It was also possible to follow the migrations of the Vikings: those from present-day Norway traveled to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland; those who lived in the territory that is now Denmark went to England; and those from now Sweden went to the Baltic countries.
“They were not moving in a block and it was seen that they were not a single homogeneous population”, points out Rui Martiniano, professor of Genetics and Human Evolution at John Moores University in Liverpool, in the United Kingdom, who participated in the study aimed at authors Ashot Margaryan, Daniel J. Lawson, Martin Sikora and Fernando Racimo.
To Public, Rui Martiniano says that 14 samples of Portuguese genomes from various locations in the center and south of the country were used for “comparative purposes”, sequenced in 2017 and belonging to the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. “There was no particularly relevant finding about Portugal”, he informs.
“Most Vikings are genetically European, but when examining the ancient genomes with refined techniques, a diversified genetic structure was observed, making it possible to differentiate several subgroups of Vikings that today have affinities with the populations present in the places where they were buried ”, Explains Rui Martiniano.
Thus, it is possible to think that each of us, around the world, has a bit of Viking. Norwegian individuals have between 12% and 25% Vikings ancestry; in Sweden, 10%. Outside Scandinavia it is lower: in Poland it is 5% and in England 6%. What about the Iberian Peninsula? Rui Martiniano tells Público that the answer is yet to come.
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