The Viking Age Left Marks On Scandinavia’s Genes – 09/01/2023 – Science

the Age of the Vikingsthat spanned the eight centuries^the to AD 11 left a permanent mark on today’s Norse genetics, according to scholars who also documented the massive genetic influence of women who arrived in the region during the Norse conquests of Europe.

One study Published on Thursday (5) Exploring the genetic dynamics of a population NorwayAnd Sweden And Denmark 2,000 years ago, based on 297 genomes from ancient human remains and data from 16,638 Modern scandinavian men and women.

The results provided data on migration patterns and gene flow during the course of the study Viking AgeWhen the Norse traveled on wooden ships, they raided and plundered monasteries over a vast area and even reached North America.

The study found that women from the eastern Baltic region, and to a lesser extent from the British and Irish Isles, contributed more to the Scandinavian gene pool than men from those regions over the same period.

“We have no way of knowing how many women were involved or whether these women of East Baltic and British-Irish descent were in Scandinavia willingly or unwillingly,” said molecular archaeologist Ricardo Rodriguez-Varela of the university’s Center for Paleobiology. . From Stockholm, lead author of the study published in magazine cell.

Historians have documented the slave trade By the Vikings when navigators conquered many areas He developed extensive business networks.

Molecular archaeologist Anders Gutherström, of the Center for Paleogenetics and co-author of the study, added: “Slaves are one group among many that could explain the patterns. But we don’t know exactly who these people were.”

The Viking Age spanned from about 750 to 1050 AD. The most important early event was a devastating Viking attack in 793 on a Christian monastery on the English island of Lindisfarne, with subsequent attacks on various locations including Paris and Constantinople, and trade connections as far as the Middle East.

The study showed that the British-Irish ancestry was widespread in Scandinavia, starting in the Viking Age. The origin of the eastern Baltic region – modern Lithuania, parts of western Russia and possibly Ukraine – is found concentrated in central Sweden and Gotland, Sweden’s largest island. The ancestry from southern European locations such as Sardinia is concentrated in people in southern Scandinavia.

“The Viking Age is associated with a sharp increase in the flow of goods, customs, technology and people to and from Scandinavia,” Rodríguez Varela said.

Gutherström added that “Scandinavian societies, first pagan and then Christian, based their economy on small property, foreign trade and plunder. The Vikings were the first to visit four continents.”

It has been found that the genetic contribution of outsiders in Scandinavia declined after the Viking Age.

Their findings, the researchers wrote, provided “cautious evidence that gene flow into Scandinavia, originating from eastern Baltic and, to a lesser extent, Irish Britons, had a higher rate for females.”

“The rise of East Baltic ancestry in these regions during the Viking Age is consistent with historical sources that attest to contacts such as tributary and treaty relationships. Therefore, we see no evidence, with current data, of women being abducted and returned,” said Rodríguez Varela.

The researchers added that men who served as Christian missionaries or monks may also have arrived in Scandinavia during this period, but they may not have contributed much to the genetic pool.

The oldest ancient genomes used in the study date back to the first century.^the AD, and the latest from the nineteenth century. Some of the ancient genomes came from people who died aboard the great Swedish warship Kronan, which sank in battle in 1676. Others came from Sandby Borg, the castle on the Swedish island of Öland where a massacre appears to have taken place in the 5th century.^theas well as human remains from ceremonial burials in ships Vikings.

“The Vikings were an interesting group of people who lived for two and a half centuries, and affected the world in ways we still don’t understand,” Gutherstrom said.

Translated by Luis Roberto M. Gonsalves