Being a BBC production, I'm half surprised they didn't say they were african...

As a person of 100 % Norwegian background, I find this program fascinating. My great grandfather Kolnes whose picture I have looks like a Viking from a picture book. His name was Enoch and he received a medal from the king of Norway for saving the lives of a shipwreck in the Stavanger area by rowing his rowboat into the north sea and saving people from shipwreck on the rocks.

In the early 90s I spent 2 years in Pamir, Karakorum and Hindu kush mountains. In some of the most remote and isolate valleys I've met indigenous people with blond hair and blue eyes, we know that the Azores in the middle Atlantic ocean was inhabited 2000 bc so imo no doubt of the indo-european migration theory and much more frequent contacts than previous thought between ancient peoples. These people were more capable travelling long distances across land and sea than anyone believe.

I don't think I've ever seen someone work so hard at speaking as Prof. Willerslev.

I find listening to Eske Willerslev’s Danish accent more fascinating than his conclusions.

I wouldn't call adding Anglo-Saxons and Celtic peoples to the warband very diverse. The genetic distance between the British isles and Scandinavia is tiny.

I fully expected “We wuz kangz and sheeit, we wuz Beethoven we wuz Vikings”

100% thought the BBC was going to say they were black!

Showing a nineteenth century sail ship makes no sense in talking about Vikings 500 years earlier

Imagine being a proud warrior, tough as hell and fight with no fear and end up in someone's office as a paperweight

I note that there was very little mention of Scotland, for some unknown reason. The Vikings in Scotland were from Norway and they ruled the north of Scotland, the Northern Isles (Orkneys and Shetland) as well as the Western Isles (the Hebrides). Those areas were all part of the Norwegian kingdom. Norwegian genes are a larger part of Scottish DNA than Danish DNA is in English DNA.

The Vikings also lived on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea on the Polish side, the daughter of Mieszko I Świętosław (Sygryda Storrada born in 968) was the wife of the Vikings king Eric the Victorious (1 son), second husband Swen Widłobrody. She had 2 sons with him, Harald (King of Denmark) and Cnut the Great, one invaded England and the other stayed on the throne after his father. The language and runic writing of the Vikings / Etruscan is a Slavic language, the so-called runes Polish researcher, archaeologist Tadeusz Wolański 1785-1865 read inscriptions on Etruscan monuments. After writing the book, he received the protection of the tsar - a battalion of the Russian army (Poland was under partition), who did not leave him a single step so that he would not die for reading Etruscan inscriptions.

Wait, I'm confused. Is this video saying that the Vikings were *more* diverse genetically than modern Scandinavians? That would mean that Scandinavia has actually *lost* genetic diversity since the time of the Vikings, which seems odd. Or could it be that the BBC is once again straining to make a political point about "diversity", and in the process not giving us a clear account of what the science is really saying...

That man has the most Danish accent ever.

That guy learned English watching Arnold Schwarzenegger movies😂

I recently had a DNA test, and I found that Danish and Scandinavian genes were still present in my ancestry from my father, who came from Yorkshire!

Interestingly, when Thor Heyerdahl visited Azerbaijan and Caucasian region, he was shown the ancient petroglyphs (Gobustan) of boats on the western shore of Caspian Sea, strikingly resembling the Vikings’ ones. He also met people there with blues eyes and pale skin (living in mountains of Azerbaijan) , which have legends of their ancestors sailing with these boats to the North. But Norwegian historical science never accepted Thor’s hypothesis of migration from Caspian to the North along Volga river and further. It died out. Hopefully, someone starts his work again.

I'm not gonna pretend like I have a clue about what real viking scandinavian culture was actually like, but there was nothing presented here that drastically changes the outlook or necessarily supports the conclusions shared.

