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Tonight, on 'Blood of the Vikings',

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I follow the events of 1066

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that finally brought the
Viking Age to a bloody end.

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Did this man die defending York
against a great Viking warlord?

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Could these be the bones of
warriors from the last Viking army?

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And where can we find the
Vikings' genetic legacy

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in the British Isles today?

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Tonight, in the last
programme of the series,

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we'll have the final results of
the biggest ever genetic survey

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to be carried out in the British Isles

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looking for Viking blood
in the population today.

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We're in West Stow,
not far from Cambridge,

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where archaeologists have reconstructed
an entire Anglo-Saxon village.

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Using the results of the
Blood-of-the-Vikings' genetic survey

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we are going to try and turn
the clock back 1,000 years.

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We want to find out what happened
in villages across the British Isles

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when the Vikings arrived.

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We're hoping to answer questions

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which have baffled archaeologists
and historians for centuries.

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There are clues that
some of the Viking raiders

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settled down permanently over here.

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But we want to find out how many
stayed and where they put down roots?

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Joining me are some of the scientists
who've been conducting the genetic survey

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and we'll also be talking to some
to the people who took part in it,

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including a few who think they
might be direct descendants of Vikings.

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But before we find out about the
genetic legacy of the Vikings,

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what do we know about how the
Viking Age in the British Isles

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finally came to an end?

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On the 6th of January 1066

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the death of Edward the
Confessor, King of England,

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sparked yet another battle for power.

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Edward died without an heir
or publicly naming a successor.

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So up stepped Harold Godwinson

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from one of the most powerful
Saxon families in the land.

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Only hours after Edward's body was
laid to rest at Westminster Abbey

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Harold seized the throne.

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But the new king had
powerful enemies overseas

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who also had their eyes
on the English crown.

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The first direct challenge would
come from the Viking king of Norway.

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The mighty Harald Hardrada.

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Harald Hardrada was an ambitious ruler

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who's exploits earned him the name
'Thunderbolt of the North'.

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His story is told here
in the Heimskringla,

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a collection of Icelandic sagas

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that record the history
of the Norwegian kings.

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According to the sagas, at the
age of 15 Harald fled Norway.

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He made his way through Russia,

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and eventually across the Black Sea
to Byzantium, modern-day Istanbul.

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Still in his teens,
Harald became a mercenary

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fighting around the Mediterranean for
the Byzantine Emperor's elite force.

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After ten years, he'd made a fortune

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and headed home where he
used his wealth to raise an army

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and take the crown of Norway.

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For the next 20 years he fought
a bloody war against the Danes

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before turning his sights
on an even bigger prize.

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Aged 50, the 'Thunderbolt of the North'
launched an attack on England.

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In September 1066, a terrifying sight
appeared off the coast of Yorkshire.

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Perhaps the greatest
Viking fleet ever seen.

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The chronicles tell of hundreds of ships
carrying thousands of warriors.

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And somehow the Vikings had managed
to keep all their preparations secret

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because when they arrived here
at the mouth of the Humber,

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King Harold of England
was 200 miles to the south.

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Harald Hadrada's fleet its way
up the river Ouse towards York.

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Ten miles from the city the
Vikings moored their ships

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and headed inland.

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The English earls defending the
city gathered what troops they could

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and marched out to Fulford
to confront the Vikings.

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The English fought to the bitter end

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but they were no match
for Harald Hadrada.

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Fulford is now a suburb of York.

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A few years ago, when a new
riverside development was being built,

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an ancient burial
ground was discovered.

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Amongst the skeletons were some
that showed signs of mutilation.

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In this burial ground we found
quite a number of skeletons,

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but one particular group, close together,
all of them had injuries on the bodies.

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On this particular
individual, for example,

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we've got evidence of a fierce combat,

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something nasty which left
him marked in many ways.

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Someone has slashed at him with a
sword and cut deeply into the bone

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right through.

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He's also been thrust through
the abdomen with a spear.

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Someone's gone hard in like that.

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So this is someone who's been
involved in fierce combat.

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Who's been hacked down,
who's suffered many wounds

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and, in that combination,
there's only one way

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he's gonna end up, and that's dead.

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Almost every bone they looked at
showed signs of violent injury.

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This is another femur,
another thigh bone,

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and you can see very clearly
this massive hacks in here,

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which have done considerable damage.

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Here we've got someone
who's perhaps decapitated.

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Here, someone who's actually
had the top of their skull

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virtually sliced off.

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To get a group like this suggests
they're the product of some major fight,

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so we think that these are people who
were killed in the Battle of Fulford,

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20th of September 1066.

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And this could be people
victims of that fight

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who were taken back to one of the
nearest Anglo-Saxon churches for burial.

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It was first blood for Harald Hadrada.

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These men had been
struck down defending York

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but now the Vikings would have to face
the full might of the English army.

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After his great victory, Harald
Hadrada withdrew from York

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to await hostages and ransom
money he'd been promised.

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In the afternoon of
Monday, September 25th,

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just five days after
the Battle of Fulford,

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King Harold of England reached
the Viking camp at Stamford Bridge.

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According to the chronicles,
as he came up over this hill,

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he saw the Vikings
camped out in the valley below.

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Harald Hadrada, taken totally by surprise
by King Harold's lightning-quick march,

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only had about twenty
minutes to prepare for battle.

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To reach the Vikings the
English had to cross the river,

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and according to the chronicles,

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the narrow bridge was held by
one ferocious Viking warrior.

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It looked as it there
was no way to dislodge him

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until an English soldier
went underneath the bridge...

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and skewed him from below.

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Now the real battle began.

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The English were outnumbered

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yet slowly they wore down the invaders

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until finally Harald
Hadrada himself was killed.

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But how did King Harold manage to defeat
one of the greatest of Viking warriors

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with an army that had
just marched 200 miles?

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Above all it was the determination
probably to hang on to this kingdom

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that he'd only managed
to win nine months before.

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He wasn't gonna give that up early

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and so that's probably above
all what inspired him and his men

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to win what was an amazing victory
here at Stamford Bridge.

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Stamford Bridge today is a
peaceful Yorkshire village.

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Strangely, no traces of this
legendary battle have ever been found.

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Despite all the carnage,
not a single bone or weapon

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has ever been unearthed here.

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But 10 miles down river,
at a place called Riccall,

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some intriguing finds have been made.

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In 1956, a farmer dug
up some skeletons.

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And a few years ago, when the
Water Board were working down here,

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they found even more.

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In a series of excavations,

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archaeologists have unearthed
more than 60 skeletons.

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Perhaps, as many as 600
bodies were buried here.

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Apparently all at the same time.

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Who were these people?
And why are they here,

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miles from the nearest churchyard?

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It does seem strange to find
so many burials out here,

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in the middle of nowhere.

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But according to the chronicles,

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Riccall is where the battered
remnants of the defeated Viking army,

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retreated to their ships moored
on the river Ouse and fled England.

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Could this be the resting
place of the Viking dead

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from the Battle of Stamford Bridge?

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For years the bones from Riccall

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were left in the care of the
York Archaeological Trust.

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They were a bit of a puzzle

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and no one knew quite
what to do with them.

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We asked the York team
to take another look.

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The first challenge was to establish

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whether these people were
locals or Viking invaders.

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Amazingly, thanks to a
new forensic technique,

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the answer might lie in their teeth.

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Teeth from six skulls were sent

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to the British Geological Survey
Laboratories near Nottingham.

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By analysing the enamel

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it might be possible to tell
where their owners came from.

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When fragments of tooth are
vaporized by a powerful laser beam

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oxygen is given off.

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Oxygen atoms can exist in two
slightly different forms, or isotopes.

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And the relative amounts
of these two isotopes

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can reveal where a person grew up.

