Authentic Viking DNA From 1,000-Year-Old Skeletons

FiReaNGeL writes "Scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers. Analysis of DNA from the remains of ancient humans provides valuable insights into such important questions as the origin of genetic diseases, migration patterns of our forefathers and tribal and family patterns. Using freshly sampled material from ten Viking skeletons from around AD 1,000, from a non-Christian burial site on the Danish island of Funen, Dissing and colleagues showed that it is indeed possible to retrieve authentic DNA from ancient humans."

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Samples' mtDNA haplogroups

[swid27]

For the lazy, the samples found were:

• 5 in Haplogroup H;
• 1 in Haplogroup K;
• 1 in Haplogroup I;
• 1 in Haplogroup T2;
• 1 in Haplogroup U5a1a;
• 1 in Haplogroup X2c;

All of those are found in Europe to varying degrees; the only item of note is that the K and one of the H samples had no exact matches when compared to a database containing over 15,000 mtDNA sequences.