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Biotech Science

Authentic Viking DNA From 1,000-Year-Old Skeletons 189

Posted by timothy from the unless-that-was-really-ullyses-s.-grant dept.
FiReaNGeL writes "Scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers. Analysis of DNA from the remains of ancient humans provides valuable insights into such important questions as the origin of genetic diseases, migration patterns of our forefathers and tribal and family patterns. Using freshly sampled material from ten Viking skeletons from around AD 1,000, from a non-Christian burial site on the Danish island of Funen, Dissing and colleagues showed that it is indeed possible to retrieve authentic DNA from ancient humans."
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Authentic Viking DNA From 1,000-Year-Old Skeletons More

Authentic Viking DNA From 1,000-Year-Old Skeletons

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:33PM (#23576895)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:next step (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lurker2288 ( 995635 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:48PM (#23577169)
      I can hear Richard Attenborough now. "We have created creatures so astonishing that they will capture the imagination of the entire world...welcome, my friends, to Nordic Park."

      Just make sure to keep those electric fences on; last time the berserkers got out they took out an entire tour group from Milaukee.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by idontgno ( 624372 )

        Just keep 'em away from the authentic longboat re-creations.

        Otherwise, we know from good sources [wikipedia.org] that their only goal will be the western shore. And that means either the British Isles or, if they're lucky (and bad navigators), North America.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by mapsjanhere ( 1130359 )
        And when the theme park idea doesn't work out they can always get a job for the next credit card commercial

      • Imagine (Score:5, Funny)

        by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @05:09PM (#23577535)
        a Beowulf cluster of these.
      • But, come on... they're Vikings! Now we'll find out if cloned organisms can reproduce... with women from Milwaukee.

      • Re:next step (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Hieronymus Howard ( 215725 ) on Thursday May 29, 2008 @05:27AM (#23583785)
        I've heard that until recently there were still Vikings in Britain. A community of shepherds in a remote area still spoke an private language amongst themselves. When WW2 broke out, some of them ended up being based in Iceland, and discovered that they could understand the Icelandic speaking locals. Their 'private language' turned out to be Old Norse, handed down from their Viking ancestors.

        A lot of people in remote northern parts of the UK have been shown to have Viking DNA.
        • Their 'private language' turned out to be Old Norse, handed down from their Viking ancestors.
          A lot of people in remote northern parts of the UK have been shown to have Viking DNA.

          The language claim is almost certainly an exaggeration. Languages almost never survive unchanged over a thousand-year timespan when spoken by a small remote group without a literary tradition. As well, such a thing would have gotten a lot of publicity, and I've never heard of it before. It's true that the Norn language [wikipedia.org], which ev
        • A lot of people in remote northern parts of the UK have been shown to have Viking DNA.

          Well, absolutely true, but what is "Viking DNA" anyway?

          In the Anglo-Saxon era Britain and Iceland were essentially part of Scandanavia. They had Norse kings, Norse settlers, and in England spoke a language (Old English) which was essentially mutually comprehensible with Old Norse.

          There's no easy way to draw a line and say what's Viking and what isn't. It makes almost as much sense to have a genetic test for "Canadian DNA
      • I'm more worried about the Yul Brenner character. Jurassic was fun, but Westworld is scary.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Skevin ( 16048 ) *
        Get your Michael Crichton Mashups in line!

        The story would have to be about cloned Vikings plagued by un-killable cannibal white apes who are really guarding a huge diamond repository, which holds the key to curing a mysterious blood-hardening disease from outer space that's actually a swarm of silicon-hungry nanobots trying to rescue a professor trapped 600 years in the past.

        Hmm, come to think of it, that doesn't sound like a bad screenplay...

        Solomon Chang

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by denzacar ( 181829 )
      And like someone else here said - just make them all female.
      Any missing DNA could be taken from frogs.

      And then, with some luck, Trekkies will finally be able to have their green-skinned Orion slave girl fantasies based on actual, real life girls.
      Associating with them, James T. Kirk style, would naturally remain a fantasy for nearly all of the Trekkies.
      There are some things even unscrupulous genetic crimes against nature can't help with.