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The isotopes in this man's teeth

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will tell us about the rain
water he drank in childhood.

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And the mix of oxygen
isotopes in English rainwater

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is very different from
the mix in Scandinavia.

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As soon as the results of
the tooth analysis were ready

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I went to find out what Paul
Budd and the team had discovered.

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So what we have on our diagram here

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is these are the six individuals
that we looked at from Riccall,

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and on this scale here is
the oxygen isotope composition

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of the drinking water
that they had in childhood.

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But the interesting about
it from our point of view

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is that the sort of values
that you would get in the UK

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would really cover the range
going from about -5 to -5.5

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in the far south west of the country

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through to the north-east
of the country about -8.5,

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and that's what we've marked on
here with this dashed line this -8.5.

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All of our people are significantly
lower numbers than that.

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They are in this
range about -9 to -11.

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So you're saying that
somebody from the British Isles

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- would have to be above that line.
-Exactly. Yes.

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So, where do this
people come from then?

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We can have a look at that now.

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This is a map showing the oxygen
isotope composition of rainwater

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as it's falling across
north-western Europe today.

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Now, you remember, the range
that we had for our people

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was something like -9 to -11.

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Now, that's where we've ***putting
us across here, in this band

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going across from Central and Baltic
Europe through Sweden and Scandinavia.

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Given what we know
about went on at Riccall

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00:14:23,431 --> 00:14:25,717
it seems to me that the
most likely explanation

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is that these people come
from somewhere in Norway.

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00:14:28,897 --> 00:14:32,174
Yes. Certainly the results
are consistent with that.

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It's quite interesting, isn't it?
Because it's the history and the science

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actually seem to fit together.
They're telling the same story.

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- Not what I expected actually.
- Wasn't it?

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No, I must admit when you first
came to me with the material

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and the material was undated,
I thought, you know,

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00:14:50,004 --> 00:14:53,536
these will all come up with UK values.

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00:14:53,571 --> 00:14:57,277
They'll be typical for the
Riccall area, I thought. But no.

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00:14:57,312 --> 00:15:00,410
- So, were you really surprised?
- I was very surprised. Yes.

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00:15:02,001 --> 00:15:04,923
The results of the tooth analysis
are very exciting

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00:15:04,958 --> 00:15:07,601
but they're not quite
enough on their own.

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00:15:08,644 --> 00:15:11,675
These are the six skulls
whose teeth were analysed

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00:15:11,710 --> 00:15:15,346
and we now know that all of these
people grew up in Scandinavia.

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00:15:15,381 --> 00:15:18,867
So it looks like the bodies
buried at Riccall were Vikings,

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00:15:18,902 --> 00:15:23,263
but did they fight alongside
Harald Hadrada at Stamford Bridge?

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The bones are mostly men's.

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00:15:27,291 --> 00:15:29,992
But there are also a
few women and children.

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00:15:30,027 --> 00:15:32,910
Could they all be
Vikings killed in battle?

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We needed to know how
these people died.

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If we were lucky the bones
might provide the answer.

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So we called in forensic pathologist
Dr Bob Stoddart.

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00:15:44,699 --> 00:15:48,459
Bob, do any of these bones
show signs of violent injury?

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00:15:48,509 --> 00:15:51,890
Yes, they do.
For example, this bone...

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shows numerous surface
cuts at a variety of angles,

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00:15:56,752 --> 00:16:02,406
so the individual concerned
had multiple blows

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00:16:02,441 --> 00:16:04,591
with a sharp-edged weapon

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cutting across the muscle
blocks along his left leg.

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00:16:11,026 --> 00:16:15,516
This bone is a sacrum of an adult male

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00:16:15,551 --> 00:16:22,044
and here is a wound which has been
produced by the tip of a sharp weapon,

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00:16:22,079 --> 00:16:26,537
such as perhaps a sword. So it has
gone in just above the pubic bone,

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00:16:26,572 --> 00:16:31,992
probably gone through the
bladder, and the rectum, into that.

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00:16:32,027 --> 00:16:38,683
So that bone is actually from the back,
but the wound has gone in from the front?

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00:16:38,718 --> 00:16:41,793
- Stabbed right through into the bone?
- Yes.

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00:16:41,828 --> 00:16:44,236
Remarkably, a quarter of the bones

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00:16:44,271 --> 00:16:47,688
show unmistakable sings
of sword cuts and stabbings.

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00:16:47,723 --> 00:16:52,178
But what about the rest?
Could they too have died in battle?

235
00:16:52,213 --> 00:16:57,504
Many of those victims are going to be
people who suffered soft-tissue injuries

236
00:16:57,539 --> 00:17:05,331
and they bled to death, or they had
some essential organ irredeemably damaged,

237
00:17:05,366 --> 00:17:09,304
but the bones may not
show any sing of that.

238
00:17:09,339 --> 00:17:13,753
But what about the women and children
whose bones were found at Riccall?

239
00:17:13,788 --> 00:17:15,806
What were they doing in a battle?

240
00:17:15,841 --> 00:17:18,220
Well, it could be that the Viking army

241
00:17:18,255 --> 00:17:22,125
included women and children to
help cook and care for the warriors.

242
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:25,829
After all, Harald Hadrada
hadn't come on a quick raid.

243
00:17:25,864 --> 00:17:29,553
He was expecting a long
campaign to conquer England.

244
00:17:31,558 --> 00:17:35,041
Thanks to this new
research, I'm now convinced

245
00:17:35,076 --> 00:17:39,950
that this bones are the long-lost remains
of Vikings who fought at Stamford-Bridge.

246
00:17:39,985 --> 00:17:44,744
Fatally wounded in battle or cut
down as they fled to their ships.

247
00:17:55,177 --> 00:17:58,979
The defeat of Harald Hadrada
was a turning point.

248
00:17:59,014 --> 00:18:01,842
The people buried here
nearly a thousand years ago

249
00:18:01,877 --> 00:18:06,796
were part of the last great Viking
army to die fighting on English soil.

250
00:18:07,999 --> 00:18:12,956
Never again would Vikings attempt
a full-scale invasion of England.

251
00:18:19,925 --> 00:18:24,279
For 250 years, marauding Vikings
terrorised the British Isles.

252
00:18:24,319 --> 00:18:27,531
Thousands of them must have made
the voyage across the North Sea

253
00:18:27,566 --> 00:18:29,792
and we know that some
of them stayed here.

254
00:18:29,827 --> 00:18:32,407
The evidence comes
from ancient chronicles,

255
00:18:32,442 --> 00:18:34,361
from the Viking artifacts we've found

256
00:18:34,396 --> 00:18:37,764
and from hundreds of place names
of Scandinavian origin.

257
00:18:37,799 --> 00:18:40,900
But we've no idea of how many
immigrants there were

258
00:18:40,935 --> 00:18:42,930
and where exactly they settled,

259
00:18:42,965 --> 00:18:45,179
which is why we commissioned
a survey of the British Isles

260
00:18:45,214 --> 00:18:48,593
looking for Viking blood
in the people today.

261
00:18:51,025 --> 00:18:54,667
We've been working with scientists
from University College London

262
00:18:54,702 --> 00:18:57,100
led by Pr. David Goldstein.

263
00:18:57,135 --> 00:19:01,887
Over the last year they've collected
DNA samples from nearly 2,000 men

264
00:19:01,922 --> 00:19:05,114
in Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia.

265
00:19:06,316 --> 00:19:08,994
<i>Rub it either side of your cheek, yes.</i>

266
00:19:09,029 --> 00:19:11,182
Giving a DNA sample, mostly meant

267
00:19:11,217 --> 00:19:14,273
just scraping a few skin cells
from the inside of the mouth,

268
00:19:14,308 --> 00:19:19,007
but we were also helped by
blood donor centres and dentists.