In the times of the Byzantine Empire, it was common for Scandinavians to go to the Black Sea area to work as mercenary soldiers for the Byzantines. At the same time, there was possibly an arrival of "Scythians" from the steppe of what is now the northern Black Sea coast to Scandinavia, carrying burial mound culture and even the Indo-European language (the true Scandinavians possibly spoke something similar to present-day Finnish)

wow..., human genetics and migration is endlessly fascinating. I am not remotely Viking but I am fascinated by the 'culture' and the impact that their conquest had on Europe.

The trouble is, in these days terms like The Dark Ages have been re-defined, in order to be more historically correct and accurate to the period. So the Dark Ages are now the "Early Medieval Period", AD and BC have now been re-defined as BCE (Before the Current Era). And yet, all the historians have not yet got to grips with the fact that the term "Vikings" is not only (largely) a more modern term, but is a completely un-defined term, which can include various different peoples in various different activities (or not, depending on the commentator), with no strict definition to categorise them. So working out "The Truth About the Vikings" is like trying to find out where all the slaves came from, in history, and what their ethnicity was. Define what "Vikings" means FIRST, then you can work out where those defined groups or individuals originated. Otherwise, taking a small sample of individuals from a certain place in time and history, establishing their origin, then claiming that you know where all the "Vikings" came from is nonsensical. Because how do you know if they were Vikings or not, and how do you know if that small sample is true of all the "Vikings"? You can't know, unless you define what "Vikings" were.

So, Viking was a lifestyle like say being a pirate. A mix of whatever culture that newcomers brought with them.

What instrument is the woman playing in the group near the end of the video?

that one guy sounds like a skyrim guard

come on, everybody who actually knew a bit of norse history already knew this. the vikings travelled and settled all over the place.

I remember watching an episode of History's Mysteries on The History Channel (back when they still did history) the last scholar on the show remarked about how diverse the Vikings were through their travels and he said: "If you want to know what a Viking looked like, look in a mirror."

where can I get one of those helmets?

I was listening to this, and the narrators voice and accent was occasionally a dead ringer for Craig Charles (was watching Red Dwarf the other night). I could really hear the Scandinavian influences on Scouse. Where he says "On real science" near the end!

My brother did a test called the BigY that only men can take that will reveal the dna from the paternal lines a lone. Prior to this test, earlier tests revealed that he carried a mutant gene that has been found in the Scottish Highlander Kings. They were fraternizing with the Vikings long, long before England. Our ancestry is now included in this specialized research and study along with thousands of others. They found that my great grandmother was of Viking heritage.

Makes sense. It's similar to the Sea Peoples. Basically, groups of pirates. Hence the strong connection between vikings and slaving. Meanwhile most Scandinavians stayed home and farmed.

There are currently plenty of norwegians a swedes who are not typically blonde, yet their facial features are distinctly belonging to their countries. Sure, blondes are more common in nordoc vountries than elsewhere but Scandinavians are no where near exclusively blonde. Norwegians especially have all sorts of spectacularly "tall, dark and handsome" types and a fascinating array of deep dark blue eyes instead of conventional greyblues or clears. In fact you'll probably find more "typical" blonds in westrussians than in Norwegians. There are just a lot of assumptions anout what scandinavians look like.

is there a repository of viking dna? i live in the US and have yet to find anyone near my Ydna match. last name mcmindes. Ydna I2a

Just wanna add, because I find it interesting, but 'Viking' comes from the Danish Vik, meaning bay or inlet of water. So Viking/ Baying would be an active action of travelling from bay to bay or town to town. Wic could also refer to a settlement, harbour or village from the Latin Vicus, York, was referred to as Eoferwic, Berwick is still called Berwick, Norwich, Ipswich, Dunwich etc. So 'Vikings' were anyone in northern Europe and beyond who actively travelled from town to town for whatever pragmatic purpose, trading or pillaging.

Perhaps the reverse is true. Gentics elements that are found outside Scandinavia and anong Vikings originated in Scandinavia first. Far more Vikings for example settled in Sicily and Anatolia than the reverse.

Why the 17th century (or later) brigantine in the opening sequence?

