https://phys.org/news/2020-09-world-largest-dna-sequencing-viking.html
Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of 442 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books. The six-year research project, published in Nature today, debunks the modern image of Vikings.
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.
- 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.
Four Viking brothers in one boat burial in Estonia died the same day.
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.
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. Individuals with two genetically British parents who had Viking burials were found in Orkney and Norway.
- The genetic legacy of the Viking Age lives on today with 6 percent of people of the UK population predicted to have Viking DNA in their genes compared to 10 percent in Sweden.