269
00:19:19,042 --> 00:19:23,662
Only men were sampled as the scientists
were studying the Y chromosome

270
00:19:23,697 --> 00:19:25,152
which only men have,

271
00:19:25,187 --> 00:19:28,215
because it changes very
little over the generations.

272
00:19:29,486 --> 00:19:32,608
The Y chromosome my son
Barnaby inherited from me

273
00:19:32,643 --> 00:19:35,514
was handed down almost
unchanged from my father

274
00:19:35,549 --> 00:19:38,234
and from his father
before him, and so on.

275
00:19:38,269 --> 00:19:42,507
The Y chromosome provides
a direct link to the past.

276
00:19:44,123 --> 00:19:48,413
The team first's task was to
collect samples from Scandinavia.

277
00:19:48,448 --> 00:19:50,461
They looked at the Y chromosomes

278
00:19:50,496 --> 00:19:53,360
of males most likely to
be descendant from Vikings

279
00:19:53,395 --> 00:19:56,342
and found distinctive genetic markers.

280
00:19:56,377 --> 00:20:00,628
They then looked for these markers
in the Y chromosomes of British men.

281
00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:05,711
Unfortunately, these markers
won't identify Viking ancestry

282
00:20:05,746 --> 00:20:07,781
on an individual basis.

283
00:20:07,816 --> 00:20:09,215
But the proportion of people

284
00:20:09,250 --> 00:20:12,006
with Scandinavian markers
on their Y chromosomes

285
00:20:12,041 --> 00:20:16,355
will tell us about the overall amount
of Viking ancestry in that area.

286
00:20:17,199 --> 00:20:21,711
In all we looked at more than 30
sites across the British Isles.

287
00:20:21,746 --> 00:20:24,001
The team focused on small towns

288
00:20:24,036 --> 00:20:26,968
where historically there
has been little migration.

289
00:20:27,003 --> 00:20:29,951
And we only sampled men who
could trace their male line back

290
00:20:29,986 --> 00:20:32,770
at least two generations
in the same area.

291
00:20:32,805 --> 00:20:35,057
<i>How many generations can
you trace your male line?</i>

292
00:20:35,092 --> 00:20:37,412
<i>- Seventeen.
- Seventeen?</i>

293
00:20:38,438 --> 00:20:41,908
So the proportion of
Scandinavian Y chromosomes

294
00:20:41,943 --> 00:20:43,964
in the modern population of an area

295
00:20:43,999 --> 00:20:47,595
should indicate the scale of
the original Viking settlement.

296
00:20:50,183 --> 00:20:53,681
Joining us here at Stow
we've got Pr. David Goldstein,

297
00:20:53,716 --> 00:20:55,562
who was in charge
of the entire project,

298
00:20:55,597 --> 00:20:58,531
and Jim Wilson, Neil Bradman
and Julia Abernethy

299
00:20:58,566 --> 00:21:00,953
who've all been working
on the genetic results.

300
00:21:00,988 --> 00:21:03,318
- Thank you all very much for coming.
- A pleasure.

301
00:21:03,353 --> 00:21:07,094
Now, David, what exactly were you
hoping to find from this survey?

302
00:21:07,129 --> 00:21:10,372
Well, in short, what we were trying
to do is assess the magnitude

303
00:21:10,407 --> 00:21:13,645
of the genetic contribution of
the Vikings to the British Isles.

304
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:17,454
But is it actually going to tell us
how many Vikings came over here

305
00:21:17,489 --> 00:21:19,105
and exactly where they settled?

306
00:21:19,140 --> 00:21:22,887
Well, I don't think that we would
ever get a very precise number

307
00:21:22,922 --> 00:21:25,175
for how many Vikings
came over and settled,

308
00:21:25,210 --> 00:21:26,191
but it still can give you a sense,

309
00:21:26,243 --> 00:21:29,469
because if we see a lot of Y chromosomes
today in some part of the British Isles

310
00:21:29,504 --> 00:21:31,093
have an origin in Scandinavia,

311
00:21:31,128 --> 00:21:33,134
then clearly there had to be
a fair number of individuals

312
00:21:33,169 --> 00:21:35,406
coming over to bring
those Y chromosomes.

313
00:21:35,441 --> 00:21:38,344
Now, we know that the Viking
raids at the British Isles

314
00:21:38,379 --> 00:21:41,910
came from two separate places,
from Norway and from Denmark.

315
00:21:41,945 --> 00:21:44,853
So we've been looking for two
separate sets of gene markers.

316
00:21:44,888 --> 00:21:47,656
Now, let's start with the Norwegians.

317
00:21:50,927 --> 00:21:55,091
From Norway they crossed the
North Sea to Shetland and Orkney.

318
00:21:57,715 --> 00:22:02,693
In Shetland I saw the unmistakable
remains of Viking longhouses.

319
00:22:06,068 --> 00:22:08,914
Heading south I arrived in Orkney

320
00:22:08,949 --> 00:22:13,402
taken over by Vikings and ruled
by Norway until the 1400's.

321
00:22:14,849 --> 00:22:16,801
From the archaeological evidence,

322
00:22:16,836 --> 00:22:20,822
it seems obvious that there was a
strong Viking presence in these islands.

323
00:22:21,684 --> 00:22:24,228
And the early results
of our genetic survey

324
00:22:24,263 --> 00:22:26,478
appeared to confirm that.

325
00:22:28,774 --> 00:22:31,249
David, your initial results
for Orkney and Shetland

326
00:22:31,284 --> 00:22:35,738
suggested that there was about 30% of
the chromosome types were from Norway

327
00:22:35,773 --> 00:22:38,316
but you suggested that
these figures might go up

328
00:22:38,351 --> 00:22:41,007
with the detailed statistical
analysis and, have they?

329
00:22:41,042 --> 00:22:44,111
Well, remember, we first talked about
just looking through the Y chromosomes

330
00:22:44,175 --> 00:22:48,261
and identifying those that look pretty
clearly like they had a Norwegian origin.

331
00:22:48,287 --> 00:22:50,634
And when we did that it
was something like 30%

332
00:22:50,660 --> 00:22:53,044
that looked pretty clearly
like they were from Norway.

333
00:22:53,079 --> 00:22:55,255
But then we carried out
a statistical analysis

334
00:22:55,290 --> 00:22:56,955
to make an overall assessment

335
00:22:56,990 --> 00:23:00,466
of the proportion of the chromosomes
that had a Norwegian origin

336
00:23:00,501 --> 00:23:03,074
and when we did that,
the figure was at 60%.

337
00:23:03,109 --> 00:23:05,010
- 60, so it doubled?
- Yeah.

338
00:23:05,045 --> 00:23:07,054
That's an enormous number.

339
00:23:07,089 --> 00:23:09,828
Yes. It tells us that the majority
of the Y chromosome heritage

340
00:23:09,863 --> 00:23:11,979
traces back to Norway.

341
00:23:12,014 --> 00:23:15,010
And Jim, you were not only
a member of the survey team,

342
00:23:15,045 --> 00:23:16,310
but you come from Orkney as well.

343
00:23:16,345 --> 00:23:18,685
You must have had some idea that
there was going to be a strong

344
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:20,059
Viking legacy there.

345
00:23:20,094 --> 00:23:22,268
But did you expect that it was
going to be anything like this?

346
00:23:22,303 --> 00:23:25,117
Well, you can never really
know, but I thought...

347
00:23:25,152 --> 00:23:27,087
I expected we would find quite a lot

348
00:23:27,122 --> 00:23:30,419
because of the strong cultural
Norse heritage we have.

349
00:23:30,454 --> 00:23:33,137
But, yes. I was also a bit surprised.

