Readers of this here blog know that our basic policy is to focus upon archaeological developments in our own region because there’s certainly plenty of it. However, readers also know that our policy includes an exception whenever news of advancements in DNA research is involved. Behold:
A 10-year DNA study of human remains from Viking-Age burials across Europe and beyond (generally, 750 CE – 1050 CE) is leading anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians to redefine who Vikings were. The DNA results revealed many cases of individual and group mobility, such as four brothers buried together in one Viking grave in Estonia, and a pair of cousins buried hundreds of miles apart from each other – one in Oxford, UK, and the other in Denmark. Additionally, the DNA results revealed that Vikings from certain areas preferred specific destinations for raiding and trading – refuting the traditional assumption that Vikings conducted their sailing expeditions wherever the winds of fortune carried them.
“We approached every place where we could see there should exist somehow an association with Vikings,” Willerslev says. Ultimately, the team was able to sequence 442 Viking Age genomes from as far afield as Italy, Ukraine, and the doomed Viking settlements of Greenland….The genetic details may…rewrite popular perceptions of Vikings, including their looks: Viking Age Scandinavians were more likely to have black hair than people living there today [Image on right: what Vikings did NOT look like – webmaster]. And comparing DNA and archaeology at individual sites suggests that for some in the Viking bands, “Viking” was a job description, not a matter of heredity.
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The DNA has raised new questions, too. Study co-author and National Museum of Denmark archaeologist Jette Arneborg says DNA recovered from burials in Greenland shows a mix of Scandinavian men from what is now Norway and women from the British Isles. Yet the artifacts and burials look completely Scandinavian. The women “have British genes but we can’t see them in the archaeology,” she says. “The DNA is going to make us think more about what’s happening here.”
What does this DNA study mean for our corner of the world? It adds yet more support to the proposition that human beings have always moved around, frequently and far. It also means that we must keep an open mind and adjust our current perceptions from time to time of how culture, family ties, and choices of daily living affect migration, whether we’re considering Vikings or Mimbreños.
Science is so cool.