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New Vistas on the Distant Past

The Vikings

The word Viking spread terror far and wide. Peaceful monks and farmers learned to fear the sail on the horizon that presaged a lightening attack by massive, axe-wielding pirates of the north. Though there was much more to the Viking Age than piracy, it will be forever defined by wanderlust and warriors. Viking in Old Norse meant sea-warriors, as far as we can tell.^{1R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 3-4.} Young Scandinavian men went a-viking in the invitingly warm summers around 800 AD, in search of plunder and adventure. Raiding gradually gave way to settlement and trade. The Vikings at home were farmers, fishers and hunters, and had long traded amber for metals. As they spread they created new trade routes. Captured human booty generated a slave trade which was a major source of Viking wealth.

At the start of the Viking Age, Scandinavians lived in scattered farms. There were few villages and no apparatus of the nation-state. The same was true of the more thinly-populated of the lands that the Vikings entered: Ireland, Scotland, Russia and Ukraine. The Scandinavian diaspora changed the dynamics of Viking life and contributed to state formation and urbanism at home and abroad. One constant was the paganism of the Vikings, which set them apart from the rest of the Germanic-speaking world, by then absorbed into Christendom. Gradually the fierce followers of Thor and Odin too were Christianised. With the fall of the last temple to the old gods in 1090, a way of life was at an end. So Viking is a period as much as a people.

Those participating could come from anywhere that Old Norse was spoken: the Scandinavian peninsula, Jutland and associated islands. Those on the receiving end of the Viking longsword generally lumped together all these Scandinavian marauders as Vikings, Northmen, Norsemen, Normands or Danes, according to local custom. In the east Scandinavian traders appear as Varangians or Rus. The Vikings distinguished between various peoples and/or tribes among themselves, but we should not picture these distinctions neatly fitting the modern borders of the Scandinavian nations. The Danes lived in the good agricultural land of Southern Scandinavia - not just in modern Denmark, but southern Sweden too. They were regarded by the Franks as the most powerful people among the Northmen. The Danes had merged into a kingdom, whose influence spread as far as the Viken region around the Skagerrak, though local chiefs there resisted Danish rule. The Viken is now part of Norway. Other tribes clung to the western coast of the Scandinavian peninsula and its fjords. They were separated by a huge chain of mountains from the nascent Swedes of Svealand on the eastern coast around Old Uppsala. Svealand was the next richest region in Scandinavia, after the Danish kingdom, and it too was ruled by a king. His writ barely ran, if at all, in the sparsely-populated and heavily-forested regions to the north and west of Svealand. Geographical position encouraged what we would now call Norwegians to explore westwards to Scotland, Ireland and further west, while the Danes favoured movement along the coast to Frisia, France and England, and the Swedes ventured across the Baltic to Finland, up river into Eastern Europe and as far as Byzantium (modern Istanbul) via the Black Sea.^{2R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings(2009); J. Graham-Campbell (ed.), The Viking World (2001); H. Clark and B. Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age (rev. edn 1995).} However the picture is not cut and dried. In the documentary and archaeological sources we can dimly discern overlap in places between these various peoples. Genetics may have a role to play in helping to distinguish the descendants of Danes, Norwegians and Swedes in the places that the Vikings settled.

The speakers of Old Norse were of necessity hardy sailors. The sea was the easiest way to travel from fjord to fjord around the mountain spine of the Scandinavian peninsula. Moreover the poor soils over much of that peninsula, together with the limited northern sun, made crops meagre and created a greater dependence upon fish. Norway's long coastline was its chief asset - a source of abundant seafood. The flatter land of Jutland and southern Sweden was more suited to agriculture, but seamanship was still needed to reach the islands between these two mainlands. The Norse developed clinker-built boats, constructed of overlapping planks. The feared Viking longships were built in this way. Several have survived, thanks to the practice of ship burials, which is older than the Viking Age. From about 400 AD onwards the Angles had arrived in England from Jutland in clinker-built ships. A royal example was buried at Sutton Hoo in the 7th century. Though its timber rotted in the soil, an impression was left of its clinker-built form. In dramatic contrast the Oseberg Ship now housed in the Viking Ship Museum at Oslo is almost complete. Not all Viking ships would be as magnificent as this royal vessel with its beautifully-carved prow, but it conveys an impression of the elegant form of these shallow vessels, which could nose their way deep inland up the rivers of Europe, and yet also make long sea crossings.^{3R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), chap. 1: the Oseberg Ship; Sean McGrail, Ships, shipwrights and seamen, in J. Graham-Campbell (ed.), The Viking World (2001), pp. 37-63.}

What enticed the Vikings to venture further from home? From c. 800-1200 AD was a period of unusually mild and stable weather in Northern Europe. The heyday of Norse adventuring fell in these balmy centuries, when the pack ice retreated. The way was open to Iceland, Greenland and as far as Labrador.^{4B. Fagan, The Little Ice Age(2000), chap 1: the medieval warm period.} At home the clement weather no doubt made for better crops. That could lead to population growth. Excess sons might be keen to look for land elsewhere. However the first Vikings were not looking for land but loot. Perhaps the lure was treasure which young men could use to gain a bride or a farm. Or slaves which could be exchanged for Islamic silver, which in turn would buy wine and weapons in North Sea emporia.^{5J. H. Barrett, What caused the Viking Age?, Antiquity, vol. 82, no. 317 (2008), pp. 671–685; K. Randsborg, The Viking Age in Denmark (1980).}

The early targets for attack though were often specifically Christian. In 793 the monastery founded by St Aidan on the tiny island of Lindisfarne was sacked. It made a tempting target. Lying off the coast of Northumbria, the monastery had been favoured by kings, but not protected by them. In the anguished words of Alcuin: The church of St Cuthbert is spattered with the blood of the priests of God, stripped of all its furnishings, exposed to the plundering of pagans - a place more sacred than any in Britain. ^{6English Historical Documents, vol. 1: c. 500 - 1042, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (1955), no. 193.} Some of the brothers were carried away in fetters.^{7The Historical Works of Simeon of Durham, trans. J. Stevenson, The Church Historians of England, vol. 3, part 2 (1855), p. 457.} Subsequent Vikings attacks were seen by churchmen as part of a religious war. If so, it had been started by Christians. From 772 Charlemagne imposed Christianity upon the Continental Saxons by violence, provoking revenge attacks on churches. The Saxon leader Widukind fled to his brother-in-law Sigfrid, King of Denmark, no doubt taking tales of horror with him.^{8R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), chap. 3: The causes of the Viking Age.}

