mtDNA of the last Viking King

[Gil]

Forensic Sci Int. 2006 May 8; [Epub ahead of print]

The last Viking King: A royal maternity case solved by ancient DNA analysis.

Dissing J, Binladen J, Hansen A, Sejrsen B, Willerslev E, Lynnerup N.

The last of the Danish Viking Kings, Sven Estridsen, died in a.d. 1074 and is entombed in Roskilde Cathedral with other Danish kings and queens. Sven's mother, Estrid, is entombed in a pillar across the chancel. However, while there is no reasonable doubt about the identity of Sven, there have been doubts among historians whether the woman entombed was indeed Estrid. To shed light on this problem, we have extracted and analysed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from pulp of teeth from each of the two royals. Four overlapping DNA-fragments covering about 400bp of hypervariable region 1 (HVR-1) of the D-loop were PCR amplified, cloned and a number of clones with each segment were sequenced. Also a segment containing the H/non-H specific nucleotide 7028 was sequenced. Consensus sequences were determined and D-loop results were replicated in an independent laboratory. This allowed the assignment of King Sven Estridsen to haplogroup H; Estrid's sequence differed from that of Sven at two positions in HVR-1, 16093T-->C and 16304T-->C, indicating that she belongs to subgroup H5a. Given the maternal inheritance of mtDNA, offspring will have the same mtDNA sequence as their mother with the exception of rare cases where the sequence has been altered by a germ line mutation. Therefore, the observation of two sequence differences makes it highly unlikely that the entombed woman was the mother of Sven. In addition, physical examination of the skeleton and the teeth strongly indicated that this woman was much younger (approximately 35 years) at the time of death than the 70 years history records tell. Although the entombed woman cannot be the Estrid, she may well be one of Sven's two daughters-in-law who were also called Estrid and who both became queens.


Manji's Note: About one half of indigenous Europeans are of mtDNA haplogroup H. The haplogroup is also common in North Africa and the Middle East.
Here is a succint and pretty acurate description of the origins of haplogroup H.

[Menydh]

Wasn't the whole viking seafarings a sort of more indendent enterprises?

[Gil]

Even the term itself, vikingr means "expedition" or "raid" and in some cases it was a sort of "private enterprise" while in others it meant a large fleet and co-operation between different tribes/nobles. Anyway, I think they use the term "viking" in the sense of a king who was involved in raiding and sponsored it.

[Savage]

Ignorant heading...

They found a dead body. We do not know if he ever was in viking, or could be called a viking. A chief, or a wealthy farmer, or a lesser king, but even that does not make him a viking.

And if so was, we have plenty Norwegian "viking " kings until about 1350. And for the author of the article. What we consider the "viking age" was history times ago in 1072.

All people living in Scandinavia 1000 years were not vikings, but ordinary people, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, fishers, hunters, thrells...usw. But they could be in viking..., for a summer, for some years...

Certainly there are cultural offsprings, Rus, Normandie, The British Isles, The coasts around the Eastern and the Northern Sea., Greenland, Vinland, but what we consider the area for the Norse heritage is Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and the Northern Sea Islands.



Interesting article, exept of the historyless speculations upon "the last viking"..

[Savage]

Old sagas tells that when a boy grew up to man, he wanted to see the world, and could go in "viking", perhaps for a summer, perhaps for several seasons.

Small communities, living perhaps too spread to be called villages, could split on a shipsreid. Among the wealthier locals, it was usual to have various ships and boats, so when one of the big one decided to make a journey to other coasts, neighbouring people and relatives rolled in as crew.

Sometimes these mighty ones had perhaps other migthy relatives that did the same, and then they meet in some fjord, and collected groups of ships. The crew onboard usually knew each other well. Their trade journeys were often mixed with raiding. That was how young men made fortunes those days. We are nations of pirates.

http://viking.hgo.se/Timetable/Chrono.html

The siege of Paris, that lasted for 6 months, were said to have implied 6000 ships and boats, and 80 000 men. I believe far from all of them were vikings.

[Galaico]

I once read that the origin of the word "viking" could come from "vyk", which would mean small river. Allegedly, many norse men who lived in those "vyk's" were pirates, vyk-ings. Is this right?

What would be the correct way for calling Middle Age Scandinavians, uncorrectly denominated "vikings" in many cases, Normans? Norse people?

[Gil]

Originally Posted by Thore Hund

Ignorant heading...

Blame the source ( the people doing the study and the publicists from the genetic studies magazines) not the messenger (me).

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Galaico

I once read that the origin of the word "viking" could come from "vyk", which would mean small river. Allegedly, many norse men who lived in those "vyk's" were pirates, vyk-ings. Is this right?

What would be the correct way for calling Middle Age Scandinavians, uncorrectly denominated "vikings" in many cases, Normans? Norse people?

I think Norse is more correct for the actual culture until influenced and diluted by christianity from around 1030...

Early middleage in Norway was initiated by the fall of Harald Hardråde at Stamford Bridge in 1066.

After the civil wars during the 1100`s, the Norwegian high middelage, the country blossomed up in the 1200`s. Iceland and Greenland came under the throne in 1262.

The last king of the Harald royal blood line Håkon Magnusson, died with no sons in 1319. From here we count the late middle age.