Recent research into some skeletons (dated to c. 1000) from an unnamed churchyard site in Southeast Greenland suggests that their genetic profile is similar to that of the Icelanders, i.e. that they have some 'Celtic' genes. The article unfortunately doesn't give much detail (where the site is, how many skeletons were analysed, and so forth), but the interview with Jette Arneborg stresses that these Greenlanders were Norse in their culture, even if they had some Celtic genes (and she too suggests it was mainly the women who had that heritage). In other words, the Greenlanders came from Iceland. As we knew all along. For more information on research projects in Greenland, read
this summary.
Even if they were mostly female if they had a norse husband then have of the hid would be celtic.
ReplyDeleteDublin was the centre of the good old slave market in the viking world,so no surprise here . Also a Hiberno/Norse Kingdom developed during the 9th century which became powerful.
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