Genetic markers

The common Y-DNA haplogroups in Scandinavia today are described under the heading Germanic genetic markers. Since some of these are also common in the regions that Vikings entered, it is no easy task to identify Viking descendants outside Scandinavia purely by haplogroup. However I1 or Ra1a1 may be a clue to a Viking ancestor. I1 is most common in Fenno-Scandia. R1a1a is much more widespread, but at least in the British Isles, it appears most strongly in areas settled by Vikings, particularly those from Norway. (Preliminary results from the Old Norway Project confirm far higher levels of R1a1a in Norway than in Denmark.) Notice the strong concentrations in Caithness and on the islands of Man, Orkney and Shetland, while the level in Ireland is markedly low.^{9A. Moffat and J.E. Wilson, The Scots: A genetic journey (2011), map on p. 182; S. Harding, slides for a lecture in Gothenburg October 2011: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/-sczsteve/Gothenburg_13Oct2011.pdf.} A newly-discovered SNP - L664 - has been found in several R1a1a men from Norway and Sweden. So this marker may prove to define a subclade particular to the Scandinavian peninsula and the descendants of Vikings.^{10Family Tree DNA: R1a1a and Subclades Y-DNA Project - Y-DNA SNP:http://www.familytreedna.com/public/R1a/default.aspx?section=ysnp}

Buried with grandeur in the Oseberg Ship were two women, who must have been of high status. The elder may have been Queen Åsa, grandmother of Harald Fairhair. The younger carried mtDNA U7. This haplogroup is rare in Europe, and mainly found in Western and Southern Asia, which led to speculation that this woman or her ancestors came from the Black Sea region as told in the legend of Odin.^{11P. Holck, The Oseberg Ship burial, Norway: new thoughts on the skeletons from the grave mound, European Journal of Archaeology, vol. 9, no. 2-3 (2006), pp. 185-210.} U7 perhaps did originate in the Near East, but in the deep past.^{12M. Richards et al., Tracing European founder lineages in the Near Eastern mtDNA pool, American Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 67 (2000), pp. 1251–1276.} It could have moved northwards any time from the Palaeolithic onwards. U7 is found among Uralic-speaking fishers and hunters on the eastern slopes of the northern Ural Mountains today.^{13V.N. Pimenoff et al., Northwest Siberian Khanty and Mansi in the junction of West and East Eurasian gene poolsas revealed by uniparental markers, European Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 16 (2008) , pp. 1254–1264.} So there are several possible ways that U7 could have arrived in Scandinavia. Its importance lies in its rarity. A male buried in one of Denmark's earliest Christian cemeteries at Kongemarken carried U7.^{14L. Rudbeck, et al., mtDNA analysis of human remains from an early Danish Christian cemetery, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 128 (2005), pp. 424–429.} U7 is found at low levels in parts of Sweden today.^{15T. Lappalainen et al., Population structure in contemporary Sweden - a Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analysis, Annals of Human Genetics, vol. 73, no. 1 (January 2009), pp. 61-73.} So where it crops up elsewhere in Europe, it may well point to Viking wanderers, except for the Tuscan U7a2a attributed to Anatolian input with the Etruscans).

A damaging mutation may have spread with the Varangians. The BRCA1 mutation c.5266dupC (linked to breast cancer) was originally thought to be a founder mutation in the Ashkenazi Jewish population. However Nancy Hamel and colleagues genotyped 245 carrier families from 14 different European populations and found that they share a common haplotype from a single founder individual. They estimated that the mutation arose some 1800 years ago in either Scandinavia or what is now northern Russia and subsequently spread across Europe, probably entering Ashkenazi Jewish population in Poland about 400–500 years ago.^{16N. Hamel et al., On the origin and diffusion of BRCA1 c.5266dupC (5382insC) in European populations, European Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 19 (March 2011), pp. 300-306.}

Since 1962, when a Scandinavian origin was first proposed, Dupuytren's contracture has been considered the Viking disease. Famous sufferers include Ronald Reagan and Lady Thatcher. The incidence of it is around 10% in those of Northern European descent, reaching 35% in the Norwegian population aged over 70 years.^{17M. A Jobling, The Baron's complaint, Investigative Genetics, 2:18 (2011).} It is far more common in Scotland than England. However Dupuytren's is common in Bosnia and appears in Asia. Its global presence suggests that the origin and spread of the disease was much earlier than the Viking migrations.^{18R.M. McFarlane, On the origin and spread of Dupuytren's disease, Journal of Hand Surgery, vol. 27, no. 3 (May 2002), pp. 385-90; S. Hindocha et al., Epidemiologicalevaluation of Dupuytren’s Disease incidence and prevalence rates in relation to etiology, Hand, vol. 4 (2009), no. 3, pp. 256-269.} The story may be a complex one. No less than nine genetic factors have been found to correlate with the disease.^{19G.H. Dolmans et al., Wnt signaling and Dupuytren's disease, New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 365, no. 4 (2011), pp. 307-17.}

Highlands and Islands

In the same decade as the attack on Lindisfarne came the first raids on monasteries in Ireland and the Western Isles of Scotland. Whence had these Vikings come? The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the very first ships of the Northmen to arrive in England had landed at Portland, Dorset. This may not have been a raid in intention, though it ended in violence. There was enough talk beforehand for these arrivals to identify their home as Hordaland, the district around Hardanger Fjord in Western Norway.^{20The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. Michael Swanton (1996), p. 54: under year 787, rectified to 789; Alex Woolf argues that this incident has been wrongly dated and belongs to 798: A. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba 789-1070 (2007), pp. 46-7.} With a fair wind, Shetland was only 24 hours sail from Norway. In springtime the prevailing easterly winds would aid the going. In autumn the prevailing westerly winds would carry Vikings back home in time for the harvest. Bases may have been established in Orkney and Shetland at an early stage, from which they could more easily raid into Ireland, the Western Isles and the western coasts of England and France.^{21P. Heather, Empires and Barbarians: Migration, development and the birth of Europe (2009), pp. 453-6; D.Ó Corráin, The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the ninth century, Peritia, vol. 2 (1998), pp. 177–208.} Offa of Mercia (d. 796) was aware of the threat. He created defended bridges on Mercian rivers to block access upriver to enemy warships.^{22J. Haslam, Market and fortress in England in the reign of Offa, World Archaeology, vol. 19, no. 1 (June 1987), pp.76-93.}

Good harbours would be particularly attractive to the Vikings. One site is like no other in Scotland. On Skye’s Rubh an Dunain peninsula, jutting out into the Atlantic, is a shallow lake called Loch na h-Airde. A man-made canal runs between the loch and the sea, which has long been known as the Viking Canal. Archaeologists thought little of this until timbers were retrieved from the loch's margins, part of a small, clinker-built boat, known as a faering. It was dated to c. 1100 AD. The Vikings may not have cut the canal. It could pre-date their arrival. But they certainly recognised the potential of the site. It offered winter shelter for their vessels and a safe harbour for ship-building and maintenance. Remains have been found of two boat-docks and a stone-built quay.^{23D. Cowley and C. Martin, Coastal command: surveying Scotland's maritime superhighway, Current Archaeology, vol. 22, no. 6 (September 2011), pp. 20-25; RCAHMS 5 May 2011 Viking ‘shipyard’ on Skye: http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/news/viking-shipyard-found-on-skye.}

These Vikings had no loyalty to Norway. They raided there as well. In the next century those based in the isles became such a nuisance to King Harald Finehair, who had managed to weld together chiefs and petty kings into the Kingdom of Norway, that he conquered Shetland, Orkney and the Hebrides in 875. Sigurd, one of the men on Harald's expedition, became Jarl (earl) of the islands.^{24The Orkneyinga Saga, trans. and ed. H. Palsson and P. Edwards (1978), pp. 26-7.} Orkney and Shetland were held for the Norwegian (and later Danish) crown until they passed to Scotland in 1468.

