The genetic history of Scandinavia from the Roman Iron Age to the present
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Ricardo Rodríguez-Varela Kristjan HS Moore S Sunna Ebenesersdóttir Gulsah Merve Kilinc Anna Kjellström Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay Clara Alfsdotter Birgitta Berglund Loey Alrawi Natalija Kashuba Verónica Sobrado Vendela Kempe Lagerholm Edmund Gilbert Gianpiero L Cavalleri Eivind Hovig Ingrid Kockum Tomas Olsson Lars Alfredsson Thomas F Hansen Thomas Werge Arielle R Munters Carolina Bernhardsson Birgitte Skar Axel Christophersen Gordon Turner-Walker Shyam Gopalakrishnan Eva Daskalaki Ayça Omrak Patxi Pérez-Ramallo Pontus Skoglund Linus Girdland-Flink Fredrik Gunnarsson Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson M Thomas P Gilbert Kerstin Lidén Mattias Jakobsson Lars Einarsson Helena Victor Maja Krzewińska Torun Zachrisson Jan Storå Kári Stefánsson Agnar Helgason Anders Götherström Toggle all authors (44)
Abstract
We investigate a 2,000-year genetic transect through Scandinavia spanning the Iron Age to the present, based on 48 new and 249 published ancient genomes and genotypes from 16,638 modern individuals. We find regional variation in the timing and magnitude of gene flow from three sources: the eastern Baltic, the British-Irish Isles, and southern Europe. British-Irish ancestry was widespread in Scandinavia from the Viking period, whereas eastern Baltic ancestry is more localized to Gotland and central Sweden. In some regions, a drop in current levels of external ancestry suggests that ancient immigrants contributed proportionately less to the modern Scandinavian gene pool than indicated by the ancestry of genomes from the Viking and Medieval periods. Finally, we show that a north-south genetic cline that characterizes modern Scandinavians is mainly due to the differential levels of Uralic ancestry and that this cline existed in the Viking Age and possibly earlier.
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Journal Cell
Volume 186
Issue number 1
Pages 32-46.e19
Available online
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Publisher website (DOI) 10.1016/j.cell.2022.11.024
Europe PubMed Central 36608656
Pubmed 36608656
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