across Scandinavia dating to the Viking Age, from about 750 C.E. to 1050 C.E., as well as some earlier and later samples. The team also gathered human remains from burials elsewhere in Europe and beyond that had Viking grave goods or burial styles. “We approached every place where we could see there should exist somehow an association with Vikings,” Willerslev says. Ultimately, the team was able to sequence 442 Viking Age genomes from as far afield as Italy, Ukraine, and the doomed Viking settlements of Greenland.
There were no Viking settlements in Finland
I’m a Finn and I possibly have a Swedish Viking prince from Birka/Björkö in my ancestors. The guy lived in circa 900 AD in Central Sweden, so no one knows if the trace really is accurate, but especially Swedish upper class people are very careful with these things and they have even made some DNA-tests between noble families who claim to be descendants of that legendary heroic dude, and it came out that there really is a clear genetic linkage to this Viking thing.
In Finland and Sweden we have these so called Church books. The Church of Sweden had demographic data of all residents of the country from the 1400’s. When Sweden lost Finland, The Finnish side of the Evangelical Lutheran Church continued as The Church of Finland. We still have these Church books from those Churches that didn’t burn during the past centuries. Most Finns can search their family history from these Church books. Swedish ancestry is a very common thing among Finns. My relatives have done that too, and they have found these Swedish ancestors, quite often some upper class people, priests, soldiers, frontiersmen, merchants and so on. But the oldest clear information comes from 1400’s. Whether the knowledge of the pre-1400’s is accurate, or not, no one knows. It might be, because all sort of rulers were careful with these family history things.
So in Finland it is Swedish DNA. In the end of the 1800’s about 15% of Finland’s population were Swedish speakers, and nowadays about 5% due to assimilation. Technically Viking DNA of course, but they were just ordinary farmers and some upper class rulers too. About 30% of Finns have Swedish ancestors, and 40% have some sort of Scandinavian DNA. I read it from some scientific article. So that how it is in punctual Nordic culture. You can search your family data back to 1100 years.
What the hell happened to Italy?!
Edit: it’s probably just the projection, but it’s odd seeing southern Italy skewed so far East
Draw me a map for the rich lands to the west!
Pretty crazy how they managed to raid Flevoland in the Netherlands when it didn’t exist back then
>Viking-style graves excavated on the United Kingdom’s Orkney islands contained individuals with no Scandinavian DNA, whereas some people buried in Scandinavia had Irish and Scottish parents. And several individuals in Norway were buried as Vikings, but their genes identified them as Saami, an Indigenous group genetically closer to East Asians and Siberians than to Europeans. “These identities aren’t genetic or ethnic, they’re social,” Jarman says. “To have backup for that from DNA is powerful.”
coolio
I was looking for the Danube. Did it not connect to the Black Sea back then? It seems to stop in present day Hungary or Serbia.
If I remember correctly, they even came to Constantinople as mercenaries during the Byzantine Empire, so probably even Turkey has the Viking gene.
wasn’t “viking” a job (pirate merchant hybrid) rather than an ethnic group? i suspect scandinavians or norse should be the correct term
The Vikings basically put their pepe in all the English ladies.
Always felt like I have a bit of Norwegian in me
Yeah, we left poop all over Europe’s coasts and waterways.
“Viking” DNA doesn’t make sense. What they must really mean is “Scandinavian haplotypes”.
“Viking” is a verb. A bunch of Poles trashing Hedeby were “a-viking”, but they weren’t Scandiwegians.
Why didn’t they show all of Europe? Swedes went down to Ukraine and even Turkey
We wuz vikingz and shit 💪💪💪🇵🇱🇵🇱🟦⬜🟦⬜
I took a dna test and I have almost 20% Scandinavian DNA, yet my family tree is exclusively English and Scottish and came to America before the revolution.
Why isn’t Jämtland (the southernmost grey area in Central Scandinavia) marked brown being a settlement?
I am 99.1% European, all British-Irish-German. 23&Me has connected my DNA to 11 Vikings buried in Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, and Iceland. (Also a Bronze Age and an Iron Age guy, non-Viking) Objectively, I knew I had ancestors, but this…. Fascinating stuff. Edit: comma
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[Data](https://www.science.org/content/article/viking-was-job-description-not-matter-heredity-massive-ancient-dna-study-shows)
The new data come from a massive effort to sequence the DNA of Vikings across Europe. The results, published today in Nature, trace how the Vikings radiated across Europe from their Scandinavian homeland, and how people with roots elsewhere also took up Viking ways. “The big story is in line with what’s told by archaeologists and historians,” says Erika Hagelberg, an ancient DNA expert at the University of Oslo who was not part of the research team. “It’s the small details of particular sites that are really compelling.” The Estonian site, for example, offers powerful evidence that the crew was a tight-knit group from the same village or town. “Four brothers buried together is new and unique … [and] adds a new dimension,” says Cat Jarman, an archaeologist working for the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, who was not part of the research team.