The Norse takeover of these northern islands was thorough. The traditional roundhouse of the Celts was replaced by rectangular houses of the Scandinavian type. By the time that Scotland took over their control, the place-names of Orkney and Shetland were entirely Norse in origin. The inhabitants spoke Norrœna or Norn, derived from Old West Norse.^{25P. Heather, Empires and Barbarians: Migration, development and the birth of Europe (2009), pp. 455. There have been attempts to argue for a degree of Pictish continuity, covered by R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 66-69.} The strongest evidence though comes from the genes of the present inhabitants. A study by Sara Goodacre and colleagues found an overall Scandinavian ancestry of about 44% for Shetland and 30% for Orkney, with approximately equal contributions from Scandinavian males and females. This contrasts with the Western Isles, where the overall Scandinavian ancestry is only around 15%, and where there was a disproportionately high contribution from Scandinavian males. This suggests that areas close to Scandinavia, such as Orkney and Shetland, were settled primarily by Scandinavian family groups, while lone Vikings settling with local women was the more typical pattern further from their homeland.^{26S. Goodacre et al., Genetic evidence for a family-based Scandinavian settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking periods, Heredity, vol. 95 (2005), pp. 129–135.}

A team from Leicester University used a novel approach to tracking down Viking DNA in the Wirrall Peninsula and West Lancashire. Realising that there was a large influx of people into this area during the Industrial Revolution, they compared two different samples of men. The first sample could prove two generations of residence, as is usual in taking samples for such purposes. The other sample was much more stringently selected: these men not only had known ancestry in the region, but a surname recorded there in medieval times. The result was enlightening. The sample with local surnames had markedly greater Scandinavian ancestry, to judge by the higher proportions of Y-DNA haplogroups R1a1a and I, which were similar to those today in the Isle of Man.^{27G. R. Bowden et al., Excavating past population structures by surname-based sampling: the genetic legacy of the Vikings in Northwest England, Molecular Biology and Evolution, vol. 25, no. 2 (2007), pp. 301-9; S. Harding, M. Jobling and T. King, Viking DNA: The Wirral and West Lancashire Project (2010).} From archaeological evidence, the Isle of Man was seized from Christians by a Viking warrior elite in the early decades of the 10th century. This can be fitted into the history of Gwynedd in North Wales, which probably controlled Man as well as the closer island of Anglesey at this time. The submission of Idwal, king of Gwynedd, to English kings after 918 made him an enemy to the Viking Kings of Dublin, who assaulted Anglesey in 918. Man was probably another target. There is a connection with Cumbria too, as high-status ship burials have been found there, similar to those on Man.^{28C. Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The dynasty of Ívarr (2008), pp. 180-182.} Ship burials have also been found on Orkney, but the recently-discovered Viking boat burial at Ardnamurchan is the first on the mainland to be complete with its skeleton and grave goods. Revealingly these included a whetstone from Norway and a ring pin from Ireland.^{29BBC News 19 October 2011: Ardnamurchan Viking boat burial discovery 'a first'.}

Ireland

From the Western Isles, Ireland was within striking distance. The early raids on Ireland (map courtesy of Ireland Story) hit island monasteries - Rathlin or Lambay was burnt in 795 and St Patrick's Island attacked in 798. In the next century there are increasing reports of people carried off into slavery, and from the 830s the Vikings pressed deep inland. At the time Ireland was a patchwork of petty chiefdoms, often in conflict with each other, but usually acknowledging the authority of regional kings, who themselves bowed, or at least nodded, to the high king. In reality there was no state and power was diffuse. Ireland was ill-prepared for organised resistance to Viking incursions, which in any case came without warning in the early decades. Nor were the early attacks coordinated by an overall authority. These were freebooters under one leader or another. In the 840s these Viking raiding parties began to set up winter camps (which the Irish called longphort) along the coast of Ireland, which would eventually develop into Ireland's first towns.^{30R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 70-75, 78; F.J. Byrne, The Viking age, chapter 16 in D. Ó Cróinín (ed.), A New History of Ireland, vol. 1 (2005), pp. 609-629.}

During the first 50 years of Viking raids on Ireland, the attackers came mainly from south-west Norway. Viking Age graves near Stavanger in northern Jaeran contain the highest concentration of Irish-made artifacts found outside Ireland.^{31R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), p. 77.} In Ireland itself, typical Norwegian swords of the period 775-900 AD were found at Kilmainham and Islandbridge, Dublin.^{32I. G. Peirce, Swords of the Viking Age (2004), pp. 3-4.} The loan words in Irish Gaelic from Old Norse mainly give no inkling of a particular dialect, but in about 40 cases they point to south-west Norway.^{33F.J. Byrne, Old Norse borrowings into Irish, in D. Ó Cróinín (ed.), A New History of Ireland, vol. 1 (2005), pp. 230-34.} Another clue is locked in the genes of the common house mouse. Since it cohabits with humans, it can also travel with them. It did not spread widely into Europe until the Iron Age, so its modern distribution may tell us something about early historic human migrations. A particular mouse mtDNA lineage, christened the Orkney type from its dominance there, fits well with the sphere of influence of the Norwegian Vikings. It clusters together the Orkney mice with most of those from the Western Isles, and some from Norway, Ireland and the Isle of Man. The origin point was probably Orkney.^{34J. B. Searle et al., Of mice and (Viking?) men: phylogeography of British and Irish house mice, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 276, no. 1655 (January 2009), pp. 201-7.}

