I am not sure why they used this title for this study as that is not the important part. We already have known Viking was a job description, thats been known for hundreds of years. We also knew that viking settlement was widespread. This study used DNA sequencing to settle the debate on if vikings from certain areas went to certain areas, and if they mixed. It seems to confirm the theory that the norse did NOT mix, and traded, raided and settled different areas separately.
It is linguistically possible that "viking" was simply a self-referential ethnonym, with the first part meaning "home" or "village".<p><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/wey%E1%B8%B1-" rel="nofollow">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...</a><p>Compare Ancient Greek [w]oikos, and all the various ves, vas, wieś, which can be found all over Eastern Europe.
It's so bizarre to me when North Americans proudly claim "Viking ancestry", rather than Scandinavian. Like, beyond it not being an ethnicity, you're identifying specifically with violent raiders who killed peaceful monks, even if that's romanticized by media. It's like proudly claiming "pirate" or perhaps more poignantly in current times "ICE agent ancestry".
> rather than Scandinavian<p>Strange, being in North America, I've yet to meet anyone identify themself as having viking blood, but we refer to Scandinavians as being of viking ancestry all the time.
I grew up in Minnesota and have literally never heard anyone ever say this about me or any other person of Scandinavian origin.
It's common among usian nazis of the David Lane strain, and on Facebook you can find quite a lot of "viking" groups mainly populated by usian dinguses, some of whom claim some scandinavian ancestor or other.
Never heard someone saying they were Vikings tbh.
It’s called the power of branding.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone IRL say they have viking ancestors.<p>Yearning for Valhalla is more a specific type of extremely online poster / podcast bro / FBI director kind of behavior.
Much like pirates and gangsters, Vikings are cool if you consider them from an aesthetic as opposed to moralistic perspective. Everyone has evil ancestors, but some of them were cool.
next will be combined "genitscope" readings
"astrogenetics", the "pro" reading will include your chart including planet 10
Pfft, ICE agents wish they were pirates.<p>In other parts of the world, plenty of people romanticize ancestry with Ghenghis Khan too.<p>Everyone loves being seen to be on the ‘winning’ side sometimes, (and there is always a counter-culture minority!) and when sufficiently remote in time, no one is going to really ‘feel’ the atrocities. Then it’s all about marketing and current social whims.<p>If the Nazi’s won, the current 80/20 pro/anti ratio would be flipped no question.<p>You don’t have to go very far back in history to see that humans have some pretty dark tendencies.
> Like, beyond the point made by the article, you're identifying with violent raiders who killed peaceful monks, even if that's romanticized by media. It's like proudly claiming "pirate" or perhaps more poignantly in current times "ICE agent ancestry".<p>Mentioning "vikings" and "pirates" and "ICE agents" is fine.<p>Why the political correctness though?<p>There has to be for everyone so let's also use another example... And I know I'm going to be downvoted (double standards are wonderful).<p>The mayor of NY, Mamdani, said publicly that it was now time for american to "learn about the life of Muhammad". Many muslims proudly name their first born son after their prophet. Shall I list here the great deeds he did during his life? Owning sex slaves, engaging in slavery (of both white and black people: and the word "slave" comes from "slav" -- slavic people -- aka white people), slaughtering infidels, etc.<p>I encourage everybody to listen to the great words of the mayor of NYC and go buy a quran and read it to learn about the life of Muhammad, so they can then make up their mind about whether people naming their sons Muhammad should be proud or not.<p>Literally the most common name in the world is the name of a pedophile (of course due to the fact that lying to infidels is permitted, some are going to dispute the age of the youngest of his many wives he had sex with but nobody contests that he had sex slaves and that he was killing infidels). And that's the most common name in the world.<p>> Like, beyond it not being an ethnicity, you're identifying specifically with violent raiders who killed peaceful monks, even if that's romanticized by media.<p>Oh I fully agree.<p>The following is true too:<p>"Like, beyond it not being an ethnicity, you're identifying specifically with violent patriarcal human traffickers [who trafficked way more people, for way more centuries, than europeans ever did] who killed peaceful people, raped their wives and daughters, enslaved them, ... even if that's <i>totally</i> romanticized by media."<p>But somehow that's acceptable because? What exactly?
You won't be downvoted because of double-standards. You'll be downvoted because this is a hard tangent from the current discussion. I suspect you know that and decide to pre-emptively deflect the reason so as to appear the victim.
Please don't derail this discussion with unrelated political ragebait.
<i>Why the political correctness though?</i><p>What does this even mean?
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The answer is - it's both. There's also parallels in archers in Europe from the longbow period: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Training" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Training</a> You can tell who was a professional archer by looking at their skeleton, and so naturally families who had bodies with more readily adaptable skeletons typically became archers. This married the morphology of an archer to social status and family line.
It's safe to say that 100% of the Northmen who invaded England in 1066 shared that same "job description", however.
Never trust the headline. From the article:<p>> And comparing DNA and archaeology at individual sites suggests that <i>for some</i> in the Viking bands, "Viking" was a job description, not a matter of heredity.
I feel like this is common in most (at least western) empires. Vikings from Sweden would take over territory as far as Poland or even Italy and recruit new soldiers. Eventually some of them would end up in warrior style graves. What's actually more interesting in my mind is that they didn't bring people back, and so the gene pool in Sweden remained more or less unchanged
This piece seems a little confused about what it’s actually reporting on.<p>It’s well known, to the point of near-cliche, that the word “Viking” didn’t refer to a nationality or ethnicity. It meant something akin to “raider”. The ethnic group is usually referred to as the Norse, at least until they start differentiating into the modern nationalities of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese.<p>The actual finding here seems to be the discovery of the remains of some Viking raiders who weren’t ethnically Norse. Fair enough. There are also examples of Norse populations assimilating into other cultures, such as the Normans and Rus. Likewise, the traditionally Norse Varangian Guard accepted many Anglo-Saxon warriors whose lords didn’t survive the Norman conquest. So it’s not too surprising that someone of non-Nordic descent might be accepted into a Viking warband.
The OG founders.
It was both.
I suspect this is an example of us seeing history through a mdoern lens and making false assumptions. For example, the idea that a nation project or an empire is genetically homogenous is a relatively modern concept. The truth is that empires incorporated various ethnic groups and those ethnic groups survived for long periods of time.<p>The Roman Empire at times extended all the way from England to the Persian Gulf. It included various Celtic people, North Africans, people from the Balkans, Turkic people and people from the Middle East. At no point did these people become ethnically homogenous but they all very much Romanized.<p>The British Empire spanned the globe.<p>In more modern times the Austro-Hungarian Empire included a dozen or more ethnic groups and languages.<p>Would we describe being Roman, a Briton or an Austro-Hungarian as a "job"? I don't think so.
> Would we describe being Roman, a Briton or an Austro-Hungarian as a "job"? I don't think so.<p>I think this is the articles point. We would not consider being Roman a job, but we would consider being a Legionary a job.<p>The article is arguing “Viking” is more “Legionary” than “Roman.”
The entire point of the article is that they called themselves collectively Norsemen. Going 'viking' (raiding) was an activity done by 'vikings' (raiders).