PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ashot Margaryan
AU  - Daniel Lawson
AU  - Martin Sikora
AU  - Fernando Racimo
AU  - Simon Rasmussen
AU  - Ida Moltke
AU  - Lara Cassidy
AU  - Emil Jørsboe
AU  - Andrés Ingason
AU  - Mikkel Pedersen
AU  - Thorfinn Korneliussen
AU  - Helene Wilhelmson
AU  - Magdalena Buś
AU  - Peter de Barros Damgaard
AU  - Rui Martiniano
AU  - Gabriel Renaud
AU  - Claude Bhérer
AU  - J. Víctor Moreno-Mayar
AU  - Anna Fotakis
AU  - Marie Allen
AU  - Martyna Molak
AU  - Enrico Cappellini
AU  - Gabriele Scorrano
AU  - Alexandra Buzhilova
AU  - Allison Fox
AU  - Anders Albrechtsen
AU  - Berit Schütz
AU  - Birgitte Skar
AU  - Caroline Arcini
AU  - Ceri Falys
AU  - Charlotte Hedenstierna Jonson
AU  - Dariusz Błaszczyk
AU  - Denis Pezhemsky
AU  - Gordon Turner-Walker
AU  - Hildur Gestsdóttir
AU  - Inge Lundstrøm
AU  - Ingrid Gustin
AU  - Ingrid Mainland
AU  - Inna Potekhina
AU  - Italo Muntoni
AU  - Jade Cheng
AU  - Jesper Stenderup
AU  - Jilong Ma
AU  - Julie Gibson
AU  - Jüri Peets
AU  - Jörgen Gustafsson
AU  - Katrine Iversen
AU  - Linzi Simpson
AU  - Lisa Strand
AU  - Louise Loe
AU  - Maeve Sikora
AU  - Marek Florek
AU  - Maria Vretemark
AU  - Mark Redknap
AU  - Monika Bajka
AU  - Tamara Pushkina
AU  - Morten Søvsø
AU  - Natalia Grigoreva
AU  - Tom Christensen
AU  - Ole Kastholm
AU  - Otto Uldum
AU  - Pasquale Favia
AU  - Per Holck
AU  - Raili Allmäe
AU  - Sabine Sten
AU  - Símun Arge
AU  - Sturla Ellingvåg
AU  - Vayacheslav Moiseyev
AU  - Wiesław Bogdanowicz
AU  - Yvonne Magnusson
AU  - Ludovic Orlando
AU  - Daniel Bradley
AU  - Marie Louise Jørkov
AU  - Jette Arneborg
AU  - Niels Lynnerup
AU  - Neil Price
AU  - M. Thomas Gilbert
AU  - Morten Allentoft
AU  - Jan Bill
AU  - Søren Sindbæk
AU  - Lotte Hedeager
AU  - Kristian Kristiansen
AU  - Rasmus Nielsen
AU  - Thomas Werge
AU  - Eske Willerslev
TI  - Population genomics of the Viking world
AID  - 10.1101/703405
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 703405
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/17/703405.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/17/703405.full
AB  - The Viking maritime expansion from Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) marks one of the swiftest and most far-flung cultural transformations in global history. During this time (c. 750 to 1050 CE), the Vikings reached most of western Eurasia, Greenland, and North America, and left a cultural legacy that persists till today. To understand the genetic structure and influence of the Viking expansion, we sequenced the genomes of 442 ancient humans from across Europe and Greenland ranging from the Bronze Age (c. 2400 BC) to the early Modern period (c. 1600 CE), with particular emphasis on the Viking Age. We find that the period preceding the Viking Age was accompanied by foreign gene flow into Scandinavia from the south and east: spreading from Denmark and eastern Sweden to the rest of Scandinavia. Despite the close linguistic similarities of modern Scandinavian languages, we observe genetic structure within Scandinavia, suggesting that regional population differences were already present 1,000 years ago. We find evidence for a majority of Danish Viking presence in England, Swedish Viking presence in the Baltic, and Norwegian Viking presence in Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland. Additionally, we see substantial foreign European ancestry entering Scandinavia during the Viking Age. We also find that several of the members of the only archaeologically well-attested Viking expedition were close family members. By comparing Viking Scandinavian genomes with present-day Scandinavian genomes, we find that pigmentation-associated loci have undergone strong population differentiation during the last millennia. Finally, we are able to trace the allele frequency dynamics of positively selected loci with unprecedented detail, including the lactase persistence allele and various alleles associated with the immune response. We conclude that the Viking diaspora was characterized by substantial foreign engagement: distinct Viking populations influenced the genomic makeup of different regions of Europe, while Scandinavia also experienced increased contact with the rest of the continent.