However in 851 a new enemy appeared on the horizon - the Dubh-gaill (dark foreigners), who arrived in force and ousted their rivals the Finn-gaill (fair foreigners) from Duiblinn (Dublin.) There is a long tradition of interpreting the dark foreigners as Danes and the fair ones as Norwegians. This can be traced back to the 11th century, when concepts of distinct Scandinavian nations had emerged. It may be correct, but it is puzzling. Would the Danes be noticeably darker than Norwegians in colouring, clothing or accoutrements? It has been suggested that the word dark was used in the sense of unknown i.e. new, in contrast to the old Vikings so horribly familiar over half a century. Significantly though the term Dubhgaill in the annals can be consistently linked to the dynasty of Ívarr (the Uí Ímhair).^{35R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 77-78; C. Downham, The good, the bad and the ugly: portrayals of vikings in “The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland”, The Medieval Chronicle, vol. 3 (2004), pp. 28–40; D.N. Dumville, Old Dubliners and New Dubliners in Ireland and Britain: a Viking- Age story, Medieval Dublin, vol. 6 (2004), pp. 78–93, reprinted in his Celtic Essays, 2001–2007 (2 vols, 2007), vol. 1, pp. 103–22.} Is it coincidence that these dark foreigners flew the raven banner? Or could dark refer to the raven? One such banner was captured in Devon in 878 from a brother of Ívarr.^{36The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. Michael Swanton (1996).}

In later centuries colourful tales clustered around the leaders of the Uí Ímhair. There were unconvincing attempts to weave Óláfr and Ívarr into the royal line of Norway. They also appear in the saga of Ragnarr Loðbrók, legendary king of Denmark, as his sons Óláfr the white and Ívarr the boneless. Clare Downham has painstakingly picked fact from fiction to piece together what is really known about them. Ívarr (Ímar in Irish) and his brothers Óláfr, Ásl and Halfdan campaigned fiercely on both sides of the Irish Sea. Their impact was so great that when Ívarr died in 873, the Annals of Ulster described him as king of all the Northmen in Ireland and Britain. Where had they come from? Óláfr (Amlaíb in Irish) was described on his arrival in Ireland in 853 as the son of the King of Laithlinde. That links him to a previous entry in the annals. In 848 a Viking leader was slain in battle in Leinster. He was acting as a deputy for the self-same mysterious King of Laithlind. Much ink has been spilt arguing the whereabouts of this kingdom. Certainly Lochland in later sources meant Norway, but this may not be the same place.^{37C. Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The dynasty of Ívarr (2008), pp. 12-16.} Norway had no king at this time. Nor would people from Norway be different from previous Norse arrivals. Much the same objections can be made to Donnchadh ÓCorráin's argument that Laithlinde refers to the Norse settlers of the Northern Isles. An older suggestion from Heinrich Zimmer is that Laithlinde was Lolland (Låland, Laaland) the fourth largest island of Denmark.^{38D.Ó Corráin, The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the ninth century, Peritia, vol. 2 (1998), pp. 177–208.}

The dynasty of Ívarr introduced a new Viking modus operandi to the British Isles. Instead of the hit-and-run raid, they exacted tribute. Furthermore the attacks were orchestrated by a royal leadership. This points indeed to the Danes. Horic, King of Denmark (d.854), used exactly those tactics, as did his father Guðröðr (Godfrid). Ívarr and his kin could muster great numbers of ships and fighting men, which again suggests the relatively populous Southern Scandinavia as the source. However Horic was not accused of involvement in the campaigns of Ívarr and his brothers and is unlikely to be their progenitor. The throne of Denmark was repeatedly disputed after the death of Godfrid in 810, so there was another royal line at large and able to recruit from Denmark. It starts with Harald Klak, seemingly the son of a Halfdan who was an envoy to Charlemagne from the Danish court, evidently of royal lineage, since Harald's claim to the throne was intermittently recognised. Harald's base from 826 was Rüstringen in North-East Frisia, granted to him by the Franks. (For more on this family, see the next section). The History of St Cuthbert specifically associates Ubba, Duke of the Frisians, with the Great Army of Danes which entered East Anglia in 865, led by the dynasty of Ívarr. Elsewhere Ubba is given as another brother of Ívarr.^{39R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 102-3; A. Woolfe, From Pictland to Alba 789-1070 (2007), pp. 71-73; S. Coupland, From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 85–114.} The saga elements embedded in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland record that Óláfr's father was Gofridh.^{40Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, ed. and trans.J.N. Radner (Dublin 1978).} Although this late material is unreliable, the name Godfrid does appear repeatedly in the dynasty of Ívarr. Also Óláfr had a son named Carlus, and the Sword of Carlus was part of the royal insignia in Dublin. This suggests a connection with one of the Frankish kings named Charles.^{41C. Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The dynasty of Ívarr (2008), pp. 3, 7-8, 253-54.} Harald Klak's son Godfrid continued the long association with the Frankish court which had begun with his grandfather Halfdan.^{42S. Coupland, From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 85–114.} So Ívarr and his brothers were probably the sons of Godfrid, son of Harald Klak.

This would help to explain the low level of Y-DNA R1a1a in Ireland today, even in those with surnames thought to be Norse. This has been seen as evidence that only a relatively small percentage of Scandinavians settled in Ireland.^{43B. McEvoy et al., The scale and nature of Viking settlement in Ireland from Y-chromosome admixture analysis, European Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 14 (2006), pp. 1288–1294.} Certainly the Irish annals provide abundant evidence of Irish leaders fighting the incomers, who never controlled all Ireland. However the development of the longphorts into trading towns comes after their takeover by the dynasty of Ívarr. The Danish settlement of East Anglia is not marked by high levels of R1a1a today, so the genetic legacy of Danes in Ireland may not reveal itself in R1a1a.

Dublin grew into a major Viking centre - the largest in Ireland and an international trade hub. The original longphort was probably upriver from medieval Dublin, close to where the Viking graves with Norwegian swords were found at Kilmainham and Islandbridge. The later Viking settlement has been excavated under the heart of the medieval and modern city. Although the Irish succeeded in expelling the dynasty of Ívarr from Dublin in 902, it was re-taken in 917 and expanded into a great port and manufacturing centre. The idea of the planned town seems to have been brought back by the returning dynasty of Ívarr from their travels. Dublin grew rich on the slave trade. The English were not averse to contributing captives to the Dublin slave market, selling them to Norse-Irish traders in Bristol. The noxious trade was banned in England in 1102. Its persistence in Ireland provided the excuse for the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland.^{44J. Graham-Campbell (ed.),The Viking World (2001), pp. 22, 28-29; P. Wallace, The archaeology of Ireland's viking-age towns, chap. 22 in in D. Ó Cróinín (ed.), A New History of Ireland, vol. 1 (2005); C. Downham, The Viking slave trade, History Ireland, vol. 17, no. 3 (May/June 2009), pp. 15-17; D.E. Pelteret, Slavery in Anglo-Saxon England, chapter 9 in J. Douglas Woods and David Anthony Edgell Pelteret (eds.), The Anglo-Saxons: Synthesis and achievement (1985), pp.117-133.}

