A Viking Mixer

 

A Viking Mixer

A massive genetic study recently shattered the belief that the ancient seafaring Vikings were homogenous.

Instead, scientists discovered that the fierce raiders and explorers that lived between 750 AD and 1,050 AD were very genetically diverse, National Geographic reported.

This was discovered after researchers studied the genetic data of more than 400 humans buried in sites where the Vikings are known to have roamed, including Southern Europe and Greenland. The remains date from 2,400 BC to 1,600 AD and reveal a very clear picture of Viking DNA: While they did set off from Scandinavia, the genetic analysis showed that they didn’t interact much with the region and mixed a lot with the various peoples they encountered in their far-flung travels.

The team found ancestral evidence from both Southern Europe and Scandinavia, including the Indigenous Scandinavians known as Sami.

The results also showed that modern Scandinavians are not strongly related to Vikings – only 15 to 30 percent of current Swedes are genetically tied to the individuals studied who lived in the same region some 1,300 years ago.

The authors say the data shows the Viking identity wasn’t purely Scandinavian while leaving some key questions: How did the Viking phenomenon happen and what bound these infamous people together if it wasn’t ethnicity?

“People can adopt and adapt to dominant cultural modes of survival,” said researcher Davide Zori, who was not involved in the study. “For whatever reason, being a Viking was one of the primary modes of surviving and being successful economically and politically.”