350
00:23:35,365 --> 00:23:39,618
From Orkney, the Vikings took the
sea road south west to the Hebrides.

351
00:23:39,653 --> 00:23:42,519
And on the north coast
of Scotland, in Durness,

352
00:23:42,554 --> 00:23:45,069
we found a strong
Norwegian genetic signature

353
00:23:45,104 --> 00:23:48,205
suggesting that they'd
settled here along the way.

354
00:23:50,192 --> 00:23:54,621
And in the Hebrides, where we found
new evidence of Viking longhouses,

355
00:23:54,656 --> 00:23:59,613
more than 30% of the men we sampled
had Norwegian chromosome types.

356
00:24:01,993 --> 00:24:06,049
From the Hebrides, the Vikings
sailed round into the Irish Sea.

357
00:24:06,084 --> 00:24:09,198
One target was the Isle of Man.

358
00:24:13,065 --> 00:24:18,495
Each year, the island still gather for
an open-air Viking-style parliament.

359
00:24:19,987 --> 00:24:22,616
A number of pagan graves
have been unearthed here

360
00:24:22,651 --> 00:24:25,454
with beautiful Viking artifacts.

361
00:24:25,489 --> 00:24:29,376
<i>What you have do is to scrape
inside your mouth ten times...</i>

362
00:24:29,411 --> 00:24:31,864
And the results of the genetic survey

363
00:24:31,899 --> 00:24:35,853
suggest that at least 15% of the
men we sampled on the Isle of Man

364
00:24:35,888 --> 00:24:38,518
have Norwegian ancestry.

365
00:24:40,534 --> 00:24:42,673
So, all along the sea road,

366
00:24:42,708 --> 00:24:46,158
we've been able to detect
the Vikings' genetic legacy.

367
00:24:48,090 --> 00:24:50,308
David, are you pleased
with these results?

368
00:24:50,343 --> 00:24:53,863
We're delighted to get a clear signal.
Often when you do these kinds of studies

369
00:24:53,898 --> 00:24:57,095
the results that you get are
difficult to interpret and not clear.

370
00:24:57,130 --> 00:24:59,756
But here we, in fact, have
some very, very clear signals.

371
00:24:59,791 --> 00:25:03,129
It's very clear that there was a
significant genetic contribution

372
00:25:03,164 --> 00:25:05,872
from Norway to Shetland and Orkney.

373
00:25:05,907 --> 00:25:07,507
Now, as you continue moving -

374
00:25:07,542 --> 00:25:10,022
you get to the Hebrides,
to the Isle of Man -

375
00:25:10,057 --> 00:25:14,446
the contribution lessens
but we still see clear evidence

376
00:25:14,481 --> 00:25:17,207
of Norwegian contributions there too.

377
00:25:17,242 --> 00:25:21,385
Now, the real prize for the Vikings
lay at the end of the sea road:

378
00:25:21,420 --> 00:25:22,872
Ireland.

379
00:25:24,277 --> 00:25:26,574
The samples we took in Castlerea

380
00:25:26,609 --> 00:25:30,314
produced no hint of
Scandinavian chromosome types.

381
00:25:31,309 --> 00:25:34,080
This area, the rural heart of Ireland,

382
00:25:34,115 --> 00:25:39,145
turned out to be almost totally of
ancient Briton or Celtic ancestry.

383
00:25:41,346 --> 00:25:44,907
The Vikings are much more likely
to have settled along the coast.

384
00:25:44,942 --> 00:25:47,991
They founded several towns,
including Dublin,

385
00:25:48,026 --> 00:25:51,250
one of their most
important trading centres.

386
00:25:52,488 --> 00:25:57,652
Dublin was once the centre
of a major Viking slave trade.

387
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,572
Were these shackles meant
for the necks of Irish slaves

388
00:26:01,607 --> 00:26:04,149
to be shipped to Viking colonies?

389
00:26:05,178 --> 00:26:08,395
And dozens of burials have
yielded the largest collection

390
00:26:08,430 --> 00:26:11,586
of Viking weaponry outside Scandinavia.

391
00:26:14,216 --> 00:26:16,716
So Dublin would seem an obvious place

392
00:26:16,751 --> 00:26:20,007
to search for the Vikings
genetic legacy in Ireland.

393
00:26:20,042 --> 00:26:22,411
So where do you look
in Ireland then, David?

394
00:26:22,446 --> 00:26:26,212
Well, we wanted to pick a place where
there was a record of Viking activity

395
00:26:26,247 --> 00:26:29,446
but we didn't want to
have a metropolitan area

396
00:26:29,481 --> 00:26:32,821
that had a lot of recent
immigration, like Dublin.

397
00:26:32,856 --> 00:26:35,701
So we took an area north
of Dublin called Rush.

398
00:26:35,736 --> 00:26:36,828
And what did you find?

399
00:26:36,863 --> 00:26:38,946
- Very little.
- Very little?

400
00:26:38,981 --> 00:26:43,645
Yeah. We didn't find any evidence that
there was much of a genetic contribution

401
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,624
from Norway to that area of Ireland.

402
00:26:46,659 --> 00:26:49,327
Maybe they just didn't
settle there in large numbers.

403
00:26:49,362 --> 00:26:52,982
They just traded there, or
raided there, but didn't settle.

404
00:26:53,017 --> 00:26:56,426
We don't know. But in any event,
we don't see much genetic evidence

405
00:26:56,461 --> 00:26:59,302
of Norwegians there.

406
00:27:01,481 --> 00:27:03,414
There may be surviving pockets

407
00:27:03,449 --> 00:27:06,662
of Viking descendants in other
places along the Irish coast,

408
00:27:06,697 --> 00:27:10,617
but if the Vikings of Dublin never
settled outside the city walls,

409
00:27:10,652 --> 00:27:13,730
we may never find their genetic legacy.

410
00:27:15,929 --> 00:27:18,571
From Ireland, the ancient chronicles

411
00:27:18,606 --> 00:27:22,042
tell of Norwegian Viking
raids off the coast of Wales,

412
00:27:22,077 --> 00:27:23,921
on Anglesey.

413
00:27:23,956 --> 00:27:26,352
<i>It looks like it's a male.</i>

414
00:27:26,387 --> 00:27:30,559
Here I helped to
excavate contorted remains,

415
00:27:30,594 --> 00:27:33,605
the likely victims of a Viking attack.

416
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,504
And I was shown hacked pieces
of silver and inscribed weights,

417
00:27:37,539 --> 00:27:40,289
evidence of Viking traders.

418
00:27:42,962 --> 00:27:47,224
But again, the genetics results
failed to show any clear signs

419
00:27:47,259 --> 00:27:49,382
of Norwegian ancestry on Anglesey.

420
00:27:49,417 --> 00:27:53,059
Or in either of the two
other sample sites in Wales.

421
00:27:53,094 --> 00:27:58,543
Like central Ireland, Wales seemed to be
predominantly ancient Briton or Celtic.

422
00:28:00,827 --> 00:28:04,608
From their basis in Ireland, there's
evidence that the Norwegian Vikings

423
00:28:04,643 --> 00:28:06,993
also occupied parts of England.

424
00:28:07,028 --> 00:28:10,406
Particularly the north-west,
around the Wirral and Cumbria,

425
00:28:10,441 --> 00:28:14,452
including one of our
sample sites, Penrith.

426
00:28:15,083 --> 00:28:20,534
On the Wirral, the chronicles tell of a
Viking army landing here in the year 902.

427
00:28:21,405 --> 00:28:23,568
A few miles away, at Thingwall,

428
00:28:23,603 --> 00:28:28,453
this hill was almost certainly the
site of a Viking parliament, or "thing".

429
00:28:30,585 --> 00:28:35,658
Further north, stone sculptures provide
clear evidence of a Viking presence.