How many early Dubliners were of Scandinavian origin? The artifacts they left behind suggest a blend of colonial and native groups. Culturally the Vikings were integrated into native Irish society by the 10th century, the process aided by significant intermarriage.^{45B. O'Donnabhain and B. Hallgrímsson, Dublin: The biological identity of the Hiberno-Norse town, in: S. Duffy, (ed.), Medieval Dublin II (Dublin 2001), pp. 65-87.} The biochemistry of old bones can reveal the type of region in which a person spent his or her early life, which may detect incomers. A recent study has sampled the remains of Dubliners from the 9th to the 12th century and found no clear immigrants. So it is unlikely that newcomers were continually arriving from Scandinavia or the Scottish Islands. Dublin developed its own population.^{46K. J. Knudson et al., Migration and Viking Dublin: Paleomobility and Paleodiet through Isotopic Analyses, Journal of Archaeological Science, online 1 October 2011 ahead of print.}

The rich lowlands

To the south the Danes menaced the powerful Frankish Empire at its height. Charlemagne's battle for Saxony was well under way and he conquered Brittany in 799. So the whole coast of Western Europe from the River Eider to the Pyrenees was in the hands of the Franks in 799, when the first Viking raid on it was recorded. Attackers fell on the monastery of Noirmoutier, on an island off the Atlantic coast of France. We can picture Norwegians sailing down the sea highway from Ireland to despoil another undefended treasure house. Charlemagne moved rapidly to defend his coasts and rivers.^{47R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), chapter 5.}

The final conquest of Saxony in 804 brought the Franks and Danes face to face. Charlemagne aimed to create a buffer zone by evacuating Saxons from an area beyond the Elbe, and giving their former territory to the Slavic Obodrites. This was a sound move commercially, for it would have created an overland route through allied territory from Francia to the Baltic port of Reric. Godfrid (Guðröðr) of Denmark responded in 808 by attacking the Obodrites, destroying Reric, and transferring its traders to his own port at Hedeby (Heiðabý). Hedeby was shrewdly placed to control trade across the narrowest part of Jutland, the Schleswig Isthmus, which provided a short-cut for transport from the North Sea to the Baltic. Ships could cross by river most of the way. The gap between the Treen and the Schlei could be covered by portage. North-south trade also passed near Hedeby, along the ancient track running along the ridge between the rivers. Godfrid protected this asset by reinforcing the massive earthwork known as the Danevirke. Hedeby proved to be a source of wealth from tolls, as Godfrid had foreseen. That made the town all too covetable. It was taken by the Franks in 974, though re-taken by the Danes in 983. It was burnt by Harald Hardrada of Norway in 1050 and raided by the Slavs in 1066, after which its inhabitants retreated to Schleswig, on the other bank of the Schlei.^{48J. Graham-Campbell (ed.), The Viking World (2001), pp. 92-95; R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 85, 212; C. Von Carnap-Bornheim and V. Hilberg, Recent archaeological research in Haithabu, in J. Henning (ed.), Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, vol. 1: The heirs of the Roman West (2007), pp. 199-218.}

Harald Bluetooth Gormsson (d. 985 or 986) was the King of Denmark who both lost and regained Hedeby. Thanks to strontium isotopes, we now have an idea of who was in his army. He clearly recruited far and wide. A sample of 48 burials from his fortress at Trelleborg displayed the variety of origins. The young men in its cemetery came largely from outside Denmark, perhaps from Norway or the Slavic regions. The three females in the sample were all from overseas. Some rune stones of the period in south Scandinavia refer to foreigners coming from Norway, the Slavonic areas or elsewhere on the continent.^{49T. Douglas Price et al., Who was in Harold Bluetooth’s army? Strontium isotope investigation of the cemetery at the Viking Age fortress at Trelleborg, Denmark, Antiquity, vol. 85 (2011), pp. 476–489.} A successful Viking leader could attract warriors to his standard in hope of a share of the spoils.

The coast of the Low Countries, so invitingly close to Jutland, was was constantly harried by Danes. In 820 a fleet of 13 Danish ships bore down upon coastal Flanders. Repulsed, they moved on to the Seine, which they also found well-guarded, then had better success in Aquitaine. The Frankish grant in 826 of Rüstringen in North-East Frisia, between the Weser and the Ems, to Harald Klak, exiled King of Denmark, may have been an early example of the policy of using Vikings as protection from other Vikings.^{50R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 88, 90. 94; S. Coupland, From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 85–114.} If so, it failed. The rich and important port of Dorestad, with its mint, was attacked in three successive years between 835 and 837. In 841 Charlemagne's grandson Lothar I felt compelled to accept the presence of a Harold junior (probably the nephew of Harald Klak) who along with other Danish pirates, had for some years been imposing many sufferings on Frisia. This Harold was granted the island of Walcheren in the Scheldt estuary and neighbouring regions.^{51The Annals of St-Bertin, ed. J. L. Nelson (1991), pp. 30, 33, 35, 51; S. Coupland, From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 85–114.}

Lothar continued to be troubled by members of this family. Harald Klak's son Godfrid had remained in Lothar's service since Lothar stood sponsor to him at his baptism in 826. But at some point Godfrid turned against him and returned to his own people. In 850 Godfrid teamed up with his cousin Rorik to ravage Frisia with “a vast number of ships.” Lothar accepted the inevitable, took Rorik's allegiance and granted him Dorestad and other counties. If he hoped for peace to ensue, he was disappointed. In 852 Godfrid raided Frisia, and sailed up the Scheldt and the Seine. Rorik and Godfrid felt it politic to leave for Denmark in 855. Lothar I had given Frisia to his son Lothar II. Perhaps more crucially, the death of Horic of Denmark opened up possibilities there. However the lineage of Harald Klak once again failed to seise the throne. Rorik and Godfrid returned to take control of most of Frisia from their base at Dorestad.^{52S. Coupland, From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 85–114; The Annals of St-Bertin, ed. J. L. Nelson (1991), pp. 69, 75, 81.}

To the south Noirmoutier was a repeated Viking target. The island offered more than quick pickings though. It was a useful base from which to raid deep along the Loire, gaining access to some of the richest monasteries and estates in the empire. The unfortunate monks of Noirmoutier were eventually driven out of the island. The Vikings exploited the civil war among the rival grandsons of Charlemagne, after the death of their father Louis the Pious in 840. The following year a massive Viking fleet sailed up the Seine under the leadership of Asgeir, burning Rouen, Jumieges and several monasteries. They then sailed to the Loire. Nantes was ravaged in 843 and many captives taken. The aim was to hold the wealthy to ransom. According to an Aquitainian source these kidnappers were Westfaldingi, meaning that they came from the Norwegian Vestfold, west of the Oslofjord. There were Northmen on the Loire until the end of the century.^{53P. Sawyer (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (1997), pp. 25-26; R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), p. 95; The Annals of St-Bertin, trans. J. L. Nelson (1991), pp. 55-56.} It was probably this group who ranged yet further south in 844, sailing across the Bay of Biscay to attack Galicia in north-western Iberia. Then they ventured south into the rich lands of Islamic Iberia, taking Seville for two weeks. They paid a high price. Some 500 Vikings were killed, including their leader, 30 longships burnt and four captured. Yet there was an even more daring voyage in 859. Sixty ships boldly sailed right into the Mediterranean that year and attacked Lucca on the coast of Italy. Overwintering on an island in the Camargue, they raided the Rhone in 859. Al-Andalus was once again plundered, and even the small Moroccan state of Nekor, whose royal women were carried off and held to ransom. On their returm journey in 861 they kidnapped Garcia, King of Navarre. He was ransomed for the staggering sum of 70,000 gold pieces.^{54P. Sawyer (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (1997), pp. 29-35; R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 246-250.} Viking exploits so far south are generally seen as exceptional, but Joel Supéry controversially argues from place-names for a Viking colony in Gascony, from which slaves were traded into Moorish Spain.^{55J. Supéry, Les Vikings au coeur de nos régions (2009).}

