A new study using 297 ancient Scandinavian DNA and the genomic data of 16,638 modern Scandinavians resolves the complicated relationships between geography, ancestry, and gene flow in Scandinavia, spanning the Roman, Viking, and later periods. The findings suggest a significant rise in variance during the Viking period, implying that gene flow into Scandinavia was vigorous at that time.
SciTech Daily reports that the international study led by Stockholm and Reykjavik looks at the evolution of the Scandinavian gene pool over the last 2000 years. They relied on historic and prehistoric DNA, as well as material from archaeological sites in Scandinavia. They found that the ancient and modern genomes matched, resolving the evolution of the gene pool for the first time.
Viking Period Migrants Had Lesser Children
The study, titled "The genetic history of Scandinavia from the Roman Iron Age to the present" published in the journal Cell, also revealed what occurred to the gene pool following the Viking period. The experts were taken aback when they discovered that it had reverted to its pre-Viking time appearance.
Professor Anders Götherström of the Center for Palaeogenetics, the senior author of the study, said that non-local ancestry peaks during the Viking period while being lower before and after.
As per Science Daily, the decrease in current levels of external ancestry suggests that the Viking-period migrants had fewer children, or contributed proportionally less to the gene pool than people who were born in Scandinavia.
On the other hand, the history of the northern Scandinavian gene pool was a fresh finding. Scientists were able to follow the unique genetic component of Northern Scandinavia that is uncommon in central and western Europe through the last 1,000 years.
Dr. Ricardo Rodrguez Varela said that they believe there was a chronology to the northern Scandinavian gene pool and it proved that a more recent influx of Uralix ancestry into Scandinavia defined the majority of the northern gene pool. However, it is so recent. The scientists only know that Uralic ancestry was only present in Scandinavia during the late Viking period.
Migration Varied by Region
The study confirms that the Viking Age also enabled the first arrival of diverse foreign genomic ancestries into the Scandinavian Peninsula, says archaeologist Andre Luiz Campelo dos Santos from Florida Atlantic University who is not part of the study.
According to Smithsonian Magazine's report, people who migrated to Scandinavia from the British and Irish Isles might have been high-ranking Christian missionaries or monks, or they could have been enslaved Vikings carried against their choice.
The migration from certain locations appeared to be sex-based, with women predominating. Female immigration from the east Baltic and, to a lesser extent, the British and Irish Isles shaped the genetic composition of Viking-age Scandinavia.
Ricardo Rodríguez-Varela, the study's first author, tells Reuters' Will Dunham that they have no means of knowing the number of women involved or whether these ladies of east Baltic and British-Irish ancestry were in Scandinavia freely or involuntarily based on our data.
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