      • And like someone else here said - just make them all female.
        For some reason I figure a female Viking would look pretty much like Tilda Swinton.

    • I was more thinking along the lines of making sure they don't step on the chickens and soil our quilts. [lyricstime.com]

      If that reference is too obscure for you, you could always clone them, open a theme park, and then give them lots of puzzles [wikipedia.org] to do (upon pain of excruciating death!)

    • Next step is to clone them and open a theme park, right?

      Welcome to Jorvik Park [wikipedia.org].

    • ...so instead of cotton candy they'll have lutefisk [davethefox.com] on a stick. Okay, more like a glop in a bowl since it'd just slither off the stick.

    • Next step is to clone them and open a theme park, right?

      Sorry, but that has already been done [youtube.com]
    • Look out, Drew Carey!

  • Vikings come to Jurrasic Park (Score:4, Funny)

    by Raul654 ( 453029 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:34PM (#23576911) Homepage
    Just imagine how awesome the theme parks could be if they were populated by real, genetically correct vikings. Oh wait...

  • So (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bobwrit ( 1232148 )
    Now we can reincarnate the vikings. Good job.

    • Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Collective 0-0009 ( 1294662 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @05:11PM (#23577545)
      Funny how you use 'reincarnate'. Now you aren't laughing at that pharaoh that wrapped himself tightly for some crazy trip to reincarnation (aka a few thousand years til science catches up).
      • Uh... You don't need someone's DNA to "reincarnate" them.

        1. If you did cloned a human from that DNA, his body will attract a new soul from the available pool, and most probably it will *not* be the soul that was previously inhabiting the "original" body. Also, the clone will have very little to no chances of recovering past memories of the human whose soul inhabited the original body.

        2. BTW, the soul of the "original" had probably already incarnated as someone else. Maybe even as you.
        • ...his body will attract a new soul from the available pool...

          Would that pool be the Judaic concept of the "Guff" [hebrewresources.com], as mentioned in the movie "The Seventh Sign" [imdb.com], or a Wathan stored in the tower at the north pole in "Riverworld" [wikipedia.org]?

          • No, it is a swimming pool.

            * Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
            * The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
            * Any fucking time, any fucking day.
            * >>Learn to swim<<, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

            Tool - AEnema.

  • Neat. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Paranatural ( 661514 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:36PM (#23576937)
    This should be interesting. I wonder if we'll find out one of the Native American Tribes was heavily interbred with some vikings.

    In any case, the really interesting thing is that this will really show us how each race of humans developed and spread, and who came from who.

    Of course, we'll find that it all started 6,000 years ago, in a garden in the Middle East...

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by The Anarchist Avenge ( 1004563 )
      When I went hitchhiking through western Minnesota a few years back, I met a Dakota man living on the reservation in Sisseton. He claimed that his grandfather told him the story of how he helped bury one of the "white giants", blond and fair skinned men "as tall as you could reach".
      I took it with a grain of salt, but it's still one hell of a story - the ladies love it when I tell it around a campfire at night.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rossdee ( 243626 )
        And then theres the Runestones they dug up around Alexandria...

    • This should be interesting. I wonder if we'll find out one of the Native American Tribes was heavily interbred with some vikings.
      The first hint were the indians with blue eyes mentoined by the early colonists and the Viking settlements discovered on the american northern atlantic coasts.

    • Re:Neat. (Score:4, Informative)

      by corbettw ( 214229 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @10:09PM (#23581029) Journal

      This should be interesting. I wonder if we'll find out one of the Native American Tribes was heavily interbred with some vikings.
      I don't know, are there any famous blonde Native Americans [wikipedia.org]?
  • Wait... so 1,000 years old is ancient? And here all along I thought the western roman empire ended in 476 AD, not 1008 AD. Time to re-write those history books.

    • The ancient Greeks and Romans themselves referred to "ancient" times which were only two or three centuries before their own, in some cases. It's all relative.

      Though I do agree, 1000 years old isn't far from modern, especially in the Scandinavian world.