430
00:28:38,594 --> 00:28:42,070
And there's another strand of evidence
that the Vikings were here.

431
00:28:42,710 --> 00:28:46,860
In some Cumbrian villages, people
speak a dialect that contains many words

432
00:28:46,895 --> 00:28:49,862
derived from the old Norse
that the Vikings spoke.

433
00:28:49,897 --> 00:28:54,058
They're more likely to be understood
in Oslo than in London.

434
00:28:54,093 --> 00:28:57,750
Ted Relf and Jean Scottsmith
gave me a quick lesson.

435
00:28:59,310 --> 00:29:00,802
I'll tell thew something, Jean,

436
00:29:00,916 --> 00:29:04,229
we've picked a gay *** spot
for a bit crack this morning.

437
00:29:04,256 --> 00:29:08,343
I'll tell you Jean, we've certainly
picked a cold spot for our conversation.

438
00:29:08,378 --> 00:29:12,576
Aye, we have. Did thew come up
here laik when thou was a barn, Ted?

439
00:29:12,577 --> 00:29:15,227
Did you come up here play
when you were a child, Ted?

440
00:29:15,228 --> 00:29:18,878
Aye. I can mind yance* we came
up here with our *** eggs

441
00:29:18,913 --> 00:29:20,742
to roll 'em down this ***.

442
00:29:20,777 --> 00:29:25,143
Yes, I remember coming up here in Easter
and rolling my Easter eggs down the hill.

443
00:29:25,178 --> 00:29:28,238
Well, ars about nithered.
I think we'd better gar yarn,

444
00:29:28,273 --> 00:29:31,210
find a bit eldi*, and make a good lau*.

445
00:29:31,245 --> 00:29:33,688
Well, I'm about frozen. I
think we'd better go home,

446
00:29:33,723 --> 00:29:36,135
get some firewood,
and get a good fire on.

447
00:29:36,170 --> 00:29:38,083
I heartily agree. Come on!

448
00:29:38,118 --> 00:29:41,108
Aye. It's a bit *** over here.

449
00:29:41,143 --> 00:29:44,482
Given all this evidence
of Norwegian Vikings,

450
00:29:44,517 --> 00:29:47,912
what would the DNA sampling
from these areas reveal?

451
00:29:48,457 --> 00:29:51,595
So, David, what did you find
in the north-west of England?

452
00:29:51,630 --> 00:29:54,028
When we looked at all the
English sites together,

453
00:29:54,063 --> 00:29:56,188
one of the sites actually stood out

454
00:29:56,223 --> 00:30:00,278
as having the most
Norwegian genetic material,

455
00:30:00,313 --> 00:30:03,776
and that was Penrith. So that's very
exciting because of the correspondence

456
00:30:03,811 --> 00:30:08,009
with the material archaeological
evidence of Viking activities there

457
00:30:08,044 --> 00:30:09,715
and the genetic legacy.

458
00:30:09,750 --> 00:30:11,747
Now, Neil, I understand that
you looked at the Wirral.

459
00:30:11,782 --> 00:30:14,740
That's somewhere else where there's
quite a lot of evidence for the Vikings.

460
00:30:14,775 --> 00:30:16,083
So what did you find there?

461
00:30:16,118 --> 00:30:18,762
Well, the Wirral's interesting
because in the north of the Wirral

462
00:30:18,797 --> 00:30:22,335
we had a mini-Viking kingdom
which we didn't have in the south.

463
00:30:22,370 --> 00:30:24,545
However, when we look
at the genetic data,

464
00:30:24,580 --> 00:30:27,657
we find no difference between
the north and the south.

465
00:30:27,692 --> 00:30:31,727
But what's exceptionally
interesting is that the Wirral,

466
00:30:31,762 --> 00:30:35,199
while being very similar as a
whole to the rest of England,

467
00:30:35,234 --> 00:30:41,986
is different from Wales, probably
because of the Welsh being Celtic.

468
00:30:42,021 --> 00:30:47,578
So we had this clear distinction that the
Wirral goes with the area to the north,

469
00:30:47,613 --> 00:30:51,118
where it's English, and different
from the south, the Welsh.

470
00:30:51,153 --> 00:30:54,088
So, are you telling me that there
were no Vikings in the Wirral then?

471
00:30:54,123 --> 00:30:58,946
Well, we're not even saying that there
is no genetic legacy from Norway there

472
00:30:58,981 --> 00:31:01,240
in the Wirral today, and
we're certainly not saying

473
00:31:01,241 --> 00:31:02,945
there were never any Vikings there.

474
00:31:02,980 --> 00:31:05,570
But what we're saying is
that can't see any evidence

475
00:31:05,605 --> 00:31:08,499
of a greater genetic
contribution from Norway

476
00:31:08,534 --> 00:31:10,944
to the Wirral than
other parts of England.

477
00:31:12,305 --> 00:31:14,241
Out of the whole of England,

478
00:31:14,276 --> 00:31:18,535
only Penrith provided definite
evidence of Norwegian Viking settlement.

479
00:31:18,570 --> 00:31:23,072
But we also know that Norwegian Vikings,
in alliance with the Danes,

480
00:31:23,107 --> 00:31:25,330
controlled much of the north-east.

481
00:31:25,365 --> 00:31:28,900
During the Viking age, York
was ruled by a series of kings

482
00:31:28,935 --> 00:31:31,207
whose origins were in Norway.

483
00:31:33,516 --> 00:31:39,220
But in York our genetic survey failed
to find evidence of Norwegian ancestry.

484
00:31:40,852 --> 00:31:45,417
So maybe the Norwegian Vikings in
Yorkshire were just a ruling elite,

485
00:31:45,452 --> 00:31:49,288
and their genetic input
was too small to be detected.

486
00:31:51,658 --> 00:31:56,050
Or perhaps, as scientists discover
more about the human genome,

487
00:31:56,085 --> 00:31:59,807
we'll uncover more evidence
for the Viking settlers in England.

488
00:32:01,075 --> 00:32:04,732
On the Wirral, even though
the population as a whole

489
00:32:04,767 --> 00:32:07,562
failed to show any
significant Norwegian input,

490
00:32:07,597 --> 00:32:12,577
by chance, a sample produced one
very intriguing individual case.

491
00:32:15,435 --> 00:32:20,451
I went to Hoy lake, on the tip of
the Wirral, to meet Bill Hously.

492
00:32:20,486 --> 00:32:23,199
Before we told him what
we'd found in his DNA

493
00:32:23,234 --> 00:32:26,352
I wanted to know whether there was
anything about his family history

494
00:32:26,387 --> 00:32:29,153
that might suggest a Viking connection.

495
00:32:29,188 --> 00:32:32,189
Bill, how long have your
family lived in this area?

496
00:32:32,224 --> 00:32:34,777
My family, looking
back at family records,

497
00:32:34,812 --> 00:32:38,557
go back about 150 years,
which is quite a long time.

498
00:32:38,592 --> 00:32:41,196
- That's not bad, is it?
- No. Not at all.

499
00:32:41,231 --> 00:32:44,134
But, do you think your family might go
back even further than that in this area?

500
00:32:44,169 --> 00:32:45,773
Yes, I would think so.

501
00:32:45,808 --> 00:32:49,748
I should imagine, yes, we
probably do go further back than that.

502
00:32:51,101 --> 00:32:54,937
Housley men had been seafarers
for several generations.

503
00:32:54,972 --> 00:32:58,847
His father was a fisherman,
and his father before him.

504
00:33:00,496 --> 00:33:05,599
His great uncle Stephen was a member of
the local lifeboat crew in the 1920's.

505
00:33:05,634 --> 00:33:09,290
And the connection with the
sea still continues today.