Ramos-Luis and colleagues did not take samples from Gascony, but found little difference in the Y-DNA signatures of a selection of regions of France, with two exceptions: Brittany and Alsace. Subclades of haplogroup R1b dominate all the tested regions, but Brittany has a higher level of haplogroup I1 (12%) than any of the other regions tested.^{56E. Ramos-Luis et al., Phylogeography of French male lineages, Forensic Science International: Genetics Supplement Series, vol. 2 (2009), pp. 439–441; unpublished data from this study supplied by its authors.} I1 would appear to be a Viking signature in Brittany, since Brittany was never fully assimilated by the Franks, but was under Viking rule from 919 to 937. After decades of intermittent Viking raiding, interspersed with Viking-Breton alliances, a massive fleet of Loire Vikings invaded Brittany in 919 under the command of a Norwegian named Rognvaldr. The scale of the action was unparalleled in this region. Rognvaldr eliminated all opposition, and many Bretons fled. A Breton rebellion in 931 failed. Meanwhile the heir to the Breton duchy, Alain Barbetorte, was growing up at Athelstan's court in England. With the help of a fleet supplied by the English king, Alain landed at Dol with an army of Bretons in 936. By the following year he had fought his way to Nantes, where he dispelled the Vikings in a final battle.^{57N. S. Price, The Vikings in Brittany (Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London, 1989) published simultaneously as Saga-Book XXII 6 (1989).}

The level of haplogroup I1 found in Lower Normandy (11.9%) is effectively the same as that in Brittany.^{59S. Rootsi et al., Phylogeography of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup I Reveals Distinct Domains of Prehistoric Gene Flow in Europe, American Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 75 (2004), pp.128-137.} The taking of Normandy by Rollo and his Viking band is described in the page on Norman surnames and Y-DNA. Brittany continued to be subject to a degree of Scandinavian influence via the Duchy of Normandy well into the eleventh century.^{58N. S. Price, The Vikings in Brittany (Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London, 1989) published simultaneously as Saga-Book XXII 6 (1989).}

The Great Army

In 865, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a great raiding army came to the land of the English and took winter quarters in East Anglia. Aethelward's Latin translation names their leader as Ívarr. From their base in East Anglia, they took York the following year. This was the turn of the tide, when raiding gave way to settlement in England. It was not the first time that a large Viking army had over-wintered in England. In 850 a fleet took the convenient Isle of Thanet off the coast of Kent for its winter quarters and mustered 350 ships the following year to storm Canterbury and London. That time the Vikings were put to flight, but in 865 they came to stay.^{60The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. Michael Swanton (1996).} Ívarr we have already met in Ireland. His dynasty became kings of York as well as Dublin.^{61C. Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The dynasty of Ívarr (2008).} In Britain too his army was identified as the black heathens.^{62Annales Cambriae, ed. and trans. D.N. Dumville (2002), sub ann 866.}

The battle roster between the English and the invading Danes does not need to be recapitulated here. The outcome was the division of the land into a Danish north and east, known as the Danelaw, and an English and British south and west, defended by the Welsh princes and King Alfred of Wessex. Alfred's son Edward (reigned 899-924) conquered the Danelaw to create a Kingdom of England, but Scandinavian customs continued in the Danelaw area. Scandinavian settlement there is remembered in many place-names today, with endings in -by and -thorpe.^{63J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (1982), chaps. 6 and 7.}

The Vikings who came to settle brought their families over too. A study of distinctly Norse burials showed that female migration may have been as significant as male, and that Norse women were in England from the start of the campaign in 865.^{64S. McLeod, Warriors and women: the sex ratio of Norse migrants to eastern England up to 900 AD, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 19, no. 3 (August 2011), pp. 332–353.} It is impossible to distinguish genetically between Anglo-Saxons and Danish Vikings, since both came from Jutland.^{65M.E. Weale, Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration, Molecular Biology and Evolution, vol. 19 (2002), pp. 1008-1021; C. Capelli et al., A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles, Current Biology, vol. 13 (May 27, 2003), pp. 979–984.} Yet some of the settlers in East Anglia had links further north. Burials found in Castle Mall, Norwich, included four who stood out as Viking in the DNA analysis. Two of these had haplotypes closely related to an haplotype only observed in Orkney; whilst the other two haplotypes were derived from one found in Norway and the Western Isles.^{66B. Ayers, The growth of an urban landscape: recent research in early medieval Norwich, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 19, no. 1 (February 2011), pp. 62–90.} So it is likely that Ívarr and his brothers had recruited widely to amass their invasion force.

York had been the Roman town of Eboracum, which the Danes converted into Jorvik. Excavation has uncovered a swathe of the Viking town.^{67J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (1982), pp. 166-7; J. Graham-Campbell (ed.), The Viking World (2001), pp. 100-101.} Part of it was reconstructed on the site to make one of the most realistic experiences of life in the Viking Age at Jorvik Viking Centre, complete with gossiping neighbours. Recently academics at Dundee University helped recreate the face of this Viking woman from York, by laser-scanning her skull.