      • Re:Go look up the definition of Ancient... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by corbettw ( 214229 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @10:18PM (#23581135) Journal
        You're kidding, right? Let's look at the world of 1008 AD, and you tell me if it sounds ancient:

        The English language didn't exist.
        There were no ocean-going trade routes between Europe and East Asia.
        Iceland had just had their first allthing, but other than that there were no democracies or republics in existence.
        Spain was a Muslim province. Oh, and the Spanish language didn't exist, either.
        The wild notion that the earth orbited the sun, and not the other way around, would not have scientific and mathematical constructs to support it for another 531 years.
        The Roman Empire still existed (at least its Eastern Half).
        The only religion in most of Europe was Roman Catholicism (the Vikings converted in the previous century).
        The average person never traveled more than seven miles from the place of his or her birth, and could not conceive of communicating with people more than shouting distance away. They couldn't even write, only priests could (Charlemagne was notable as one of the only medieval rulers who could sign his own name).

        About 33 generations have passed since 1008. If you don't think that's a long time, when was the last time you spoke with your great-great-grandfather in person? He was only four generations removed, and he was probably dead before you were born. 1000 years is a freakishly long time in terms of human life, culture, and advancement.

        • Re:Go look up the definition of Ancient... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Petrushka ( 815171 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @11:10PM (#23581509)

          I'm guessing you come from the New World somewhere. Yes, 1000 years is fairly recent. But you're partially right, it wasn't quite "modern" either, which is why I said "not far from" modern.

          I'm not quite sure why you're bringing up Spain and East Asia; I'm perfectly happy to agree that Western Europe was a barbaric wasteland at the time, but for some reason I thought we were talking about Scandinavia. The eastern Roman empire continued to exist into the Modern period, by the way; when Constantinople fell the Renaissance had been well under way for some time in various European countries. But the Byzantine Empire was neither ancient, mediaeval, nor modern, but somewhere in between and all three at once.

          Unlike the rest of your points, that one is actually kind of (tangentially) related to the basic rationale for my earlier statement, as cultural and political links between Constantinople and Scandinavia were unusually strong, as European states of the time went. Scandinavians had already discovered and were attempting to colonise three separate New Worlds (Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador), something that Italians like Columbus didn't even think of for nearly another half millennium; and it was only going to be a couple more centuries before a sort of Renaissance started in Scandinavia, long before it got going anywhere else in Europe. So, I stand by my statement: "not far from modern". In the same way that the Italy of Boccaccio's time could be considered "not far from modern".

  • Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ettlz ( 639203 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:43PM (#23577055) Journal
    Not more spam!
  • I have some of the viking in my mish-mash genetic make up - they were very good, after all, at getting their genes spread widely.

    perhaps this research will confirm my suspicion that the Viking lineage is where I acquired my most powerful gene [theonion.com]

  • Most obvious question: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by r_jensen11 ( 598210 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:46PM (#23577121)
    How drastically would their DNA differ from that of current Norweigians, Swedes, and Danes? I dare not mention the Finns, lest some the Scandinavians go viking-shit on me.

    But seriously, though; has the modern gene pool been dramatically changed due to southern neighbors migrating north?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ChrisA90278 ( 905188 )
      "has the modern gene pool been dramatically changed due to southern neighbors migrating north?"

      I think finding the answer to that question might be one reason to do this study. How else to know but to actually compare the present and older populations?
    • I don't know what I am talking about, but don't many Europeans have some sort of "plague resistance?" that populations from 1000 years ago would lack?

      Or is that more of an environmental thing?

    • How drastically would their DNA differ from that of current Norweigians, Swedes, and Danes?

      Or parts of the British Isles, Francs and Germany? Let's not forget that the worlds first known representative democracy was the Viking city of Dublin. They went everywhere, man.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by catmistake ( 814204 )
      I'm pretty sure it went the other way... After conquering much of northern Europe the Vikings interbred with the locals, 'diluting' their gene pool by coming down from the North, not by southerners conquering north and doing the same thing. Have European ancestry? Chances are you've got Viking in there somewhere.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by qc_dk ( 734452 )
      Then why did you mention the Finns?

      Death by Axe! RRRAAAAAAARRGGGGGGGggg.. umm, btw. What's your address?

