1 The push and pull of migration
The chemical signatures of bones and teeth suggest that Viking settlements were a melting pot of ethnicities
We have always known that travel and exploration was a key feature of the Viking Age, with the Vikings reaching as far as North America in the west, Morocco in the south, and Baghdad in the east. However, it is often thought that the movement was almost exclusively out of Scandinavia, with many returning home again afterwards. Now, new evidence is painting a different picture.
In a recent, large-scale ancient DNA study, a team from Copenhagen analysed burials from across the Viking world in a bid to find out more about population movement. As well as discovering evidence for migration out of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, the team also found evidence of many moving into Scandinavia – and from some unexpected locations, such as southern Europe. This should probably not come as a complete surprise; after all, the Vikings had extensive contact with Byzantium and even the Middle East through the river networks of eastern Europe.
The team also found that island locations in the Baltic Sea, like Gotland, showed high levels of genetic diversity. Again, this makes sense, as these places were hotspots for international trade.
What is difficult to know is exactly how and when these genetic interactions took place. DNA only gives you an idea of ancestry, not personal travel histories.
But another scientific technique – isotope analysis – can shed a little light on the lives of first-generation migrants. Because we quite literally are what we eat, traces of the underlying geology from the soils our food was grown in, and the areas where our drinking water fell as rain, are preserved as chemical signatures in our teeth and bones.
Evidence from likely Viking raiding parties in England – and from what was probably the army of Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, king of Norway and Denmark, in Trelleborg on the southern tip of Sweden – show that the groups were made up of individuals from a large range of geographical origins. A mass grave in Weymouth, for instance, included individuals who may have grown up in the Arctic and maybe even Poland. Similarly, in the cemeteries of the Viking town of Birka (in Sweden), researchers found a number of migrants, suggesting it was a multi-ethnic settlement fitting its status as an important trading centre.