506
00:33:09,325 --> 00:33:13,678
I was never a full-time fisherman.
The main reason for that because,

507
00:33:13,713 --> 00:33:18,994
by the time a reached an age whereby
I was able to use or work a boat,

508
00:33:19,029 --> 00:33:20,843
fishing was on decline.

509
00:33:20,878 --> 00:33:24,189
I came out of the Army after
completing my national service

510
00:33:24,224 --> 00:33:26,695
and suddenly looked at
the industry and thought,

511
00:33:26,730 --> 00:33:29,170
"No. I can do a little
bit better than this."

512
00:33:29,204 --> 00:33:31,044
Started* selling fish then.

513
00:33:31,079 --> 00:33:35,039
So, I've been involved in
the industry now for 36 years.

514
00:33:36,168 --> 00:33:40,299
On the very shore where the Housleys
have moored their boats for generations,

515
00:33:40,334 --> 00:33:44,643
archaeologists have uncovered evidence
of a flourishing Viking beach market.

516
00:33:45,172 --> 00:33:49,147
Over the years, hundreds of
pieces of jewelry have been found.

517
00:33:49,182 --> 00:33:53,034
Lost by Viking traders and
trampled into the soft sand.

518
00:33:54,315 --> 00:33:57,916
Could Bill and his family be the
modern-day descendants of a Viking

519
00:33:57,951 --> 00:34:01,342
who came and settled on the
Wirral a thousand years ago?

520
00:34:02,461 --> 00:34:06,321
It was time to tell Bill that we'd
found a distant relative of his

521
00:34:06,356 --> 00:34:09,039
amongst our Norwegian samples.

522
00:34:10,018 --> 00:34:13,521
So, David, could you tell
us the result of Bill's test?

523
00:34:13,556 --> 00:34:16,905
We looked through all the Y chromosomes
that we observed in the Wirral,

524
00:34:16,940 --> 00:34:20,096
compared them to Norwegian ones
and looked for matches.

525
00:34:20,131 --> 00:34:23,769
And we actually found a perfect match
between your Y chromosome

526
00:34:23,804 --> 00:34:26,678
and Y chromosomes that
we observed in Norway.

527
00:34:26,713 --> 00:34:29,399
Now, I have to say that we
can't be certain from that

528
00:34:29,434 --> 00:34:31,732
that your Y chromosome
actually came from Norway.

529
00:34:31,767 --> 00:34:35,789
But if we had to take a guess,
it would be that it's a Norwegian origin.

530
00:34:35,824 --> 00:34:38,385
So, there we are Bill, you
seem to be one of the few people

531
00:34:38,420 --> 00:34:42,537
who we can point to and say that
you're probably of Viking ancestry.

532
00:34:42,572 --> 00:34:45,011
I'm actually delighted.
I just can't get over this.

533
00:34:45,046 --> 00:34:47,169
So, how do you feel about this, Marilyn?
Your husband...

534
00:34:47,204 --> 00:34:49,000
This explains a lot. Doesn't it?

535
00:34:49,035 --> 00:34:53,498
Because he doesn't show evidence
of Viking behaviour, does he, at times?

536
00:34:53,533 --> 00:34:54,742
Oh, yes.

537
00:34:54,777 --> 00:34:57,933
You may not be able to blame
that on his Y chromosome.

538
00:34:58,983 --> 00:35:01,341
Do you think it is going to
make any difference to your life?

539
00:35:01,376 --> 00:35:03,328
I don't suppose so, really.

540
00:35:03,363 --> 00:35:08,534
I mean, it's a nice thought and feeling
to know there is a strong possibility

541
00:35:08,569 --> 00:35:11,336
I am descended from
the Vikings in Norway.

542
00:35:11,371 --> 00:35:15,227
And it's something I'm
just delighted with.

543
00:35:15,262 --> 00:35:16,792
Anyway, thank you
very much for coming.

544
00:35:16,827 --> 00:35:20,998
Thank you for having me. It's been
most very interesting. Thank you.

545
00:35:24,321 --> 00:35:29,341
Bill's ancestors, the Norwegian
Vikings, mainly colonised the north.

546
00:35:29,376 --> 00:35:32,260
But what could we find out
about the Danish Vikings,

547
00:35:32,295 --> 00:35:36,238
whose armies made such a huge
impact on the rest of England?

548
00:35:40,377 --> 00:35:42,807
In 878, the half of England

549
00:35:42,842 --> 00:35:45,824
that lay above a line drawn
roughly from London to the Wirral,

550
00:35:45,859 --> 00:35:49,047
was officially handed over
to the Danish Viking army.

551
00:35:49,082 --> 00:35:51,325
It became known as the Danelaw

552
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,843
and was dominated by
Vikings for half a century.

553
00:35:56,657 --> 00:36:00,294
Here at West Stow, in Suffolk,
we'd have been within the Danelaw.

554
00:36:00,329 --> 00:36:03,322
Now, later, in the
11th century, England,

555
00:36:03,357 --> 00:36:06,911
which had been lost to the Vikings,
was reconquered by King Canute.

556
00:36:06,946 --> 00:36:10,661
And for the next 20 years the
whole country was under Danish rule.

557
00:36:13,999 --> 00:36:18,061
There's strong evidence that some
of these Danes settled in England.

558
00:36:18,096 --> 00:36:21,046
There are all the place
names ending in 'by',

559
00:36:21,081 --> 00:36:23,785
the Danish for
'farmstead' or 'village'.

560
00:36:23,820 --> 00:36:27,824
But were these villages taken
over by a small Viking elite,

561
00:36:27,859 --> 00:36:31,271
or was there a mass
migration of Viking peasants?

562
00:36:31,306 --> 00:36:36,771
This was the main question that we hoped
our genetic survey would help to answer.

563
00:36:38,643 --> 00:36:42,373
But in England, the number
of Viking descendants today

564
00:36:42,408 --> 00:36:44,221
may have been greatly distorted

565
00:36:44,256 --> 00:36:48,409
by the dramatic events which
unfolded at the end of the Viking Age.

566
00:36:50,433 --> 00:36:54,508
In 1066, just days after
the English king Harold

567
00:36:54,543 --> 00:36:57,867
had defeated the great
Viking army of Harald Hadrada,

568
00:36:57,902 --> 00:37:00,596
England was invaded again.

569
00:37:02,096 --> 00:37:05,183
Duke William and his Norman army
crossed the Channel

570
00:37:05,218 --> 00:37:07,808
and landed at Pevensey, near Dover.

571
00:37:09,316 --> 00:37:12,015
Two weeks later, they
defeated King Harold

572
00:37:12,050 --> 00:37:15,240
in one of the most famous
encounters in English history,

573
00:37:15,275 --> 00:37:17,574
the Battle of Hastings.

574
00:37:20,443 --> 00:37:24,432
On Christmas Day 1066,
Duke William of Normandy

575
00:37:24,467 --> 00:37:27,333
was crowned King William I of England.

576
00:37:27,368 --> 00:37:28,908
But from our point of view,

577
00:37:28,943 --> 00:37:31,948
if we're searching for Viking
blood in today's population,

578
00:37:31,983 --> 00:37:34,937
then William the Conqueror's
victory complicates matters.

579
00:37:37,986 --> 00:37:39,343
The problem is

580
00:37:39,378 --> 00:37:43,107
that William the Conqueror was
the direct descendant of a Viking.

581
00:37:45,139 --> 00:37:47,139
But what about the rest of his army?

582
00:37:47,174 --> 00:37:49,807
Were they descended from Vikings too?

583
00:37:49,842 --> 00:37:53,789
Did they all bring Scandinavian
Y chromosomes to England?

584
00:37:59,644 --> 00:38:05,033
The story of the Normans began 200
years before the Battle of Hastings.