  • Don't remind me... (Score:3, Funny)

    by kyriosdelis ( 1100427 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:48PM (#23577155)
    My favorite place to hang out in the summer, is a scandinavian bar. If you go up on the roof, you'll find authentic viking DNA all over the place...
  • How about we take the mice that have been loaded with the Tassie Tiger (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/20/132238) and load some others with the DNA of the Vikings and let's see who dominates!

    The winner can take on mice bred with the dinosour DNA taken from fossilized mosquitos!

    myke

  • Samples' mtDNA haplogroups (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swid27 ( 869237 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:48PM (#23577175) Homepage

    For the lazy, the samples found were:

    • 5 in Haplogroup H;
    • 1 in Haplogroup K;
    • 1 in Haplogroup I;
    • 1 in Haplogroup T2;
    • 1 in Haplogroup U5a1a;
    • 1 in Haplogroup X2c;

    All of those are found in Europe to varying degrees; the only item of note is that the K and one of the H samples had no exact matches when compared to a database containing over 15,000 mtDNA sequences.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Henriok ( 6762 )
      Please elaborate. I'm not fluent in DNA-lingo, but it sure looked scientific and therefor interessting. Can we please get the digest translation into lay English?

      • Re:Samples' mtDNA haplogroups (Score:4, Informative)

        by MaizeMan ( 1076255 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @05:23PM (#23577735) Homepage
        He's talking about a method of tracing ancestry through the female line. Current person whether male or female, their mother, their mother's mother etc. This doesn't correspond to genes with any visible phenotypes (two people in haplogroup T2 aren't necessarily going to share any traits), but it can tell you something about which populations mixed in the past and how recently. Also since 20% of the samples contain mutations not found in current populations, we can conclude that a number of the maternal lines for the vikings died out. (I don't know much population genetics, so I don't know if 20% loss over 1000 years is high or low, or what you'd expect).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by delt0r ( 999393 )
          It depends on the population size. In fact how long it takes can be used as a direct measure on population size.

          For smaller populations that was prevalent at the time, this is not a huge surprise.

    • Mom? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dwrugh ( 580386 )
      My mtDNA is T2 so I guess that means mom was descended from Vikings... The Vikings were raiding Ireland before AD 1000 and carrying out the most winsome lasses so I'd guess that's where some of the mtDNA came from. Ancient Celtic Warriors: Vikings and Irish at War [aol.com] Viking Settlemnent in Ireland [wikipedia.org]

  • Oversold? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:51PM (#23577221) Journal
    Sure, contamination is a big problem, but it isn't like this hasn't been done before.

    The problem is that you're trying to take very small traces of human DNA and greatly amplify it. Even a very small amount of contamination from the researchers or lab environment can introduce as much or more modern DNA than the ancient DNA being studied - so you end up sequencing the lab's janitor instead of the viking.

    For example, here [wikipedia.org] is a list of ancient humans who have had mitochondrial DNA sequences taken. (There are also Neandertal sequences not listed here.)

    So I'd say this is a good job, and good science, but not at all a first.

  • No need (Score:5, Funny)

    by sxltrex ( 198448 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:56PM (#23577309)
    Authentic vikings still walk the earth today. [youtube.com]

    This is the only creature Chuck Norris is afraid of.

  • Digging places (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Borathian ( 1288282 )
    So why would it matter if the burial site is Christian or no-Christian? Last time I checked one dead body is as dead as another, wouldn't just saying "from a burial site on the Danish island of Funen" be more textualy efficent ;)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gat0r30y ( 957941 )
      More importantly wouldn't it be better to state that the weren't Viking Funerals?

    • Re:Digging places (Score:5, Informative)

      by number6x ( 626555 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @05:15PM (#23577623)

      A christian themed burial site would indicate a greater likelihood of intermingling with non-viking cultures from Southern Europe. This could be an indicator of genetic intermingling as well.

      A non-christian burial site would not preclude intermingling, but probably be an indicator of lower likelihood.

      Besides, TFA said they already did a christian site from around the same time, so this would give them a separate set of data points.