I am Iberian but I share a chromosome from Viking that lived in England around 800 to 900 year. Incredible! I had freckles, many red hairs mix with my brown hair. The males in my family have red beard. All off this information was in my DNA.

Altogether now, “Genetics and culture are not the same thing”. This should be the headline of nearly all such studies. Europe, or even just the U.K., is replete with examples of invaders adapting to local cultures and assimilating, locals adopting the culture of the new overlords who killed off their aristocracy, cultures blending to produce hybrids etc - and all of that being overlaid onto changes - if rather less dramatic changes - in the underlying genetic composition of the population. One of the best examples - and relevant to this piece - is what happened to the Norse who colonised and dominated the islands and seas of western Scotland, coastal Ireland and Scotland and the Irish Sea for several centuries. They became the “Norse-Gaels” a hybrid culture. Norse disappeared. The last ruler of the whole territory, in the 12th c, was Somerled “Lord of the Isles”. His sons divided it between them and their descendants became some of the most powerful and numerous of Scotland’s clans - who thought of themselves as Gaels and who retrospectively claimed Somerled as a Gaelic hero who resisted the Vikings. But the echo of the Vikings is still there - From Wikipedia: “Since the early 2000s, several genetic studies have been conducted on men bearing surnames traditionally associated with patrilineal descendants of Somerled. The results of one such study, published in 2004, revealed that five chiefs of Clan Donald, who all traced their patrilineal descent from Somerled, were indeed descended from a common ancestor.[165][note 20] Further testing of men bearing the surnames MacAlister, MacDonald, and MacDougall, found that, of a small sample group, 40% of MacAlisters, 30% of MacDougalls, and 18% of MacDonalds shared this genetic marker.[166] These percentages suggest that Somerled may have almost 500,000 living patrilineal descendants.[167][note 21] The results of a later study, published in 2011, revealed that, of a sample of 164 men bearing the surname MacDonald, 23% carried the same marker borne by the clan chiefs. This marker was identified as a subgroup of haplogroup R1a,[170] known to be extremely rare in Celtic-speaking areas of Scotland, but very common in Norway.[171] Both genetic studies concluded that Somerled's patrilineal ancestors originated in Scandinavia.[172]”

We know what what the Vikings looked like because their little-changed descendants are still with us today. "It's not ethnicity that determines whether you're a Viking or not, it's a lifestyle." In other words if we redefine the word Viking to mean anything we want it to mean, then the Vikings weren't Northern Europeans. A bit like saying because people around the world (unfortunately) wear American logos on their clothes and adapt many American fads they're American citizens. Defining a people's history out of existence in service to eventually putting them out of existence.

3:36 I’m surprised this program allowed a map where Iceland is spelled “Island” to make the final cut.

Professor Willerslev is very passionate and educated on this subject.

I kind of expected the BBC to highlight that the Vikings were in fact sub Saharan African, and that Europe has always been diverse as per "Diversity and Inclusion" lesson 101.

"Vikings are often thought of as 'pure-bred' "not sure where you guys come up with this kind of assumption, however blonde people were very rare and relatively speaking they were more common in the north same as gingers. By the way in all popular depictions they are show to interact a lot with many cultures, as expected if you travel the world in your little boat. Had to watch it to the end, science mixed with politics....

I’m an ancestor of the Vikings during the Landnám period, with traceable ancestry back to the 11th century. There was almost no additional added DNA, according to the records, except some Danes in the 17th century. My DNA is basically what you would expect. 100% European with 99.8% northwestern European which comprises of 79.4% Scandinavian and 20.4% British, and then 0.2% Ashkenazi Jewish. My maternal lineage is Scandinavian and paternal lineage is British, which is the opposite of what is expected of my heritage. :) I have straight dark brown hair and almost black eyes, and almost no one in my family is blonde, but the majority have light colored eyes.