585
00:38:07,968 --> 00:38:10,409
In the middle of the 800's

586
00:38:10,444 --> 00:38:14,052
the Vikings began raiding the
rich lands of northern France.

587
00:38:18,679 --> 00:38:23,339
They sailed up rivers to plunder
the poorly defended monasteries.

588
00:38:29,908 --> 00:38:34,007
In the spring of 841, they
reached the Abbey of Jumièges,

589
00:38:34,042 --> 00:38:37,767
conveniently located on the
banks of the River Seine.

590
00:38:42,895 --> 00:38:48,641
With over 900 monks, Jumièges was
one of the largest abbeys in France.

591
00:38:48,676 --> 00:38:51,259
The Vikings knew that on a Sunday

592
00:38:51,294 --> 00:38:53,977
everyone here would be
peacefully at prayer.

593
00:38:54,012 --> 00:38:58,164
So, according to the chronicles,
that's when they chose to attack.

594
00:39:03,217 --> 00:39:06,323
20 miles up the River Seine lies Rouen.

595
00:39:06,358 --> 00:39:11,156
By 861 it had been sacked
and burned six times.

596
00:39:13,110 --> 00:39:15,991
After 60 years of being
overrun by the Vikings

597
00:39:16,026 --> 00:39:19,012
the French king decided
to do a deal with them.

598
00:39:19,047 --> 00:39:23,071
He arranged to meet the Vikings at
a place called Saint-Clair-sur-Epte

599
00:39:23,106 --> 00:39:25,381
to draw up a peace treaty.

600
00:39:26,230 --> 00:39:29,016
Rollo, the Viking leader,

601
00:39:29,051 --> 00:39:31,983
was apparently made to
swear an oath on these,

602
00:39:32,018 --> 00:39:36,365
the sacred but rather grisly
relics of Saint Clair himself.

603
00:39:42,153 --> 00:39:44,503
In return for ceasing his raids

604
00:39:44,538 --> 00:39:47,320
and protecting the rest of
the country from other Vikings,

605
00:39:47,355 --> 00:39:50,639
Rollo was given the city of Rouen
by King Charles 'the Simple',

606
00:39:50,674 --> 00:39:54,454
and all the surrounding lands
along the north coast of France.

607
00:39:54,489 --> 00:39:58,243
Rollo's descendants became
the Dukes of Normandy.

608
00:39:59,496 --> 00:40:03,289
So, by 1066, when the
Normans invaded England,

609
00:40:03,324 --> 00:40:05,105
from a genetic point of view,

610
00:40:05,140 --> 00:40:08,331
was this effectively
another Viking invasion?

611
00:40:09,446 --> 00:40:13,854
It all depends on how many Vikings
originally settled in Normandy.

612
00:40:17,047 --> 00:40:21,794
In Rouen I went to meet a local
expert in Scandinavian languages.

613
00:40:21,829 --> 00:40:26,785
Prof. Jean Renaud believes that clues
to the original number of Viking settlers

614
00:40:26,820 --> 00:40:29,958
might be found in
Normandy's place names.

615
00:40:30,649 --> 00:40:34,778
The most interesting place names ought
to tell us how many the Vikings could be.

616
00:40:34,813 --> 00:40:42,203
It's the oldest ones, I mean,
the real Scandinavian place names,

617
00:40:42,238 --> 00:40:46,481
made out of two Scandinavian elements.

618
00:40:46,516 --> 00:40:48,470
A place name like Bricquebec

619
00:40:48,505 --> 00:40:53,371
is very typical of an original
place name for the first generation.

620
00:40:53,406 --> 00:40:59,053
Bricque is 'brekka', a slope,
and 'bec' is 'bekkr', a little brook.

621
00:40:59,088 --> 00:41:02,400
So Bricquebec is the
little brook down the slope.

622
00:41:02,435 --> 00:41:05,839
This is a very typical
Scandinavian name.

623
00:41:07,098 --> 00:41:11,610
Jean Renaud has identified only a
couple of hundred villages in Normandy

624
00:41:11,645 --> 00:41:13,924
with pure Scandinavian names

625
00:41:13,959 --> 00:41:16,410
compared with the thousands in England.

626
00:41:16,445 --> 00:41:19,638
So he believes that Viking settlers
can't have made a great impact

627
00:41:19,673 --> 00:41:22,063
on the genetic mix of Normandy.

628
00:41:22,098 --> 00:41:23,870
Therefore, the Norman army

629
00:41:23,905 --> 00:41:28,151
probably didn't bring much
Viking blood to England in 1066.

630
00:41:28,956 --> 00:41:32,257
And our genetic survey
seems to support this.

631
00:41:32,292 --> 00:41:36,145
In the Channel Islands, which were
heavily colonised by the Normans,

632
00:41:36,180 --> 00:41:41,064
we found only a tiny hint of
possible Scandinavian ancestry.

633
00:41:43,279 --> 00:41:46,361
But in other ways, the Norman
conquest could still have had

634
00:41:46,396 --> 00:41:50,121
a major impact on the Vikings'
genetic legacy in England.

635
00:41:51,533 --> 00:41:56,307
In 1069, the people of York,
traditionally a Viking stronghold,

636
00:41:56,342 --> 00:41:59,652
attacked the Norman
garrison on the Castle Mound.

637
00:41:59,687 --> 00:42:02,991
They resented the heavy taxes
imposed by their new King William,

638
00:42:03,026 --> 00:42:05,513
and when Danish Vikings
offered assistance,

639
00:42:05,548 --> 00:42:09,308
simmering resentment
erupted into open rebellion.

640
00:42:11,587 --> 00:42:16,037
William's reply to the York
uprising was swift and vicious.

641
00:42:18,390 --> 00:42:21,372
The Vikings fled without a fight.

642
00:42:21,407 --> 00:42:24,376
And William's troops
stormed into town.

643
00:42:30,456 --> 00:42:34,363
King William was determined that
Viking sympathisers throughout the north

644
00:42:34,398 --> 00:42:37,761
would never again be a
threat to his authority.

645
00:42:39,789 --> 00:42:43,311
The fate of villages like Middleham,
30 miles from York,

646
00:42:43,346 --> 00:42:46,410
is recorded in the
famous Domesday Survey.

647
00:42:49,999 --> 00:42:52,714
The Domesday Book was written in 1085

648
00:42:52,749 --> 00:42:55,640
and lists the taxable value
of every town and hamlet

649
00:42:55,675 --> 00:42:58,776
before and after William's conquest.

650
00:43:00,284 --> 00:43:03,286
This is the entry for
the Manor of Middleham.

651
00:43:04,387 --> 00:43:09,169
<i>"In Middleham, three ploughs possible.
Gilpatrick had a manor there</i>

652
00:43:09,204 --> 00:43:13,361
<i>"valued before 1066,
20 shillings.</i>

653
00:43:13,396 --> 00:43:17,259
<i>"Now Ribald has it waste."</i>

654
00:43:17,294 --> 00:43:23,046
So, before 1066, Middleham had
been a relatively prosperous hamlet

655
00:43:23,081 --> 00:43:27,547
owned by a Dane called Gilpatrick,
presumably a Viking settler.

656
00:43:27,582 --> 00:43:31,550
But in 1069, William's men
came along, turfed him out,

657
00:43:31,585 --> 00:43:36,058
and so comprehensively destroyed
the place that 16 years later,

658
00:43:36,093 --> 00:43:37,900
by the time of the Domesday Survey,

659
00:43:37,935 --> 00:43:42,165
there wasn't a single acre
of land here being cultivated.

660
00:43:45,263 --> 00:43:48,373
William's troops swept
through the land.

661
00:43:50,378 --> 00:43:54,624
Families fled south to sell
themselves into slavery.

