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Ancient DNA Reveals Truth About European Migrations in First Millennium | Ancient Origins
Ancient DNA reveals truth about European migrations and 1st millennium. Waves of human migration across Europe during the 1st millennium AD have been revealed using a more precise method of analyzing ancestry with ancient DNA in research led by the Francis Crick Institute. Researchers can bring together a picture of how people moved across the world by looking at changes in their DNA, but this becomes a lot harder when historical groups of people are genetically very similar. In an article published today in Nature, researchers report a new data analysis method called Twix Dats, which allows the differences between genetically similar groups to be measured more precisely, revealing previously unknown details of migrations in Europe, tracking the genetic fingerprints of the Viking woman hunters. Decade of DNA analysis reveals astonishing truths about our past. They applied the new method to more than 1,500 European genomes, a person's complete set of DNA from people who lived primarily during the 1st millennium AD, year 1 to 1,000, encompassing the Iron Age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the early medieval migration period, and the Viking Age. Three waves of migration were identified by this work, along with fascinating and important details about each. Germanic-speaking people moved south in the early Iron Age. The Romans, whose empire was flourishing at the start of the 1st millennium, wrote about conflict with Germanic groups outside of the empire's frontiers. Using the new method, the scientists revealed waves of these groups migrating south from northern Germany or Scandinavia early in the 1st millennium, adding genetic evidence to the historical record. This ancestry was found in people from southern Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and southern Britain, with one person in southern Europe carrying 100% Scandinavian-like ancestry. The team showed that many of these groups eventually mixed with pre-existing populations. The two main zones of migration and interaction mirror the three main branches of Germanic languages, one of which stayed in Scandinavia, one of which became extinct, and another which formed the basis of modern-day German and English. Finding a Roman gladiator? In 2nd to 4th century York and Britain, 25% of the ancestry of an individual, who could have been a Roman soldier or slave gladiator, came from early Iron Age Scandinavia. This highlights that there were people with Scandinavian ancestry in Britain earlier than the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods, which started in the 5th century AD. Germanic-speaking people moved north into Scandinavia before Viking Age. The team then used the method to uncover a later additional northward wave of migration into Scandinavia at the end of the Iron Age, 300 to 800 AD, and just before the Viking Age. They showed that many Viking Age individuals across southern Scandinavia carried ancestry from Central Europe. A different type of biomolecular analysis of teeth found that people buried on the island of Erland, Sweden, who carried ancestry from Central Europe, had grown up locally, suggesting that this northward influx of people wasn't a one-off, but a lasting shift in ancestry. There is archaeological evidence for repeated conflicts in Scandinavia at this time, and the researchers speculate that this unrest may have played a role in driving movements of people, but more archaeological, genetic, and environmental data is needed to shed light on the reasons why people moved into and around Scandinavia. Viking expansion out of Scandinavia. Historically, the Viking Age, CA-800 to 1050 AD, is associated with people from Scandinavia raiding and settling throughout Europe. The research showed that many people outside of Scandinavia during this time, show a mix of local and Scandinavian ancestry in support of the historical records. Iron Age Europe, 2000 years of change roles across the continent. Ancient DNA reveals Anatolian Neolithic Revolution Migration Patterns. For example, the team found some Viking Age individuals in the east, now present-day Ukraine and Russia, who had ancestry from present-day Sweden, and individuals in Britain who had ancestry from present-day Denmark. In Viking Age mass graves in Britain, the remains of men who died violently show genetic links to Scandinavia, suggesting they may have been executed members of Viking raiding parties, adding genetic evidence to historical accounts. Leo Spidell, first author, former postdoctoral researcher at the Crick in UCL and now group leader at Reichen, Japan, said, "We already have reliable statistical tools to compare the genetics between groups of people who are genetically very different, like hunter-gatherers and early farmers, but robust analyses of finer-scale population changes, like the migrations we reveal in this paper have largely been obscured until now. Twixtats allows us to see what we couldn't before, in this case, migrations all across Europe originating in the north of Europe in the Iron Age and then back into Scandinavia before the Viking Age. Our new method can be applied to other populations across the world and hopefully reveal more missing pieces of the puzzle. Pontus Gogland, group leader of the ancient genomics laboratory at the Crick and senior author, said, "The goal was a data analysis method that would provide a sharper lens for fine-scale genetic history, questions that wouldn't have been possible to answer before are now within reach, so we now need to grow the record of ancient whole genome sequences." Source, the Francis Crick Institute. This article was provided by the Francis Crick Institute and was originally published on their website under the title Ancient DNA unlocks new understanding of migrations in the first millennium AD.