Discover 3

“Because I deal with ‘just’ words and sometimes

pictures, scientists don’t think the work is as

rigorous as theirs,” says Jesch, adding that, as

someone who studies languages and literature,

she follows scientists’ work but doesn’t count

herself among them.

“These scientific advances are very exciting,”

she says, “and shed light on the past, but you

are doing historical inquiry; you need to include

archaeology and the study of language and texts.

The geneticists wouldn’t even be asking these

questions if archaeologists and historians hadn’t

already considered them.”

The continuing controversy over Bj 581

illustrates a larger issue for DNA-driven research:

how to resolve contradictions between results

of genomic research and evidence from more

traditional disciplines.

Danelaw(lessness)

Beginning in the ninth century and continuing for

much of the Viking Age, a large swath of what’s

now England was under the Danelaw: the rule

of the Danes, specifically Danish Vikings. Even

today, Colby, Skeyton and dozens of other English

villages have place names derived from Old Norse.

In 2015 in Nature, researchers published results

from the People of the British Isles (PoBI) project,

which sought to map the modern population’s

genetic makeup in unprecedented fine scale. The

project had collected genetic samples from more

than 2,000 people living in the same rural areas

that their grandparents had called home. The idea

was to collect DNA from geographically stable

populations to find clusters of genetic similarities

that predated the post-Industrial Revolution world

of heightened mobility. And the team did find 17

of these clusters.

Most of the paper’s conclusions were not

surprising, but one became a lightning rod:

There was no obvious genetic evidence of Danish

occupation, suggesting “relatively limited” Danish

Viking influence. For many archaeologists and

historians, the finding seemed to flout their

extensive research documenting a substantial and

long-term Danish Viking presence, in the Danelaw

area and beyond.

In late 2016, University of Bergen geneticist

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JAY SMITH

Scandinavian

Sojourns

Viking influence expanded

as traders and raiders typically

followed coasts and riverways

across much of Europe and beyond.

Eighth century

Ninth century

10th century

11th century

Subject to frequent

Viking raids