The Viking age (8th to 11th centuries AD) left a lasting mark on the genetics of today’s Scandinavians: a recent study explored the genetic dynamics of people in Norway, Sweden and Denmark dating back two millennia based on 297 genomes from ancient human remains, and data from 16638 modern Scandinavian men and women. Its findings provide insight into migration patterns and gene flow during the Viking age, when Norsemen journeyed from Scandinavia aboard timber longships, staged raids and monastic plundering across a wide region and even reached North America. The study also found that females from the east Baltic region and to a lesser extent the British and Irish isles contributed more to the gene pool of Scandinavia than the males from these regions during this period. British-Irish ancestry was widespread in Scandinavia starting during the Viking age, whereas ancestry from the eastern Baltic region (modern Lithuania and parts of western Russia and perhaps Ukraine) was concentrated in central Sweden and in Gotland, Sweden’s largest island. Ancestry from southern European locales like Sardinia was concentrated in people in southern Scandinavia. The oldest of the ancient genomes used in the study dated from the first century AD and the most recent from the 19th century. Some ancient genomes came from people who died aboard the large Swedish warship Kronan, sunk in a 1676 battle. Others came from Sandby borg, a fortress on the Swedish island of Oland, as well as from human remains inside ceremonial burials of Viking ships.
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