I am an ethnic Dane. I have brown hair and unusual facial features for one. I have been asked several times where I come from. My family on both sides were common farmers in Denmark as far back as any records go and up until my parents. And they stayed in and married people in the immediate area. According to family history on my mother's side, they have been there since before the marshy land rose, which is 600-800 years ago. And yet there is this line of people in my mother's family, with brown hair and these facial features. We look very much like each other. 2-3 people in each generation. I am curious about where it comes from, but I am not convinced that DNA testing would reveal anything. Because sometimes you are just a brown-haired ethnic Dane - not all ethnic Danes are blond with blue eyes. (I did suggest to my mom that the look might come from the Polish seasonal workers in the 1800s. She vehemently denied that it could be the case. Because that would have meant that, ahem, someone believed to be the father, wasn't 🤭).

Anyone should know that Scandinavians were more blue eyed and blonde back then than they are today. Entropy increases with time.

Outside of traders and royalty, isolated groups tended to have isolated dna and most of these dna studies that reveal "diverse" dna tend to be of Scandinavians at foreign trade centres or cherry picked examples

Great clip and info...I'm half Swedish Viking 🇸🇪 and half German🇩🇪...

I wish they'd teach us more about the Vikings

The Vikings have left their legacy in Britain as place names eg Derby,Grimsby and Rugby as by means farm,Thorpe,Thwaite surnames as in Jarvis,Anderson and Earle originally Jarl for example the Viking settlers not been fully assimulated till the 12th century.

It would be useful if the BBC linked to the research. I did a search on Google scholar and cannot find relevant articles by Eske Willesley or Martin Sikora, so it is impossible to assess their claims or the BBC's interpretation of them. I know David Reich argues that European populations are made up primarily of hunter-gatherers, farmers from Anatolia, and the Yamnaya from the Steppe. I would expect Viking DNA to reflect that, but who knows if we can't read the research discussed in this package?

My DNA is all Norwegian. My maternal grandmother had black hair. My maternal grandfather had brown hair. One of the seven kids had blonde hair. The rest all had brown. All ancestors on my paternal side had brown hair. My father and brother have blue eyes and brown hair. My mom had green eyes and dark brown hair. I have hazel eyes and light brown hair.

When he said Asia it makes sense because scandinavian/germanic have originated from central asia. The scythians are very related to the scandinavians.

I saw a small special where a “black” man got a DNA test, and it came back he was 15% Swedish. Now, this came from his Fathers side of the family, which meant his father was 30% Swedish. He then recorded a live stream of him telling his dad the findings. His father was shocked, because he was told he had some Irish in him, not Swedish. The Father thought it was hilarious. Dad had a friend who was 10% Swedish, a die hard Vikings football fan, and very proud of his Viking heritage. He was gonna run it in his friends face (had a smirk on his face when saying this) that HE had more Viking in him then his “white” friend did!🤣 DNA is a fickle thing sometimes. A bosses sister (white) had a black baby girl when the father was thought to be “white”. Chaos ensued. This was the early 2000’s and I guess a nurse got a DNA sample in all the screaming and accusations being thrown in the maternity ward. They were just about to get a divorce when the DNA results came back. Not only was the husband the father, but the “black” gene came from HIS side of the family. His great great grandfather had been African American. His family😳. The couple stayed together, love their growing healthy baby girl. But they constantly have to explain their daughter is NOT adapted. Yea. Prior to WW2, back door and secret adaptions were quite common, and is practiced world wide. People were desperate to have a son or daughter, some people were desperate to get a rid of a kid, and adaption agencies were often wrong on guessing the race of a baby dropped off. Heck. One woman had be adapted a “black” as a baby learned thru DNA testing she was full blooded Italian….in her 70’s. She got to meet her “white” siblings too. Apparently she had to have a family meeting about this “discovery” being the matriarch. When asked how this “made her feel” identity wise, she just sighed and replied, “I still like Jazz”. Stay classy granny 😎.

Sounds like being a viking was more a job than some kind of ethnic identity.

