According to a new study published in Nature, Scandinavian genes were present on the British Isles several centuries earlier than previously thought, including evidence from a man buried in York. Researchers analyzed DNA from a man who was buried in York and lived sometime between the 2nd century and the 3rd century CE, according to Dagens Nyheter.
The man, believed to have been a Roman soldier or gladiator, had 25 percent of his genes from Scandinavian ancestry, according to the DNA analysis. This discovery suggests that Scandinavian ancestry was present in Britain long before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century CE.
A group of scientists, including Dr. Leo Speidel, the lead author of the study and a researcher at RIKEN Institute in Japan, developed a new method to analyze genetically similar populations. They applied this approach to more than 1,500 genomes of people who lived in Europe in the first millennium, examining several major migration flows, as reported in Nature and cited by Telex.
Instead of considering all genetic differences between populations, the researchers used a novel method that focuses on mutations in genomes that arose in the last 30,000 years, allowing for a more detailed study of relationships between genetically similar groups. By concentrating on these relatively new mutations, they were able to more accurately compare genetically similar populations, according to Dagens Nyheter.
"The idea is that we can now investigate history with ancient DNA," Dr. Speidel said, according to The Guardian. Advances in extracting and analyzing ancient DNA have allowed researchers to explore the mixing of very different groups, such as Neanderthals and modern humans. However, analyzing ancient DNA is more challenging when studying groups that are genetically similar, like populations in different parts of Europe during the first millennium.
Dr. Pontus Skoglund, a researcher at the Francis Crick Institute in London and a co-author of the study, noted the limitations of historical records. "There's some degree of historical information, but there's so many things left in the dark," he said to The Guardian. Much of the history of other peoples was written down by the Romans, leaving gaps in our understanding of migrations and interactions.
The research reveals at least two waves of movement from Northern Germany or Scandinavia to western, central, and eastern Europe. They were surprised to find evidence of a later migration into Scandinavia from the south between 500 CE and 800 CE, demonstrating an opposite-direction migration, according to Dagens Nyheter.
"Previously, people had noticed that they were relatively diverse, but it was kind of hard to know why. The main explanation was that these Vikings would go to places and then bring back people, perhaps," Speidel is cited by The Guardian. He suggested that the Vikings might have abducted local inhabitants from the areas they traversed and took them back to Scandinavia.
The study also explores the Viking expansion from Scandinavia, including the discovery that many individuals found in two late Viking-age mass graves in Britain had a genetic makeup typical of Viking-age southern Scandinavia. This suggests that these individuals could have been Vikings who met a grim fate.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.