Vikings may not have been blonde, or Scandinavian

[Judi Lynn]

By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer 5 hours ago

The research "debunks the modern image of Vikings."

Those ferocious seafaring warriors that explored, raided and traded across Europe from the late eighth to the early 11th centuries, known as the Vikings, are typically thought of as blonde Scandinavians. But Vikings may have a more diverse history: They carried genes from Southern Europe and Asia, a new study suggests.

"We didn't know genetically what they actually looked like until now," senior author Eske Willerslev, a fellow of St. John's College of the University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said in a statement. The research "debunks the modern image of Vikings."

For the study, which took six years to complete, an international group of researchers analyzed the DNA taken from the remains — such as the teeth and bones — of 442 people who lived sometime between about 2400 B.C. to A.D.1600 found in archaeological sites across Europe and Greenland. These people lived, for the most part, during the Viking Age, which lasted from about A.D. 750 to A.D. 1050. The researchers then compared these ancient people's DNA with already published DNA sequences from 3,855 modern-day individuals and from 1,118 other ancient individuals.

This sweeping gene analysis suggested that the Vikings weren't just the continuation of Iron Age groups who lived from about 500 B.C. to about A.D. 700 in Scandinavia before the Viking Age. Rather, the Vikings and their ancestors would have intermingled often with people from Asia and Southern Europe. Many Viking individuals had "high levels of non-Scandinavian ancestry," the authors wrote in the paper.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/vikings-were-not-always-blonde-or-scandinavian.html?utm_source=notification0

[hlthe2b]

1. Ahh, say it ain't so.

They didn't all look like Viking's Ragnar Lothbrok?

[redwitch]

2. Would it be wrong of me to respond by saying...

Yum?

[hlthe2b]

3. ...

You aren't alone.

[redwitch]

4. He is beautiful!

Swoon!

[brush]

5. Ladies, ladies...pls

[madaboutharry]

6. After the snake pit, the series Vikings just wasn't worth watching.

I hated the actor who played Ivar. I stopped watching.

[hlthe2b]

7. Yeah. It definitely went of the rails after that. The Ragnar character was so compelling

( not to mention the actor) and though I liked Lagertha, they killed her off too!

[wnylib]

8. Not too surprising. The ancient Romans, Greeks, and

Phoenicians sailed as far as Scandinavia for the amber trade as far back as 600 BC. The later Viking raiders sailed throughout the Mediterranean and for a time they ruled Sicily. I'd expect some gene mixing.

I don't think of them as blond, though I'm sure that many were. I think of them as redheads, like Erik the Red. Vikings settled in Russia, too, and became the ruling class there. That's how Russia got its name. "Rus" means "red."

They went to Scotland and Ireland, too, where red hair is so common.