      I know its hard to believe the concept of people who profess different religious affiliations being less likely to associate and intermarry. That kind of thing is so middle ages, all the major religions live in such peace and harmony in the enlightened 21st Century!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jlar ( 584848 )
        "A christian themed burial site would indicate a greater likelihood of intermingling with non-viking cultures from Southern Europe. This could be an indicator of genetic intermingling as well."

        Are you sure? Prior to the introduction of christianity in Denmark my ancestors raided, conquered, traded and settled all over Europe and most likely brought back women as war booty or if returning home from a failed settlement.

        http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Viking_expansion.png [wikimedia.org]

        After the introduction of chris

  • oblig (Score:2, Funny)

    by nih ( 411096 )
    å møøse ønce bit my sister

  • From TFA (Score:4, Informative)

    by linhux ( 104645 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @06:15PM (#23578421) Homepage

    Although âoeVikingâ literally means âoepirate," [...]


    If they get the first sentence completely wrong, I'm not going to bother with the rest of the article.

    (Viking literally means a person who comes from a bay or similar.)
    • Sure - the literal translation can mean 'one who hails from a bay', however, the original term, 'adh fara i viking' (sorry, I can't seem to get the old Norse letters to /.) conveyed the meaning 'to go on a sailing trip, raiding coastal villages in foreign parts, and possibly returning a wealthy man'.

      Piracy is more about raiding ships, I suppose, something that was generally seen as impractical in those times - the only ships that had anything of worth were chock full of vikings anyway.

      Why read the article w

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Petrushka ( 815171 )

      (Viking literally means a person who comes from a bay or similar.)

      No, that's an anachronism. Vík meant bay or inlet. Víking never meant anything other than "pirate".

      In any case it's at least as likely that the Icelandic word comes from Anglo-Saxon, rather than the other way round, as the word is attested in OE from the 8th century, but in Old Norse only two centuries later. (The origin in that case would be OE wic "camp, temporary settlement".)

      TFA is right, you are wrong. Burn!

  • inauthentic DNA? Would that be RNA?
  • Too bad Phil's not around to play a Cloned Viking Lawyer [wikipedia.org].
  • Apparently they're going to bring back the Knights of Standards and Practices.
    http://www.planearium.de/scripts-502.htm [planearium.de]

    Meecrob!

  • AD or CE? (Score:2, Informative)

    by imagin8r ( 950808 )
    I'm assuming that the majority of Slashdotters are proscience and not pro-Creationism. In the interest of maintaining scientific temper on this forum, may I request Slashdotters to employ the more secular 'CE' -- Common Era -- rather than the forthrightly Christian 'AD' -- Anno Domini, meaning, 'In the Year of Our Lord'. I think most here, including myself, have utmost respect for Jesus and his followers even we don't necessarily consider him to be 'Our Lord'. The usual response is, 'Who cares? Nobody k
    • Should we use other names for the weekdays and the months as well. I mean, if we should not refer to one god in the year, why should we honour Odin (Wednesday), Thor (Thursday) or the roman gods in the names of the months. I suppose we can keep the name of July and August since they name roman emperors, but we should quickly stop calling March in the name of the roman god of war.

      I do like the CE / BCE because they actually have a meaning in English, but really, claiming that it should be used because of the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by weicco ( 645927 )

        I do like the CE / BCE because they actually have a meaning in English, but really, claiming that it should be used because of the religious baggage in AD/BC is just a lot of crap if you don't try to push for new weekdays and months.

        Could we keep weekdays and months as they are but migrate from AD/BC to After Unix (AU) and Before Unix (BU) notation? ;)

  • Cant help this (Score:3, Funny)

    by SoulRider ( 148285 ) on Thursday May 29, 2008 @08:46AM (#23585509)
    I bet they find they could not win a super bowl back then either.
  • ...finding out you're actually related to someone born almost 10,000 ago.

    A thousand years seems a pittance when they were able to find a local history teacher was a relation to the "Cheddar Man" [southcoasttoday.com] via mitochondrial DNA -- which is inherited unchanged on the maternal line. (BTW, that's a professor and a researcher at London's Natural History Museum, not the descendant, in the photo.)

    The search for a descendant came about as, "Dr. Larry Barham, a Texas-born archaeologist at Bristol University, said the finding

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