None of this is news here in Scandinavia ~ it has been known for decades, even centuries. "Viking" is a profession like "pirate", so anyone can join in. The Viking certainly started in Scandinavia, but quickly included Celts, Balts and Slavs, as the closest other "barbarian" (pagan/non-civilized) peoples. The Norse were tribal, identified by immediate family, intermarried with neighboring tribes whereever they went, including non-Norse ~ had no sense of "nationality" or "ethnicity". There are lots and lots of sagas from Ireland and Scotland, as well as the Eastern Baltic telling these exact stories. The genetic results in this report are more of a confirmation of what was already known from historiological and archaeological studies. Why report it as some sort of ethnological "gotcha" moment?

I always thought I was English Irish and French. But my dna test says mostly Scott’s and northern Western European. Which includes Viking. The geographical map includes Denmark Scandinavia and Iceland. My tree goes back to Edward I and the kings before him. All the nobility married only each other so I guess that’s why Viking genes still show in my tree even though it shouldn’t because it’s too many generations back. My family has lots of red hair. So did the kings.

It would be interesting to know which social status the "sequenced" people had. If nobles, commoners, "imported" slaves etc. were all put into one basket, diversity can be expected to be high.

Fascinating! I hope we can get more DNA information and details over the next few decades.

Thank you Denmark fore clearing this up. By the way he is also the director of the National museum of Denmark.

The people before the viking era for example, the Heruler that came from middle part of sweden that wenty on raids around year 500 AD. They were described as having pitch black hair and blur eyes.

1. When graves survive usually they’re given elaborate burials. Common graves tend not to last so you’re selecting for elites who are more likely to mix through arranged marriages for alliances. Thus this study greatly overestimates the admixture of the Vikings. 2. All the admixture is European. So because the Vikings took back some English girls that means race isn’t real white people don’t exist and somali’s need to be in Sweden. 3. The fact that they don’t link the study and that it’s behind a paywall shows the dishonesty of this. Make a claim, but don’t show you the evidence.

Big hand to those musicians playing ancient instruments in traditional garb. This takes so much love, discipline, and commitment. Rare traits by today's standards.

You knew the BBC would say , Vikings , diversity was their strenth.

My grandmother's grandfather was a 7' Dane from Copenhagen. Ive always thought he would have been terrifying if he had been a viking. Did the height get passed down through our family? Not too much. His son emigrated to the US and married an short irish girl who had emigrated to the US around the same time. We have a lot of 5'+ people in the family with the tall ones being mainly men.

Why would you be surprised, they were a slave keeping culture, they invented the word “slave” every slave culture breeds with their slaves, even the Spartans.

Thanks for this. I’ve always wondered about the Vikings.

What exciting new information!

Apparently Leroy was an incredibly popular name according to the BBC

My great-grandfather and great-grandmother were from Norway 🇳🇴 and Sweden 🇸🇪. So interesting this video is ... thank you for sharing ❤️

I am of Norwegian descent born and raised in Seattle Washington around a bunch of other people of Norwegian descent and I have never heard anybody talk about Vikings as a race or being pure

Considering the vikings brought people (non vulantary househelps) home with them after raids and probably had children with them, their genetics must have mixed t some point

do you think the further you get from an event the more accurate you can see it? it's typically the opposite.

Their most astounding finding was that several of the Vikings had been fathered by Simon Watson.

So if the Vikings were diverse, then that begs the question why are there so many blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavians today?

You start a documentary about vikings with pictures of a ship from the 18th or 19th century? What has happend to the BBC?

I find it interesting that you didn't talk about the Sami people who live in the north of Norway, Sweden and Finland.

There is no doubt that Scandinavian Vikings were taller and blonder than the others. However, those who settled abroad married local girls for the average man and local princesses for their chiefs. The interest of local lords was to tie friendly relationships with these rich traders. That means that the Vikings born overseas were very often only "half Scandinavian". Even the chiefs and second generation may have been only a quarter Scandinavian. On the continent, the Vikings opened their ranks to any volonteer wishing to get rid of the Franks. People from Saxony, Frisia, Bretagne and Aquitaine joined Viking troops to fight the Franks. This is the reason why they were so efficient. Their scouts and spies were locals.

