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Half of the inhabitants of the medieval Swedish city turned out to be migrants
Ekaterina Rusakova, N+1
Eight of the 16 residents of the Swedish city of Sigtuna, who lived in the Viking age and whose remains were analyzed by researchers, turned out to be visitors, according to Current Biology. Some of them were "near" migrants and came from other regions of Scandinavia, while the rest grew up on the territory of modern Lithuania, Ukraine and The British Isles. Two people turned out to be second-generation immigrants.
The Viking Age is the period from the VIII to XI centuries, when the inhabitants of Scandinavia established trade relations with other European states, and often conquered and plundered them; settled Iceland and Greenland and reached North America. At that time, cities appeared in Scandinavia itself, some of which still exist today. The oldest of them was the city Sigtuna, which is located on the shore of Lake Malaren, connected to the Baltic Sea, and is now part of the Stockholm conglomeration. Presumably, the city was founded at the end of the X century and for 250 years was one of the most important political, commercial and religious centers. There was a royal residence in the city and the first Swedish coin was minted here around the 990s. At the end of the XII century, the city was plundered by Baltic pirates, who probably appeared from the territory of modern Karelia, Latvia and Estonia. However, life in the city has not stopped. Sigtuna lost its importance in the XIII century, when, as a result of the post-glacial rise of the land, the shipping routes to the city became shallow.
During the heyday of the city there were several Christian cemeteries. They turned out to be an important find not only for archaeologists, but also for geneticists. Unlike Christians, pagan Vikings most often burned their dead, so it was impossible to extract DNA from their remains. Christian cemeteries have preserved remains whose DNA could be isolated and analyzed. Researchers led by Anna Kjellström from Stockholm University decided to try to understand how mobile the residents of Sigtuna were. Scientists were well aware that the inhabitants of Scandinavia traveled to Europe in the Middle Ages, but it was unclear how many Europeans came to Scandinavia.
To find out, the researchers isolated DNA from the remains of 23 people (16 men and nine women) who lived in the X-XII centuries, and sequenced the complete sequences of their genomes. As a reference, scientists used genome sequences of representatives of 21 European populations and 13 Europeans who lived in the Middle Ages on the territory of modern England, Sweden, Hungary and Montenegro. In addition, scientists have determined the ratio of strontium isotopes in the tooth enamel of 16 of them. And only the "isotopic signature" of strontium could be determined in the remains of 15 more people. Strontium serves as a good marker of human mobility. Its isotopes accumulate in a person's tooth enamel during its formation and by their ratio it is possible to determine where he grew up.
Genetic data showed that some of the 23 people came to Sigtuna from other regions of Scandinavia, and some from afar – from the British Isles, the territory of modern Lithuania, Ukraine, northern Germany and northern Russia. Half of the residents of the city, who managed to determine both the "isotopic signature" and the genome sequence, turned out to be visitors. Some of them were second–generation immigrants - their isotope ratio was local, and genetically they belonged to other populations. Judging by the isotopic signature alone, 70 percent of women and 44 percent of men came to Sigtuna from other places.
Earlier, researchers found that the Vikings were engaged in maritime trade at the beginning of the VIII century, several decades before the raids on other European states. Presumably, this is how they gained navigation skills, which later came in handy during raids.
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