For a long time, scientists believed that Iceland and the Faroe Islands had been colonized by similar Nordic peoples: waves of Vikings coming in particular from Norway, a country located respectively 1,450 kilometers and 560 kilometers from these two islands. A new study, published on November 25, 2024 in the journal Frontiers in Genetics, shows a much more complex reality.
To carry out this analysis, the researchers examined twelve genetic markers in 139 men from the Faroe Islands and compared them to samples of 412 men from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Ireland. The results showed that people from the Faroe Islands had genetic markers from various regions of Scandinavia, while Icelanders’ genetic heritage was much more homogeneous, coming from less dispersed geographic areas.
In other words, the inhabitants of the two islands do not share as close a genetic heritage as one might have thought, proof of distinct colonization by the Vikings.
Migration from all over Scandinavia
These findings shed new light on several historical texts, notably the Faroese Saga, written around 800 years ago. This story tells of the settlement of Grímur Kamban, a Viking chieftain, in the Faroe Islands around 1,200 or 1,300 years ago, reports Discover Magazine.
The genetic analysis carried out in this new study suggests that Grímur’s followers came from various Scandinavian regions, rather than a single geographic area, and that the Vikings who settled Iceland were genetically distinct from those in the Faroe Islands, despite their geographical proximity.
These new discoveries are leading historians to rethink part of the history of Viking settlement in the region, more than a millennium ago. Far from being a…
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