Very interesting! But what I find equally fascinating is that Vikings, like Pirates, have been glorified. As the video says at the very beginning, they sailed the seas plundering coastal towns.

I think we've known for some time that "vikings" is a social construct and not a DNA identity.

My DNA / heritage is from the Scottish Isles on my father's side and Cornwell on my mother's. What I found that supports these findings is that my father and I share 1% northern India and Bengal DNA. We can say 100% that no one has even been there in our modern history

After doing a DNA test. I am 6th generation Australian. It came back I had genes mainly from Ireland. No surprise as my grandmother was born there. But also some from Norway.

Interesting stuff. As an Englishman with a paternal heritage from one of the most famous Scottish clans, it came as no surprise that my "English' and 'Celtic' DNA came back fairly equal - roughly 35% each. The surprise was the 20% Scandinavian (with a little bit of Finnish) and the 10% Eastern European!

This doesn't change anything we know about the Viking age It's just presented in a misleading way

Perhaps the most important fact about the Vikings is that they were mostly farmers and fishermen who went to Viking in the offseason.

One of interesting things is our modern usage of the word viking. The people of Scandinavia were known as Norse. When they went raiding they were going vikings or going on a viking. My usage is no doubt not completely accurate. But my understanding is they used viking as a verb. Modern usage is more of a noun. If you were tough enough to join a raiding group you could go on a viking no matter your ethnicity. You could stay in Scandinavia and be simply Norse. Of course there is a lot of crossover in names and terms.

I think research like this skipped the social system like it was back than. Slaves, vikings, lords, nobles, kings. If you don't know whether you're sampling any of these, or even worse, perhaps viking burials of those they'd slain, you cannot come to such strong conclusions. The logical reason the diversity decreased in the scandinavian region is because the import of slaves and wives, stopped at some point. You cannot conclude anything without knowing the social status of the ones you've sampled. This does sound like a (weak) attempt to justify mass migration, something the EU seems to love (and why there was money available for such a weak but costly project).

My surname originates from the Norse name of Rögnvaldr. I find this sort of thing totally fascinating

i kinda think of red hair, as well as blonde, and that could be green eyes as well as blue. that, though, is what i think of primarily; not ONLY.

Funny I have never seen a BBC report on the genetic purity of the Zulus. I wonder if they have an ulterior agenda...

This would help explain why I, of Swedish descent, ended up with the rare AB+ blood trap. This blood type requires DNA input from both Europe and Asia.

Just check out Fomenko's New chronology. It all fits!

Why does this first guy sound like Ahnold?!

A lot of sea burials and cremations happen in Viking culture. I'd like to know where they got their samples from because it seems they have a chip on their shoulder.

This is where the bbc takes something out of context to push a political point. They do this every time. Dr. Who is the most scientific thing on the bbc.

DNA from southern Europe and Asia may indicate an attraction to success in gain. Transport and weapons and tactics used by Vikings were a magnet then

It doesnt correlate with Arab accounts of Ahmad ibn Fadlan from the Rus Vikings that describe them as follows: "I have never seen more perfect bodies than theirs. Tall as (date) palm-trees, with blond and red hair like a burst of fire and ruddy skin. Each is tattooed from the tips of his toes to his neck, with dark blue or dark green "designs" and all men are armed with an axe, sword and long knife".

In this 400 person sample, I wonder if any were actually slaves etc and not Vikings

My family lived for centuries on the hills of Kvarner bay, Croatia. Many related families from there, as well as us- big percentage of Scandinavian dna( Myheritage). Mytrueancestry showed same percentage of Ostrogoths. So unexpected. Matched with families in south Sweden and Denmark.

Even with my limited knowledge of the DNA science, I wonder whethear the conclusions are overreaching and sespect.

That jawline tho. You can tell they were badass.