Experts Studying Viking Genes Say We’ve Been Portraying Them Wrong This Whole Time

A long, long time ago, a longboat crashes onto an English beach. The Vikings have arrived, and that’s not good news for the locals. Blond hair streaming behind them in the salty spray, the blue-eyed raiders leap ashore. And with their fearsome swords, they’re ready to do battle. Sounds like a scene from a movie, doesn’t it? Well, if science is correct, this isn’t what we should be picturing when we think about Vikings.

Surprising genetic make-up

Vikings did exist, of course, and back in the day their terrifying raids were all too real. What a new study has shown, though, that the genetic make-up of these marauders is quite different from what we’d been led to believe. That could potentially alter the image we have of what these fierce men looked like.

An update on history

Take it from Professor Eske Willerslev, who was the leader of that study. He’s the director of the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre in Copenhagen, so he knows his stuff. And Willerslev has explained just how important his findings are. In a press release from the University of Bristol, he was quoted as saying, “The results change the perception of who a Viking actually was. The history books will need to be updated.” Pretty strong words!

Extracting Viking DNA

So, how did we get to this point? Well, a team of scientists from Denmark and England have been working on Viking DNA analysis. Specifically, they looked at genetic material extracted from the remains of 442 people found in Viking cemeteries. These burial sites are located across Europe, from the Scottish Orkney Islands to the eastern European country of Estonia.

False beliefs

And the results of the analysis have thrown up some groundbreaking conclusions about the Vikings. Yep, it seems that we’ll really have to think again about these fierce warriors, as much of what we know about them has turned out to be false. Pretty crazy, right? But there are some tidbits about the Vikings that are still true.