Over the course of almost 10 years, a team led by geneticist Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen assembled samples from across Scandinavia dating to the Viking Age, from about 750 C.E. to 1050 C.E., as well as some earlier and later samples. The team also gathered human remains from burials elsewhere in Europe and beyond that had Viking grave goods or burial styles. “We approached every place where we could see there should exist somehow an association with Vikings,” Willerslev says. Ultimately, the team was able to sequence 442 Viking Age genomes from as far afield as Italy, Ukraine, and the doomed Viking settlements of Greenland.
There were no Viking settlements in Finland
I’m a Finn and I possibly have a Swedish Viking prince from Birka/Björkö in my ancestors. The guy lived in circa 900 AD in Central Sweden, so no one knows if the trace really is accurate, but especially Swedish upper class people are very careful with these things and they have even made some DNA-tests between noble families who claim to be descendants of that legendary heroic dude, and it came out that there really is a clear genetic linkage to this Viking thing.
In Finland and Sweden we have these so called Church books. The Church of Sweden had demographic data of all residents of the country from the 1400’s. When Sweden lost Finland, The Finnish side of the Evangelical Lutheran Church continued as The Church of Finland. We still have these Church books from those Churches that didn’t burn during the past centuries. Most Finns can search their family history from these Church books. Swedish ancestry is a very common thing among Finns. My relatives have done that too, and they have found these Swedish ancestors, quite often some upper class people, priests, soldiers, frontiersmen, merchants and so on. But the oldest clear information comes from 1400’s. Whether the knowledge of the pre-1400’s is accurate, or not, no one knows. It might be, because all sort of rulers were careful with these family history things.
So in Finland it is Swedish DNA. In the end of the 1800’s about 15% of Finland’s population were Swedish speakers, and nowadays about 5% due to assimilation. Technically Viking DNA of course, but they were just ordinary farmers and some upper class rulers too. About 30% of Finns have Swedish ancestors, and 40% have some sort of Scandinavian DNA. I read it from some scientific article. So that how it is in punctual Nordic culture. You can search your family data back to 1100 years.
What the hell happened to Italy?!
Edit: it’s probably just the projection, but it’s odd seeing southern Italy skewed so far East
Draw me a map for the rich lands to the west!
Pretty crazy how they managed to raid Flevoland in the Netherlands when it didn’t exist back then
>Viking-style graves excavated on the United Kingdom’s Orkney islands contained individuals with no Scandinavian DNA, whereas some people buried in Scandinavia had Irish and Scottish parents. And several individuals in Norway were buried as Vikings, but their genes identified them as Saami, an Indigenous group genetically closer to East Asians and Siberians than to Europeans. “These identities aren’t genetic or ethnic, they’re social,” Jarman says. “To have backup for that from DNA is powerful.”
coolio
I was looking for the Danube. Did it not connect to the Black Sea back then? It seems to stop in present day Hungary or Serbia.
If I remember correctly, they even came to Constantinople as mercenaries during the Byzantine Empire, so probably even Turkey has the Viking gene.
wasn’t “viking” a job (pirate merchant hybrid) rather than an ethnic group? i suspect scandinavians or norse should be the correct term
The Vikings basically put their pepe in all the English ladies.
Always felt like I have a bit of Norwegian in me
Yeah, we left poop all over Europe’s coasts and waterways.
“Viking” DNA doesn’t make sense. What they must really mean is “Scandinavian haplotypes”.
“Viking” is a verb. A bunch of Poles trashing Hedeby were “a-viking”, but they weren’t Scandiwegians.
Why didn’t they show all of Europe? Swedes went down to Ukraine and even Turkey
We wuz vikingz and shit 💪💪💪🇵🇱🇵🇱🟦⬜🟦⬜
I took a dna test and I have almost 20% Scandinavian DNA, yet my family tree is exclusively English and Scottish and came to America before the revolution.
Why isn’t Jämtland (the southernmost grey area in Central Scandinavia) marked brown being a settlement?
I am 99.1% European, all British-Irish-German. 23&Me has connected my DNA to 11 Vikings buried in Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, and Iceland. (Also a Bronze Age and an Iron Age guy, non-Viking) Objectively, I knew I had ancestors, but this…. Fascinating stuff. Edit: comma
My city was literally founded by Vikings as well
Because of all the raping