Ancient DNA reveals a new story about European languages and Vikings
Publications in Nature
Combined with linguistics and archaeology, a DNA study of thousands of old skeletons has yielded a wealth of insights: European languages spread differently than previously thought, Vikings came from Northern Germany, and Celtic originated from Central Europe.
In two publications in Nature, an international research team led by Leiden University and the University of Copenhagen answers questions about language that have been asked for over a century: Where do European languages come from, and how did one language replace another? What stands out is the research method: the researchers used DNA analysis of ancient skeletons, a method that has existed for a decade and has opened up an entirely new avenue of research.
DNA, linguistics and archaeology
Geneticists analysed the DNA of 712 ancient humans and combined the data with over 4,000 previously published DNA profiles from throughout Eurasia. This enabled them to map population flows in Europe. DNA alone cannot reveal which language people spoke. Combined with linguistic and archaeological evidence, however, the results shed new light on the origins of Celtic (Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic) and Germanic languages (including English, Dutch, Frisian and Scandinavian languages).
Germanic languages
Researchers had long thought that Germanic was a direct descendant of the language spoken by the first steppe migrants who came to Scandinavia 5,000 years ago from what is now Ukraine and South Russia.
The new research shows that another group arrived in Sweden 800 years after the steppe migrants, probably from what are now the Baltic States. This group spread across Scandinavia within a few centuries, reaching present-day Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Great Britain and Northern Italy 1,700 years ago. The researchers hypothesise that this second wave of migrants brought the language that would later become Germanic.
‘It was a completely unexpected discovery’, says linguist Guus Kroonen from Leiden University. ‘No one had seen this coming. It shows that Germanic may have been present in Northern Europe hundreds of years later than previously thought. This rewrites the history of language.’
Vikings from Northern Germany
The DNA also led to another surprising discovery: the ancestors of the Vikings were not originally from Scandinavia. Around 1,500 years ago, a large-scale migration saw groups of people move from Northern Germany back to Denmark and Southern Sweden, where they largely replaced the local population.
This migration was not anticipated by archaeologists or linguists, but it coincides with the linguistically documented emergence of Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. The population in Norway, by contrast, appears to have remained largely unchanged. DNA evidence indicates that many Danish and Swedish Vikings had common roots with the Anglo-Saxons who settled in England, which may explain why the two groups spoke closely related languages and shared a common artistic tradition.
Celtic from Central Europe
The DNA revealed a third secret: the origins of Celtic. Once one of the most widely spoken languages in Europe, it was displaced by Germanic, which arrived from the north, and Latin, which arrived from the south. Today, it is only spoken in the far west of the continent. Its origins have long been the subject of debate: one theory holds that the language developed along the Atlantic coast from Indo-European, whereas another traces its roots to Central Europe.
The latter theory is now supported by DNA evidence, with Celtic believed to have spread from the Czech Republic towards France, Great Britain, Ireland, Spain and Italy.
‘It’s incredible that DNA research is helping us answer centuries-old questions about language’, says Kroonen. ‘The languages we speak and the cultures we identify with today were shaped by prehistoric events.’
Publicaties in Nature
The research, led by Leiden University and the University of Copenhagen, is featured in two separate articles in Nature: