The Vikings Weren't All Scandinavian: What 328 Ancient Genomes Reveal About Who Was Buried as a Viking

Hero image: AI generated illustration of a Viking Age trading harbour in a fjord, with Norse, Gaelic, Baltic and Saami people trading amber, silver and furs side by side near a beached ship. Some details, such as the dragon prow and the Saami hat, follow later traditions rather than archaeology. It is not a reconstruction of a documented site and is not a portrait of any real person.

For most of the twentieth century, the word Viking meant something close to an ethnicity: tall, fair Scandinavians who sailed out of Norway, Sweden and Denmark between the late eighth and the mid eleventh century. The word itself never meant that. In Old Norse, vikingr was what you did, not who you were. A man went i viking, on a raid or an expedition, and came home again a farmer.

Ancient DNA has now given that old philological point a biological edge. In 2020, Ashot Margaryan, Eske Willerslev and a large international team published 442 genomes from the Viking world, from Greenland to Ukraine. Their headline, picked up by newspapers across Europe, was blunt: many of the people buried as Vikings were not Scandinavian, and many Scandinavians themselves carried ancestry from far outside the north.

Two later studies sharpened the picture. Rodriguez Varela and colleagues followed Scandinavia across two thousand years and found waves of British and Irish, eastern Baltic and southern European ancestry arriving in the Viking period. Speidel and colleagues, using a new method on early medieval Europe, found that many Viking Age people in southern Scandinavia carried ancestry from central Europe.

We wanted to see how far this can be reproduced with public Global25 coordinates, and, just as important, where the method stops being able to tell people apart.

What a Scandinavian looked like before the Vikings

The first problem is defining the baseline. If you want to know whether a tenth century man buried in Denmark is "Scandinavian", you need a reference for Scandinavians before the Viking expansion began.

We built one from fifteen Iron Age and pre-Viking genomes with good coverage: two from Denmark, four from Norway, and nine from southern and central Sweden, dated between roughly AD 100 and AD 590. To avoid the Swedish samples dominating, we averaged each country first and then gave the three countries equal weight.

Against this Scandinavian source we placed four outside sources, each chosen because a published study pointed to it:

• British and Irish: Late Iron Age Scotland, the population of the Picts.
• Baltic: Roman period Lithuania, from the cemetery of Marvele.
• Finnic and Saami: Iron Age Levanluhta in Finland, a population genetically close to the modern Saami.
• Continental: Imperial Rome, used as a proxy for ancestry from the south of the Baltic. As we will see, the individuals who score high on it look modern French, Swiss or Balkan rather than Italian, so it captures continental Europe broadly, not Italy specifically.

The five sources have a condition number of 207.8. That is high, and it has one cause, which is the most important technical point in this article.

The trap: Scandinavians and Britons look alike

In Global25, the Scandinavian Iron Age source and the Late Iron Age Scottish source are only 0.027 apart. By comparison, the Baltic source is 0.096 away from the Scandinavian one, and the Finnic and Saami source 0.183. North Sea populations are genetically very close to each other. They share the same mixture of hunter-gatherer, farmer and steppe ancestry, in only slightly different proportions.

This means any claim that a Viking had "British ancestry" based on a small percentage is close to meaningless. To show how bad it gets, we ran the model on the pre-Viking Scandinavians themselves, who by definition have no British or Irish admixture.

1. Does the test work?

The answer splits cleanly in two.

Baltic, Finnic and Saami, and continental ancestry are well resolved. The worst false positive in a single genome is 17%, 7% and 6% respectively, and the model recovers spiked-in ancestry accurately: adding 20% Baltic ancestry to a Scandinavian genome gives an average estimate of 24%, adding 20% Saami ancestry gives 21%, adding 20% continental ancestry gives 21%.

British and Irish ancestry is not. A single, perfectly ordinary pre-Viking Scandinavian can come out at up to 58% "British and Irish". When we left all of Norway out of the reference and modelled the Norwegian Iron Age average, it came out at 41%. Western Scandinavia simply sits toward Britain on this axis. Modern Norwegians score 31% on it and modern Danes 17%, without this saying anything about Vikings bringing Irish wives home.

So we set strict thresholds, shown as red lines above, before calling any single genome non-Scandinavian: at least 80% British and Irish, 40% Baltic, 20% Finnic and Saami, or 25% continental. None of the fifteen pre-Viking reference genomes passes any of them.

Viking Age ancestry, site by site

Read the chart from the top. The Viking heartlands and their earliest expeditions are overwhelmingly Scandinavian. Toward the bottom, the edges of the Viking world become something else entirely.

2. Salme: a crew from one village

In 2008 and 2010, workers in Salme on the Estonian island of Saaremaa found two ships packed with the bodies of men killed in battle around AD 750, before the conventional start of the Viking Age. Swords, gaming pieces and the ships themselves were Scandinavian. Margaryan and colleagues showed that the men were genetically close to people from the Malaren valley in central Sweden, and that four of them were brothers, buried side by side.

Our model agrees. The 34 Salme genomes average 94% Scandinavian, 6% Baltic, and nothing else. The Baltic figure is within the 11% noise floor for a group. Salme is what everyone imagines a Viking crew to be: one community, one ancestry, sometimes one family.

3. Denmark and Sweden: open homelands

The homelands were not closed. Denmark averages 11% continental ancestry and Sweden 9%, both well above the 5% group floor. This is the southern and central European gene flow first reported by Margaryan and colleagues, and later described by Speidel and colleagues as central European. The individuals who score highest on it make the point: a man buried in Denmark (VK286) whose nearest modern populations are in Provence, the Auvergne and French speaking Switzerland, and seven people buried in Sweden with 26 to 36% of this component.

Sweden also shows the east. Fifteen Viking Age genomes from Sweden, Gotland included, carry more than 40% Baltic ancestry, and several are best described as Baltic people buried in Sweden: VK478 is 89% Baltic and its nearest modern populations are Lithuanian and Latvian. Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea, averages 26% Baltic ancestry. This matches the finding of Rodriguez Varela and colleagues that eastern Baltic ancestry was concentrated in Gotland and central Sweden and had much less effect on Norway.

4. Norway: Saami neighbours

Norway shows a different pattern again. In the north, the Moriopoulos site average carries 15% Finnic and Saami ancestry, three times the noise floor, while southern Norway carries almost none. One individual stands out completely. VK518, buried in Norway in the ninth century, models as 100% Finnic and Saami, and the nearest modern populations are the Khanty of western Siberia and the Saami. Coverage is low, at 39%, and the fit is the worst in our dataset at 0.067, so we treat the details as uncertain. But this was not a Scandinavian.

VK56, buried in Sweden, is 41% Finnic and Saami and 42% Baltic, with Vepsians and Karelians as closest modern matches: someone from the Finnic world east of the Baltic.

5. Orkney: Picts who became Vikings

Now the bottom of the chart. Orkney was taken over by Norse settlers in the ninth century and remained Norse speaking for centuries. Margaryan and colleagues sequenced men from Viking style graves there, with swords and other Norse goods, and found them genetically British and Irish. They may be among the first Pictish genomes ever studied.

In Global25 they are unambiguous. The four men from Orkney and Scotland with good coverage, VK201, VK202, VK203 and VK207, model as 93 to 98% British and Irish, far above the 80% threshold. Their nearest modern populations are Orcadians, Scots, Irish, Welsh and Bretons. These were local men buried as Vikings, in a culture they had adopted, with no Scandinavian ancestry detectable at all.

6. Norway, Iceland, England: Britons in Viking graves

The same thing happened in the other direction. VK528, buried in Norway around AD 800, at the very start of the raids on Britain and Ireland, is 96% British and Irish, closest to modern Irish, Cornish and Scots. VK386, also from Norway, is 84%. Margaryan and colleagues described individuals with two British parents buried in Viking fashion in Norway; whether they were captives, wives, traders or adopted members of a household, their graves do not say.

In Iceland, the community as a whole averages 42% British and Irish, and two related individuals, VK230 and VK111, are 96% and 93%. This matches the conclusion of Ebeneserdottir and colleagues in 2018 that the first Icelanders were a mixture of Norse, Gaelic and admixed people. The early Norse settlement of Greenland, which came out of Iceland, averages 48%.

In England, the two mass graves tell different stories. At St John's College in Oxford, where men were killed around 1002, perhaps in the St Brice's Day massacre of Danes, the site averages only 18% British and Irish, within the noise of the method. At Ridgeway Hill in Dorset, where about fifty decapitated men were thrown into a pit, the average is 44%. Both sites are usually described as Scandinavian raiders. Our figure for Ridgeway Hill sits right at the edge of what the method can resolve, so we read it cautiously: some of the men there may have been recruited in Britain or Ireland, but this is a hypothesis to test with higher resolution methods, not a result.

7. The east: Rus and Slavs

The Viking groups in the east look Scandinavian at the core and local at the edges. The Rus individuals buried in Russia and Ukraine average 64% Scandinavian, 21% Baltic and 10% continental. VK254, from Russia, has 45% continental ancestry and its nearest modern populations are Moldovans and Bosnians, a reminder that the eastern routes led to the Black Sea and Byzantium.

At Bodzia in Poland, a high status cemetery with Scandinavian, Rus and steppe goods, the four genomes average 53% Baltic, a component that here stands for the wider Balto-Slavic world. On the Danish island of Langeland, which had close contacts with the Slavic coast, two individuals are 72 and 78% Baltic.

Finally Latvia. The seven Latvian genomes from Viking Age contexts are 92% Baltic, and their closest modern populations are Lithuanians and Latvians. They are best read as local Balts in a Viking Age setting, not as Scandinavians.

The individuals behind the averages

A selection of the 71 genomes that pass our thresholds. Percentages are from the same five-source model. The thresholds are the red lines in the validation chart.

So how many Vikings were not Scandinavian?

Of 328 Viking Age genomes with coverage above 30%, 71, or 22%, pass at least one of our thresholds. Inside Scandinavia itself the share is almost identical: 48 of 212, or 23%. None of the fifteen pre-Viking reference genomes passes.

That figure is a floor, not an estimate. Because Britons and Scandinavians are so close in Global25, a person with a British mother and a Scandinavian father would usually not reach our 80% threshold and would be counted as Scandinavian here. Published haplotype based methods, which can tell the North Sea populations apart far better, find more British and Irish ancestry in Viking Age Scandinavia than we can.

Three conclusions stand regardless of method.

First, Viking was not an ethnicity. Picts in Orkney and Britons in Norway were buried with the same rites as Scandinavians. People became Vikings through what they did and whom they lived with.

Second, the Viking world was a network, not a closed homeland with raiders going out. Ancestry flowed into Scandinavia from the British Isles, the eastern Baltic, the Finnic and Saami north, and continental Europe, while Scandinavians flowed out.

Third, the pattern was regional. Danes went to England, Norwegians to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland, Swedes to the Baltic and Russia, and each region took in the neighbours it traded with, raided or married. Rodriguez Varela and colleagues also found that much of this incoming ancestry did not survive in the modern gene pool: Viking Age Scandinavia was in places more mixed than Scandinavia today.

Cross-checking against the published studies

Where our results can be compared with published ones, they agree in direction. The Orkney men are British and Irish in both. Salme is a homogeneous central Swedish group in both. Iceland is a roughly even mixture of Norse and Gaelic in both, 49 to 42% in our model. Eastern Baltic ancestry is concentrated in Gotland and central Sweden in both. Denmark and southern Sweden carry continental ancestry in all three studies.

Where we cannot follow the published studies is in measuring modest amounts of British and Irish ancestry inside Scandinavia. That needs haplotype methods or formal f-statistics, not a 25 dimensional summary of the genome, and we would rather say so than print a number.

Methods

Coordinates: Davidski's Global25 scaled coordinates, merged with priority to population averages, then modern averages, then the Moriopoulos 2026 collection, then individual dated ancient samples. Targets: 328 individuals labelled Viking Age with coverage of at least 30%, excluding pre-Viking and post-medieval labels. Scandinavian source: equal weighted average of Denmark Iron Age (2), Norway Iron Age (4) and Sweden Iron Age and pre-Viking (9) genomes, coverage 30% or more. Other sources: Scotland Late Iron Age, Lithuania Marvele Roman period, Finland Levanluhta, Italy Imperial. Pole separations from the Scandinavian source: 0.027, 0.096, 0.183 and 0.177; condition number 207.8, driven by the Scandinavian and British pair. NNLS with a sum to one constraint applied as a weighted extra equation, weight 1000, followed by normalisation. Validation: leave one out on the fifteen reference genomes, spike-in at 0, 10 and 20% of each source, and 500 random groups of five genomes. Single genome false positive maxima: British and Irish 57.6%, Baltic 17.3%, Finnic and Saami 6.6%, continental 6.3%. Group of five 95th percentiles: 16.5%, 8.4%, 3.3% and 3.4%; worst values 30.4%, 11.3%, 4.8% and 4.9%. Leaving one country out of the Scandinavian source gives up to 41% British and Irish for the Norwegian Iron Age, which sets the practical floor for this component in western Scandinavia. Site averages for Oxford, Ridgeway Hill, Greenland and northern Norway are weighted averages of the Moriopoulos 2026 profile groups, excluding low resolution entries. Published findings are taken from the cited studies and are not recomputed here.

Global25 coordinates used in this article

The five sources, the Viking Age group averages and the individuals discussed above. They can be pasted directly into the Vahaduo tool.

