Mixed ancestry of Europeans who settled Iceland and Greenland: 3D geometric-morphometric analyses of cranial base shape

Debate surrounds the identity of the Europeans who settled Iceland and Greenland in the early medieval period. Historical sources record settlers travelling from Norway to Iceland and then Greenland, but recent analyses of biological data suggest that some settlers had British and Irish ancestry. He...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antiquity
Main Authors: Plomp, Kimberly A., Dobney, Keith, Gestsdóttir, Hildur, Collard, Mark
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Antiquity Publications 2023
Subjects:
General Arts and Humanities
Archeology
Greenland
Norway
greenlandic
Iceland
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.131
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003598X2300131X
Description
Summary:Debate surrounds the identity of the Europeans who settled Iceland and Greenland in the early medieval period. Historical sources record settlers travelling from Norway to Iceland and then Greenland, but recent analyses of biological data suggest that some settlers had British and Irish ancestry. Here, the authors test these hypotheses with 3D-shape analyses of human crania from Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland, and one of the Norse colonies in Greenland. Results suggest that some 63 per cent of the ancestry of the Greenlandic individuals can be traced to Britain and Ireland and 37 per cent to Scandinavia. These findings add further weight to the idea that the European settlers who colonised Iceland and later Greenland were of mixed ancestry.

Similar Items