It was in the reign of Æthelred the Unready (978-1016) that the Vikings returned, more organised, more disciplined, more formidable than before. At first they raided. For example in 980 Southampton was ravaged and most of its population killed or taken prisoner. One might imagine oneself back in the early days of the Viking Age. But by 994 the intruders were led by King Sweyn of Denmark himself. His determination grew to conquer Britain outright. Æthelred, in fear of Danish plots on his life and his kingdom, was persuaded to order a massacre of all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like weeds amongst the wheat on St Brice's Day (13 November) 1002. The Danes of Oxford sought sanctuary in St Frideswide's Church, whereupon the populace burned it down with them inside.^{68The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. Michael Swanton (1996), sub ann and p.135, note 9.} Archaeologists made the gruesome discovery in 2008 of the probable victims. At St John's College, Oxford, were 35 skeletons, all young males, who had suffered violent deaths. There were not only stab wounds, but signs of burning.^{69Digging for Britain, BBC 2, 16 September 2011; BBC News: 12 August 2011: Oxford Viking massacre revealed by skeleton find.} Sweyn finally succeeded in his long campaign of conquest in 1013, but had little time to enjoy victory. He died on 2 February 1014. So England had its first crowned Scandinavian monarch in 1016 : Sweyn's son Cnut (d.1035), king of Denmark, England and Norway.^{70J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (1982), chapter 8: The return of the Vikings.}

The Far North West

The Medieval Warm Period starting around 800 AD encouraged settlement in lands so far north that few humans had ever ventured there. Vikings began setting up homes in Iceland in 870 and within 60 years it was fully settled. So Ari Thorgilsson tells us in the earliest history of Iceland, Íslendingabók (The Book of the Icelanders). Though written in the early 12th century, long after these events, his dating is supported by the archaeological evidence. Most of the Scandinavian settlers in Iceland came from South-West Norway. Some may have chosen to leave for the freedom of a new land after Harald Finehair imposed his rule over all Norway. If we read only Ari's account, we might imagine that an outpouring from Norway was the whole story. Among the early settlers he lists Auðr, daughter of the Norwegian chieftain Ketil flatnose, without mentioning that Auðr had spent much of her adult life in Dublin and Caithness and set sail for Iceland from the Hebrides. He names Helgi the lean, a Norwegian, the son of Eyvindr the Easterner, without explaining that Helgi's maternal grandfather was an Irish king, Helgi having been raised in the Hebrides and Ireland.^{71R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), chapter 8: The settlement of Iceland.} The Landnámabók (Book of the Settlements) is therefore invaluable in giving a much more detailed account of the settlers, their ancestry and descendants. Among the many from Norway was the occasional Irishman. Irish slaves are also mentioned.^{72The Book of Settlements: Landnamabok, trans. Hermann Pálsson, Paul Edwards (2006).}

Several genetic studies of the Icelandic population have shown a high level of overall Scandinavian ancestry (55%), but Scandinavian patrilineal ancestry is two times greater than Scandinavian matrilineal ancestry. In other words the Y-DNA is more typical of Scandinavia, while the mtDNA is more typical of the Insular Celts. This suggests that in Iceland, like the Western Isles, many male settlers took wives from Ireland or Scotland, though there were also Scandinavian families among the settlers.^{73S. Goodacre et al., Genetic evidence for a family-based Scandinavian settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking periods, Heredity, vol. 95 (2005), pp. 129–135.}

Iceland yielded a particular treasure for seamen. Transparent Iceland spar could be used as a navigational aid. The crystal can depolarize light, allowing the navigator to deduce the direction of the sun even under cloudy skies. The sun-stone (solstenen) is mentioned in Viking sagas.^{74G. Ropars et al., A depolarizer as a possible precise sunstone for Viking navigation by polarized skylight, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Published online before print November 2, 2011; Leif K. Karlsen, Secrets of the Viking Navigators (2003).} We may guess that such sun-stones aided the daring voyages westwards from Iceland of Eric the Red and his son Leif. These would fall outside the scope of the Peopling of Europe, were it not for an intriguing discovery. Finding mitochondrial DNA haplogroup C1e in four families in Iceland caused excitement. C1 is normally only found in Native Americans or East Asians. Genealogy revealed that the four families were descended from ancestors who lived between 1710 and 1740 from the same region of southern Iceland. The island was so isolated at the time, and had been from the end of the global warm period, that researchers are fairly confident that the C1e (a new subclade) came from a Native American woman brought from America by Vikings.^{75S.S. Ebenesersdóttir et al., A new subclade of mtDNA haplogroup C1 found in Icelanders: Evidence of pre-columbian contact?, The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 144, no. 1 (January 2011), pp. 92–99.} It certainly seems unlikely that the C1e was acquired by mixture with the Inuit in Greenland. Modern-day Greenland Inuit mainly carry mtDNA A2 and D3, while a Paleo-Eskimo who lived in Greenland about 4,000 years ago fell within mtDNA haplogroup D2a1.^{76Helgason et al., mtDNA Variation in Inuit Populations of Greenland and Canada: Migration history and population structure, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 130, no. 1 (May 2006), pp. 123–134; M.T. P. Gilbert et al., Paleo-Eskimo mtDNA genome reveals matrilineal discontinuity in Greenland, Science, vol. 320, no. 5884 (27 June 2008), pp. 1787-1789.}

Eric the Red tempted ten chieftans to leave Iceland in the 980s for the delights of the land to the west which he encouragingly named Greenland. At the time, mid-way through the Medieval Warm Period, Greenland was certainly a lot greener than today. However the two settlements there could not long survive the return of the icy cold. The settlers either left or died in the 14th century. Across the Davis Strait from Greenland was North America. Icelandic sagas describe voyages to the vast, thickly-forested Markland and Leif's camp in Vinland. The discovery of a Norse settlement at the now famous site of L'Anse Aux Meadows at the northern tip of Newfoundland proved the sagas based on fact.^{77R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), chapter 14: Greenland and North America; E. Wahlgren, The Vikings and America (1986).}

Kievan Rus

Russia is not alone in being named after an incoming elite too small to impose its language on the country. Within Europe it shares that oddity with Bulgaria and France. Yet its national origin is even more complex. The Kingdom of the Rus was founded by Swedish merchant-adventurers. Its capital for centuries was Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine. Historians distinguish this early polity from successor states also called Rus by terming it Kievan Rus. The obscurity of its beginnings has led to both myth-making and modern scepticism of the traditional tale. The Russian Primary Chronicle tells us that Slavs went overseas to the Varangian Rus to seek a leader. According to the story, they selected three brothers, the eldest of whom was Rurik, who founded a royal dynasty.^{78The Russian Primary Chronicle, Laurentian Text, trans. and ed. S. H. Cross and O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953).} Enough mystery surrounds the first appearance of the Rus (as the Rhos in Byzantine Greek and Ar-Rus in Islamic sources) that we cannot be certain of the origin of the name. It has been argued that Rus may derive from Roslagen, an old name for the coastal stretch north of Stockholm, or the Rhos river north of the Black Sea, but most historians favour the notion that it comes from ruotsi (men who row), the Finnish name for the Swedes.^{79R. Ferguson, The Hammer and theCross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), p. 109; P. Heather, Empires and Barbarians (2009), pp. 466-468.}

The Rus first appear in history when a group of them arrived in May 839 at the court of Louis the Pious in Ingelheim. They were ambassadors to Constantinople, who were returning home to their people of the Swedes and had joined company thus far with an embassy from the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus to Louis.^{80The Annals of St-Bertin, ed. and trans. J. L. Nelson (1991), p. 44.} Scandinavians had crossed the Baltic to settle in what is now Finland and Latvia long before. Near Grobin in Latvia a Scandinavian settlement has been excavated which dates from about 650 AD. Artefacts connect it to Gotland. In the early ninth century its character changed. The graves of women become fewer and sea-faring Scandinavian males predominate. The Viking Age had arrived.^{81R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), p. 111.}