662
00:43:54,659 --> 00:43:56,334
It was a devastating blow

663
00:43:56,369 --> 00:43:59,702
to the descendants of
Danish Vikings in the north.

664
00:44:01,659 --> 00:44:04,551
The Norman campaign of 1069

665
00:44:04,586 --> 00:44:07,886
was a savage attack on the
civilian population of England.

666
00:44:07,921 --> 00:44:09,472
And many of the villages destroyed

667
00:44:09,507 --> 00:44:13,509
were just the sort of places where
the Danish Vikings would have settled.

668
00:44:13,544 --> 00:44:16,894
And this came on top of
the St Brice's Day Massacre,

669
00:44:16,929 --> 00:44:19,327
another mass-slaughter of
Danish immigrants in England

670
00:44:19,362 --> 00:44:22,074
that had taken place 70 years earlier.

671
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:29,525
So the story of the Vikings in England
raises many fascinating questions.

672
00:44:30,652 --> 00:44:34,336
Was there ever a mass
settlement of Viking peasants?

673
00:44:34,371 --> 00:44:38,733
And how many of the settlers
survived the subsequent persecutions?

674
00:44:38,768 --> 00:44:42,585
We'd hoped our genetic survey
might help solve these mysteries.

675
00:44:42,620 --> 00:44:46,948
But we knew that identifying
the descendants of Danish Vikings

676
00:44:46,983 --> 00:44:48,927
might be very difficult.

677
00:44:48,962 --> 00:44:51,405
It turned out to be impossible.

678
00:44:52,374 --> 00:44:56,099
The Danish Vikings came from
virtually the same population stock

679
00:44:56,134 --> 00:44:57,558
around north Germany

680
00:44:57,593 --> 00:45:02,047
as the Angles and Saxons who'd
invaded Britain 400 years earlier.

681
00:45:02,082 --> 00:45:05,294
Disappointingly, our survey
revealed that their chromosome types

682
00:45:05,329 --> 00:45:07,895
are too similar to
allow us to say anything

683
00:45:07,930 --> 00:45:11,151
about where Danish Vikings
settled in England.

684
00:45:11,186 --> 00:45:14,656
But when we looked at all these
continental invaders as a single group

685
00:45:14,691 --> 00:45:16,996
we saw some surprising results.

686
00:45:17,031 --> 00:45:21,443
Curiously, in England, we found that a
higher proportion of people in the north

687
00:45:21,478 --> 00:45:25,344
are descended from these invaders
that along the south coast.

688
00:45:25,379 --> 00:45:28,562
David, what's the picture
for the whole of England, then?

689
00:45:28,597 --> 00:45:32,178
Well, one thing that really stands out

690
00:45:32,213 --> 00:45:35,205
is that there's a little
bit of everything everywhere.

691
00:45:35,240 --> 00:45:40,218
So, we don't see really sharp
differences from one place to another.

692
00:45:40,253 --> 00:45:42,218
Things are just graded.

693
00:45:42,253 --> 00:45:45,165
We can see small differences
but not sharp differences

694
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,159
so there's really been
a great deal of mixing.

695
00:45:47,194 --> 00:45:48,774
Is that the same in Scotland as well?

696
00:45:48,809 --> 00:45:50,908
Well, in fact, it is similar because

697
00:45:50,943 --> 00:45:56,064
in the coastal sites in
southern England that we looked at

698
00:45:56,099 --> 00:45:59,973
we estimated an indigenous
component there that's very similar

699
00:46:00,008 --> 00:46:02,212
to what we estimated for Scotland.

700
00:46:02,247 --> 00:46:06,428
So we found the highest concentration
of the continental invaders' DNA

701
00:46:06,463 --> 00:46:07,999
in northern England.

702
00:46:08,034 --> 00:46:11,466
But surprisingly, mainland Scotland
had about the same percentage

703
00:46:11,501 --> 00:46:14,626
of German and Danish descendants
as southern England.

704
00:46:14,661 --> 00:46:18,645
Only in central Ireland and
Wales did we we find populations

705
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:22,887
almost entirely descended
from ancient Brittons or Celts.

706
00:46:22,922 --> 00:46:25,319
Along the northern sea road,

707
00:46:25,354 --> 00:46:27,018
there's a different picture.

708
00:46:27,053 --> 00:46:29,540
From Shetland all the
way down to Cumbria,

709
00:46:29,575 --> 00:46:33,050
we found strong signs
of Norwegian ancestry.

710
00:46:33,085 --> 00:46:37,174
There can be no doubt these
were the lands of the Vikings.

711
00:46:37,209 --> 00:46:41,749
So, David, do you think that you found
all the Vikings in the British Isles?

712
00:46:41,784 --> 00:46:43,889
Well, we certainly haven't
found all the Vikings.

713
00:46:43,924 --> 00:46:46,219
And, in fact, it's not really
the right way to look at it

714
00:46:46,254 --> 00:46:49,274
because, what we're doing is
looking at just the Y chromosome,

715
00:46:49,309 --> 00:46:54,009
and we can say something about the
origins of sets of Y chromosomes.

716
00:46:54,044 --> 00:46:57,386
However, that doesn't tell us
about the rest of the genetic makeup

717
00:46:57,421 --> 00:46:59,249
of the individuals that we looked at.

718
00:46:59,284 --> 00:47:01,261
And, in fact, in the case of the Vikings,

719
00:47:01,296 --> 00:47:04,332
they spread so far and wide that
I wouldn't be at all surprised

720
00:47:04,367 --> 00:47:07,378
if they made genetic contributions...
in fact, I'm sure they did,

721
00:47:07,413 --> 00:47:09,480
to peoples in all sorts of places.

722
00:47:09,515 --> 00:47:13,275
The Vikings in the Middle East, perhaps
the Vikings even made contributions

723
00:47:13,310 --> 00:47:17,894
to, say, the Caribbean, trough
British presence in the Caribbean.

724
00:47:17,929 --> 00:47:20,085
So, in fact, I would suspect that

725
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:23,744
there are Norwegian and
Danish genetic contributions

726
00:47:23,779 --> 00:47:27,707
running through lots and lots
of people in the British Isles.

727
00:47:27,742 --> 00:47:30,384
So, individually, we're
all a wonderful mixture

728
00:47:30,419 --> 00:47:32,949
and, as a nation, we're a
wonderful mixture as well.

729
00:47:32,984 --> 00:47:34,290
That's exactly it.

730
00:47:37,909 --> 00:47:42,704
For nearly 300 years, the Vikings
terrorised northern Europe.

731
00:47:42,739 --> 00:47:45,570
With their longships,
they conquered kingdoms

732
00:47:45,605 --> 00:47:49,907
and opened up trade routes stretching
from the Arctic to the Middle East.

733
00:47:55,183 --> 00:47:59,624
But then they vanished into
the shadows of Dark Age history.

734
00:48:01,962 --> 00:48:07,577
Now, at last, archaeological discoveries
combined with new scientific techniques

735
00:48:07,612 --> 00:48:11,224
are helping to reveal the
true story of the Vikings.

736
00:48:12,380 --> 00:48:17,453
I grew up thinking of the Vikings as a
brief, violent episode in our history.

737
00:48:17,488 --> 00:48:20,609
Marauding invaders that we
fought off and sent home.

738
00:48:20,644 --> 00:48:23,539
But now we know that they
didn't just sail away.

739
00:48:23,574 --> 00:48:25,594
They stayed and became an integral part

740
00:48:25,629 --> 00:48:28,420
of the rich genetic
mix of the population.

741
00:48:29,341 --> 00:48:33,970
And a thousand years later, many of
us still have flowing through our veins

742
00:48:34,005 --> 00:48:37,325
a little of the blood of the Vikings.

743
00:48:39,326 --> 00:48:42,826
Transcription by Fry.