What is the Genetic Make Up Of Scandinavia

In 2023, a team of experts that included geneticists, archaeologists and historians published a paper detailing the genetic history of Scandinavia from the Roman Iron Age to the present. The researchers found that, contrary to popular belief, Scandinavia wasn't and isn't an isolated land at the edges of the European continent, but that it, like the rest of Europe, is characterised by the intermixing of different distinct population groups over the course of the last two millennia. The populations which influenced the genetic makeup of Scandinavia can be identified with Northern Scandinavians, which were and to some degree still are Uralic-speaking, Southern Scandinavians, which are Germanic-speaking, British and Irish groups, which at the time of their arrival in Scandinavia probably still largely spoke Celtic languages, people from the Eastern Baltic who probably spoke Baltic languages and people from Southwestern Europe. Although most of Scandinavia is Germanic-speaking today, with only a small minority of Sami still speaking Uralic languages in the North, individuals in Northern Scandinavia still carry relatively large amounts of admixture that can be associated with the original Uralic-speaking populations, peaking at over 75% in the northern most regions of Norway and reaching up to 50% in Northern Sweden. This suggests that the Uralic groups of Northern Scandinavia were gradually assimilated by Southern Germanic-speaking groups rather than outright displaced. This admixture component gradually decreases towards the south and west of Scandinavia. Similarly to the Uralic component, British and Irish ancestry was also widespread throughout Scandinavia during the Viking Age, but was particularly concentrated on the west coast of modern Norway. Interestingly, some examples of individuals with this admixture are found during the time of the Anglo-Saxon migrations already, indicating a certain degree of backflow of migrants from Britain back to Scandinavia during this period. The effect of this backflow wasn't nearly as pronounced as the influx of British and Irish genes during the Viking Age however, suggesting a smaller total amount of migrants entering Scandinavia from Britain and Ireland at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migrations. This admixture component is still present in modern Scandinavians, particularly in Western Scandinavia, but to a lesser degree than in the Viking Age. Similarly, admixture from the Eastern Baltic was quite prominent in individuals on Gotland and central Sweden during the Viking Age, but has since decreased and is relatively low in modern Swedes. Interestingly, the admixture from Britain and Ireland seems to have entered Scandinavia during the early Viking Age, whereas most of the admixture from the Baltic arrived during the late Viking Age, corresponding to an earlier focus Both of these admixtures seem to have been carried into Scandinavia largely by females. This could be either due to slaves being taken on raids or due to alliances between local and foreign elites. For both cases, possible evidence was found in the archaeological record. Apart from these influences from neighbouring regions, admixture from southwestern Europe could also be found in Scandinavia during the Viking Age, particularly in Denmark, southern Sweden and Norway. Just like the other admixture components, this one markedly decreased after the Viking Age as well. Because of the decrease of non-Scandinavian ancestry, modern Scandinavians are still mostly of local Scandinavian, split into southern Germanic and northern Uralic descent, with some lingering genetic influence from Britain and Ireland in the west and eastern Baltic in the east, although the Baltic influence seems to be of a much lesser magnitude. The reason for the relatively stark decline in these foreign admixture components after the Viking Age is not entirely clear, but it could be due to over-representation in the ancient samples or due to social pressures which led to selective marriages in favour of people with local ancestry instead of foreigners. Interestingly, this means that modern Scandinavians appear less genetically diverse than their Viking Age ancestors, but both they and their modern counterparts differ substantially from the pre-Viking Age inhabitants of the which, according to the study's authors, were much closer to Neolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers than any modern European population. These hunter-gatherer-like ancient Scandinavians didn't carry any Uralic ancestry either, but samples from the Viking Age did. This would suggest that Uralic populations entered Scandinavia from the north at some point before or during the Viking Age. Taken together, this means that the gene flow from outside sources before and during the Viking Age into Scandinavia altered the genetic makeup of the region substantially, making Scandinavians more similar to other Europeans in the process, particularly northwestern Europeans even though they are not quite as genetically diverse as their Viking Age ancestors were. The genetic affinity of modern Scandinavians to other northwestern Europeans is shown by a PCA plot by the study's authors displaying some degree of overlap with modern Irish, English and German populations. The plot also shows that despite the relatively strong influence in the north, modern Scandinavians appear still genetically distinct from Finns. And there you have it, the genetic makeup of Scandinavia. If you enjoyed the video, please consider liking and subscribing and let me know your thoughts on this study in the comments below. Please also let me know if you'd like to see more of these kinds of videos where I basically present the results of a singular study as I had done previously in my video on the genetic makeup of Britain and Ireland. I personally would quite like to tackle a study about the genetic history of Poland at some point in the next few weeks, so if that sounds interesting to you, make sure to stick around. Before that, however, I would like to work on something different, more like the previous video about the cultural makeup of Germany. My academic background is primarily in ancient history and not in genetics, so I feel more comfortable talking about that than about genetics. But anyway, I'm just rambling at this point. Thank you so much for watching and for all your support in the last few weeks. The channel is growing much faster than I expected and for that I'd like to thank you. I hope that you enjoy the content that's coming and I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next one. Until then, have a good one. Bye-bye.