Source_Scandinavia_PreViking_balanced,0.127503,0.129527,0.073064,0.065010,0.042794,0.022104,0.005285,0.010758,0.004503,-0.009744,-0.004303,0.002556,-0.006142,-0.003912,0.021254,0.006557,-0.009270,0.005179,0.003487,0.005935,0.007730,0.002506,-0.000559,0.009706,0.000286
Source_Scotland_LIA,0.126964,0.133773,0.062705,0.057553,0.033684,0.023047,0.002564,0.003986,0.003198,-0.000580,-0.005241,0.006117,-0.013744,-0.016252,0.026428,0.003242,-0.013963,0.002396,0.000697,0.004343,0.006341,0.007622,-0.003720,0.007241,0.001187
Source_Lithuania_Marvele_Roman,0.133742,0.127449,0.098429,0.098596,0.052087,0.039812,0.014747,0.015345,0.001994,-0.043737,-0.006414,-0.017834,0.032557,0.036883,-0.010552,-0.002221,0.001076,-0.001235,0.002734,0.007785,-0.004367,-0.004359,0.008504,-0.016990,-0.000329
Source_Finland_Levanluhta,0.108132,-0.028942,0.104085,0.075421,-0.008001,0.012410,0.007872,0.019038,0.006443,-0.027335,0.034345,-0.008542,0.012561,-0.023396,-0.009568,-0.001857,-0.002868,-0.007221,-0.004840,-0.001063,0.015348,-0.004451,-0.002588,0.006266,0.003233
Source_Italy_Imperial,0.108815,0.149950,-0.023263,-0.056876,0.003974,-0.020566,-0.000692,-0.005690,-0.003150,0.021014,0.003633,0.002544,-0.005649,-0.000613,-0.010633,-0.002227,0.004951,0.000981,0.002507,-0.004917,-0.002763,0.002971,-0.001651,0.000685,0.000339
Viking_Salme_Estonia_average,0.131867,0.128375,0.075524,0.065693,0.045465,0.023755,0.007223,0.010595,0.004331,-0.009401,-0.003573,0.000361,-0.002016,-0.002441,0.017703,0.007538,-0.006818,0.001870,0.003453,0.005749,0.008133,0.002448,0.000283,0.010944,0.001187
Viking_Denmark_average,0.127622,0.133135,0.064106,0.050699,0.040953,0.018335,0.003180,0.006136,0.004676,-0.002097,-0.004555,0.003739,-0.006919,-0.004193,0.016358,0.006147,-0.004538,0.002584,0.003229,0.004065,0.005170,0.002581,-0.000975,0.011197,0.000152
Viking_Sweden_average,0.127885,0.130631,0.067805,0.055204,0.041055,0.019882,0.005066,0.008734,0.005082,-0.005084,-0.003887,0.001410,-0.004923,-0.002700,0.013160,0.005089,-0.004025,0.002277,0.002734,0.003394,0.004547,0.003423,0.000813,0.007973,0.000453
Viking_Norway_average,0.129846,0.125418,0.070377,0.060165,0.042836,0.022129,0.003896,0.008272,0.002470,-0.004675,-0.002792,0.005119,-0.008205,-0.010856,0.020572,0.010209,-0.001936,0.001891,0.003558,0.007282,0.006608,0.003733,-0.000038,0.012940,0.000870
Viking_Gotland_average,0.126913,0.122498,0.082448,0.072231,0.044700,0.026739,0.001469,0.012115,0.004576,-0.017654,-0.005460,-0.004608,0.004720,0.005883,0.008177,0.001608,-0.004482,0.001314,0.006772,0.006331,0.006582,0.000726,0.005438,0.006838,0.001242
Viking_England_average,0.125500,0.129236,0.065703,0.051524,0.040178,0.019202,0.003368,0.008188,0.004113,-0.000095,-0.004342,0.004396,-0.010709,-0.010189,0.019549,0.009222,-0.004708,0.000877,0.003305,0.004956,0.004464,0.002583,0.001310,0.011202,-0.000049
Viking_Iceland_average,0.129260,0.127322,0.066774,0.052588,0.037276,0.019609,0.002923,0.006433,0.007005,-0.002107,-0.003238,0.004365,-0.009180,-0.013358,0.019866,0.008643,-0.007122,0.001988,0.003040,0.005471,0.006520,0.005093,-0.000878,0.013948,-0.001706
Viking_Orkney_Scotland_average,0.130517,0.137266,0.062979,0.051088,0.038622,0.018918,0.002859,0.005077,0.005249,0.002551,-0.006631,0.006694,-0.013676,-0.014473,0.025877,0.000022,-0.014973,0.003927,0.001969,0.003022,0.005594,0.002885,-0.003903,0.013978,0.003113
Viking_Russia_Rus_average,0.125648,0.122597,0.072240,0.061460,0.040161,0.020684,0.006254,0.011179,0.002750,-0.012655,-0.002914,-0.001457,0.001957,0.003433,0.005308,0.006261,-0.002977,0.000591,0.002416,0.003453,0.003355,0.001463,0.001917,0.005978,0.002169
