Vast DNA analysis of hundreds of Vikings reveals they were not who we thought

A fascinating DNA study of more than 400 Viking skeletons has just rewritten history. Today we know for certain that some Vikings were not who we previously thought.

A Viking warrior.

Scientists have examined skeletons scattered across Europe and Greenland, and cutting-edge DNA sequencing is shedding new light on Viking history.

The results of the six-year research project led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge and Director of the Lundbeck Foundation Geogenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen, reveal:

The skeletons from famous Viking cemeteries in Scotland were actually local people who may have adopted Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.

• Many Vikings actually had brown hair, not blonde.
• Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. The study shows that Scandinavia’s genetic history was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and southern Europe before the Viking Age.
• Early Viking 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 per cent Viking DNA.

“We have this image of well-connected Vikings mixing with each other, trading and joining raiding parties to fight kings across Europe because this is what we see on TV and read in books, but genetically we have shown for the first time that it was not that kind of world.

Our perception of Vikings has changed

“This study changes the perception of who a Viking really was: no one could have predicted that these significant gene flows into Scandinavia from southern Europe and Asia occurred before and during the Viking Age,” Professor Eske Willerslev said in a press release.

The word Viking comes from the Scandinavian term “vikingr” meaning “pirate.” The Viking Age generally refers to the period from 800 AD, a few years after the first recorded raid, to the 1050s, a few years before the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

Norse-Viking Invasions – Kingdom of Canute – Canute the Great was the Danish king of England and ruler of one of the largest Norse empires

The Vikings changed the political and genetic course of Europe and beyond: Cnut the Great became 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 bringing Christianity to Norway.

Many expeditions involved raiding monasteries and towns along Europe’s coastal settlements, but trading goods such as furs, tusks, and seal blubber was often the more pragmatic goal.

“Until now we didn’t know genetically what they really looked like,” said Willerslev. “We found genetic differences between different Viking populations within Scandinavia, which shows that Viking groups in the region were much more isolated than previously believed. Our research even disproves the modern image of Vikings with blond hair, as many had brown hair and were influenced by genetic influence from outside Scandinavia.”

The international team sequenced the complete genomes of 442 men, women, children and babies, mostly from the Viking Age, from their teeth and petrous bones found in Viking cemeteries. They analysed DNA from remains from a ship burial in Estonia and found that four Viking brothers died on the same day.

Scientists have also revealed that male skeletons from a Viking cemetery in Orkney, Scotland, were not actually genetically Viking despite being buried with swords and other Viking souvenirs.

There was no word for Scandinavia during the Viking Age; that came later. But the study shows that Vikings from what is now Norway travelled to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland.

Vikings from what is now Denmark travelled to England. And Vikings from what is now Sweden went to the Baltic countries in their all-male “raiding parties.”

“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,” said co-lead author Dr Ashot Margaryan from the University of Copenhagen. “The results were surprising and some answer long-standing historical questions and confirm previous assumptions that lacked evidence.

“We determined that a Viking raiding expedition included close relatives, as we discovered four brothers in a ship burial in Estonia who died on the same day. The rest of the ship’s occupants were genetically similar, suggesting they probably all came from a small town or village somewhere in Sweden.”

A mass grave of around 50 decapitated Vikings from a site in Dorset, UK. Some of these remains were used for DNA analysis.

DNA from Viking remains was sequenced with a shotgun at sites in Greenland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Poland and Russia.

“We found that the Vikings were not just Scandinavian in their genetic ancestry, as we analysed genetic influences in their DNA from southern Europe and Asia that had never been considered before,” said co-lead author Professor Martin Sikora from the University of Copenhagen.

“Many Vikings have high levels of non-Scandinavian ancestry, both within and outside Scandinavia, suggesting continued gene flow across Europe.”

The team’s analysis also found that the Picts genetically “became” Vikings without genetically mixing with Scandinavians. The Picts were a Celtic-speaking people who lived in what is now eastern and northern Scotland during the late British Iron Age and early Middle Ages.

“Individuals with two genetically British parents were found who had Viking burials in Orkney and Norway,” said co-first author Dr Daniel Lawson from the University of Bristol. “This is a different side to the cultural relationship of Viking raiding and plundering.”

How the Vikings changed Europe

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.

“Scandinavian diasporas established trade and settlements that extended from the American continent to the Asian steppe,” said co-author Professor Søren Sindbæk of Moesgaard Museum in Denmark.

“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 skeletons from Orkney who were buried with Viking swords in Viking-style graves are genetically similar to present-day Irish and Scottish people and may be the first Pictish genomes ever studied.”

The Vikings were the lords of the oceans. One of the main reasons for the Vikings’ success in reaching distant lands lay in their remarkable ships. The Viking ships were the greatest technical and artistic achievement of the European Middle Ages. Without these great ships, the Viking Age would never have existed.

It’s time to rewrite history books

“This is the first time we can look in detail at the evolution of variants under natural selection over the last 2,000 years of European history,” said co-lead author Professor Fernando Racimo from the University of Copenhagen.

“Viking genomes allow us to unravel how selection developed before, during and after Viking movements in Europe, affecting genes associated with important traits such as immunity, pigmentation and metabolism. We can also begin to infer the physical appearance of ancient Vikings and compare them to modern Scandinavians.”

The genetic legacy of the Viking Age lives on today: six per cent of the UK population is predicted to have Viking DNA in their genes, compared with 10 per cent in Sweden.

“The results change the perception of who a Viking really was. The history books will need to be updated,” said Willerslev.