Amber had long been traded from the Baltic south to Italy, but with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the hub of Imperial power was Constantinople. To get there Rus traders exploited the river network from the Gulf of Finland to the Black Sea, using portages to span the gaps between the rivers and by-pass rapids. Their sea-going ships had to be left at Staraya Lagoda, some 8 miles up the Volkhov River from Lake Ladoga, where smaller ships took them further up river. A settlement grew up at this staging post in the 760s. The terrain through which these bold traders passed was wild most of the way: densely wooded and marshy. They might have encountered the occasional Finnic or Baltic-speaking hunter before they reached Lake Ilmen. South of Lake Ilmen were Slavs who had been gradually working their way northward into Baltic territory from their heartland around the Middle Dnieper. So the trading posts founded at Novgorod and Kiev were important for Slavs as well as Norse. The last stretch of the trader's river journey was the most dangerous, for fierce Asian nomads - the Pecheneg - controlled the steppe zone north of the Black Sea. Arriving at last in Byzantium, the traders from the north could offer amber, wax, honey, falcons, weapons and above all slaves and arctic furs. By 885 the Rus had secured the Dnieper route by gaining control of the Slavic tribes along the river. These had previously been tributaries of the Khazars. So their tribute was transferred to the Rus and could form part of the goods traded to the south.^{82R. Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (2009), pp. 111-118; J. Graham-Campbell (ed.), The Viking World (3rd edition 2001), pp. 108-9; P. Heather, Empires and Barbarians (2009), pp. 470-71.}

The attraction of Constantinople for barbarians was nothing new. It was one of the engines of change in the Migration Period. The wealth of the Imperial capital invited both raiding and trading. There were also opportunities for mercenaries in the Imperial armies. A new magnet was contact with the Eastern Caliphate via Bulgar on the Volga. Luxuriously thick northern pelts could be traded there for Arabic silver. Ibn Fadlan described the wares of the Rūsiyyah as sables and slaves. He visited the King of the Bulghārs of the Volga in 921 and witnessed the flaming ship funeral of a chief of the Rūsiyyah. He had never seen men of such perfect physique, tall and fair, but the fastidious Arab was revolted by their uncleanliness. He does admit that the Rūs washed their faces and combed their hair each morning.^{83J. E. Montgomery, Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 3 (2000), pp. 1-25.} Indeed it is the ubiquitous comb that often allows archaeologists to track the movements of the Vikings (comb atlas).

The Scandinavian component of the Kingdom of the Rus was never more than an elite. The Russian Primary Chronicle records in detail a treaty of 907 between the Rus and the Byzantine Emperors Leo and Alexander. All the names of the leaders of the Rus delegation were Scandinavian, though the fleet with which they apparently cowed Byzantium was manned by Slavs as well as Varangians.^{84T. Riha (ed.), Readings in Russian Civilization, Volume 1: Russia Before Peter the Great (2nd. edn. 1969), p. 2.} So we should not expect a high level of Scandinavian DNA to be present in modern Russia. Nor do we find it. Oleg Balanovsky and colleagues found that Russians clustered most closely with Ukranians and Belorussians, forming a genetic block corresponding to the linguistic one of East Slavic, with the West Slavic Poles the next closest. The relationship to Swedes was more distant. There is a significant level of I1 in places. He detected the highest levels of I1 in Krasnoborsk (12%), Vologda (11.6%) and Unzha (11.5%) in Northern Russia.^{85Oleg Balanovsky et al., Two sources of the Russian patrilineal heritage in their Eurasian context, The American Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 82 (January 2008), pp. 236–250.} However it is by no means clear that this is the result of the ingressions of the Rus. It seems to cluster around the Volga, which was one of their trade routes. Yet Terry Robb's research indicates that the most common I1 haplotype in Russia (which he labels AAA) seems to radiate from Germany. There have been German settlers in Russia since the 16th century, and particularly in the reign of Catherine II. Born a German, she encouraged migration of Western Europeans to the Russian Empire by offering land, transportation to Russia, and religious and political autonomy in her proclamation of 1763. Though this open-door policy was repealed in 1871, many Germans had taken advantage of it in the intervening years. A less common I1 haplotype (BBA) in Russia does appear to be most common in Sweden, and might therefore have arrived with the Rus.

Living descendants of the Rurikid dynasty of Russia have been found consistently to carry Y-DNA N1c1.^{86http://www.familytreedna.com/public/rurikid/} Among Europeans this haplogroup is most common among peoples speaking Uralic languages, such as Finnish, suggesting that Rurik was indeed not Slavic and probably from a Scandinavian settlement in Finland, where Swedes and Finns had long mixed.

Further west Viking-style burials appear near the Vistula. The cemetery at Bodzia in Poland holds the chamber tombs of men, women and children who died c. 1000 AD. Rich grave goods display their high status. While weapons mark the men out as warriors, exotic goods show their commercial contacts. This was the period in which the Piast dynasty was founding the Kingdom of Poland. So these and other Scandinavians buried in Poland at around this time could have been allies of the early Piast leaders or soldiers in their service.^{87A. Buko and I. Sobkowiak-Tabaka, Bodzia: a new Viking Age cemetery with chamber graves, Antiquity, vol. 85, no. 330 (December 2011)}

Comb Atlas

Swords and helmets may leap to mind when we think of Vikings, but a more domestic item also marks their wanderings - the comb. Different types of comb spread over different regions in the Viking Age. Now Steven P. Ashby has put online An Atlas of Medieval Combs from Northern Europe, Internet Archaeology (September 2011). If you click on a comb image in his visual atlas, you will find a map of its distribution and the range of its date. Not all are Viking. Type 5 was scattered both east and west relatively early in the Viking Age. One can picture Norwegians carrying these combs to the Scottish Islands and Ireland, while the Swedes moved them east to Russia and the southern Baltic. Type 6 seems absent in both Norway and Scotland, but appears in Ireland. Particularly interesting is type 8, for it has been argued that it was mass-produced in Dublin c. 1000 AD, yet such combs appear across England, northern France and Germany, the Low Countries and Denmark, and have another high spot in the southern Baltic. There was probably more than one centre of manufacture. That styles spread so widely is one more proof of interlocking trails of trade and kinship.

Notes

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• Peopling of Europe
• First Europeans
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• Who do you look like?
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• Linguistic arguments
• Beaker Folk
• Iron Age
• Early Greeks
• Etruscans and Romans
• Great Wandering
• Germani
• Goths and Vandals
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• Conclusion
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