Viking_Poland_Bodzia_average,0.129189,0.133034,0.081646,0.069607,0.047547,0.025309,0.007285,0.010557,0.001125,-0.021048,-0.004912,-0.005020,0.012599,0.020402,-0.003596,-0.001624,-0.000130,-0.001425,0.004274,0.002032,-0.000936,-0.000031,0.004930,-0.000632,0.003174
Viking_Latvia_average,0.127157,0.125055,0.092287,0.101515,0.048053,0.037690,0.010576,0.017867,-0.002308,-0.039597,-0.004199,-0.013873,0.029902,0.032734,-0.011924,0.008940,0.009425,-0.001484,0.004741,0.008004,0.000089,-0.006059,0.006796,-0.015648,-0.000582
Viking_Orkney_VK201,0.126344,0.138112,0.057322,0.047804,0.044316,0.015060,0.003290,0.002538,0.001432,-0.000547,-0.012179,0.006894,-0.020812,-0.014863,0.027958,-0.003978,-0.022948,-0.000253,0.000754,0.005503,0.007736,0.003339,-0.010723,0.016629,0.000479
Viking_Orkney_VK202,0.130897,0.139128,0.055814,0.056848,0.041854,0.020917,-0.003525,0.006461,0.011453,0.012574,0.000974,0.007493,-0.012636,-0.016790,0.024701,0.009016,-0.003781,0.002660,-0.003017,0.004377,0.004866,0.002720,-0.005423,0.005663,0.005868
Viking_Norway_VK528,0.133173,0.140143,0.058454,0.052326,0.041854,0.021196,0.006110,0.008769,0.002250,0.010934,-0.003573,0.009891,-0.016055,-0.016102,0.028366,-0.001061,-0.018254,0.000380,0.008170,-0.002626,-0.002121,0.004081,0.005546,0.012532,0.001197
Viking_Iceland_VK230,0.132035,0.134050,0.061094,0.047804,0.034160,0.021753,-0.002350,0.004615,0.013090,-0.002005,-0.001624,0.003447,-0.009960,-0.015276,0.022530,-0.002652,-0.027772,0.007221,-0.000377,0.008504,0.005241,0.012365,-0.004067,0.014339,0.001916
Viking_England_VK449,0.133173,0.126941,0.064488,0.056848,0.027697,0.015339,0.003290,0.004615,0.008181,-0.003645,-0.000487,0.005245,-0.023488,-0.009909,0.033251,0.014187,-0.010952,0.002407,0.002263,0.008504,0.011854,0.005317,0.001356,-0.000120,-0.000479
Viking_Sweden_VK478,0.134311,0.136081,0.100691,0.095931,0.051394,0.041834,0.017391,0.018230,0.000000,-0.037723,0.000000,-0.017684,0.024380,0.032754,-0.005836,-0.007425,-0.012386,-0.004054,-0.000251,0.009505,0.001123,-0.002720,0.017131,-0.008796,0.006107
Viking_Sweden_VK56,0.119514,0.060932,0.091640,0.090763,0.027697,0.024542,0.009165,0.012230,0.002454,-0.023691,0.002761,-0.010940,0.019772,0.004266,-0.008279,-0.001856,-0.006258,0.006461,-0.004902,0.009880,0.007612,-0.001855,0.000616,-0.001928,-0.002036
Viking_Norway_VK518,0.103579,-0.078196,0.119547,0.078489,-0.034776,0.000558,-0.002820,0.009000,0.000409,-0.030069,0.033290,-0.011690,0.020069,-0.029726,-0.011536,0.005171,-0.010300,0.006334,-0.005154,-0.014507,0.014849,0.000742,0.000493,0.002289,-0.001197
Viking_Denmark_VK286,0.122929,0.146236,0.037335,0.009690,0.030467,0.015897,0.003525,0.001154,0.010840,0.023144,-0.004222,0.012289,-0.015163,-0.013900,0.006243,-0.011138,-0.004303,0.003167,0.002137,-0.009004,0.000998,0.001237,-0.005916,0.008796,-0.002036
Viking_Russia_VK254,0.118376,0.105615,0.046386,0.019057,0.025235,0.010040,-0.001645,0.010846,0.001636,-0.003462,-0.000162,-0.005395,0.002825,0.020368,-0.010586,0.004110,0.002217,0.000887,0.006159,-0.006878,-0.002870,0.000371,0.008874,-0.005422,-0.000479
Viking_Langeland_CGG106791,0.117238,0.117801,0.076178,0.073967,0.048009,0.040160,0.008460,0.003923,-0.000614,-0.026242,-0.003735,-0.017834,0.027354,0.031928,-0.015336,0.007160,0.009909,-0.000507,0.002765,-0.003377,-0.006613,0.001978,0.003204,-0.002651,0.003952
Viking_Latvia_VL20,0.127482,0.132019,0.099560,0.098192,0.050779,0.037092,0.012456,0.021461,0.001432,-0.038270,-0.004709,-0.015586,0.024232,0.038672,-0.008686,-0.002519,-0.006389,0.004307,0.003268,0.004877,-0.005865,-0.001607,0.006532,-0.012532,-0.003113

References

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7. Data Global25 PCA coordinates by Davidski, and the Moriopoulos 2026 collection of Global25 coordinates.