All language subtitles for BBC - Blood.Of The Vikings - 5 - Last Of The.Vikings

Tonight, on Blood of the Vikings, I
follow the events of 1066 that finally

brought the Viking Age to a bloody end.

Did this man die defending York against
a great Viking warlord?

Could these be the bones of warriors
from the last Viking army?

And where can we find the Vikings'
genetic legacy in the British Isles

Tonight, in the last programme of the
series, we'll have the final result of

biggest ever genetic survey to be
carried out in the British Isles,

Viking blood in the population today.

We're in West Stoke, not far from
Cambridge, where archaeologists have

reconstructed an entire Anglo -Saxon
village.

Using the results of the Blood of the
Vikings genetic survey, we're going to

and turn the clock back a thousand
years.

We want to find out what happened in
villages across the British Isles.

when the Vikings arrived.

We're hoping to answer questions which
have baffled archaeologists and

historians for centuries.

There are clues that some of the Viking
raiders settled down permanently over

here, but we want to find out how many
stayed and where they put down roots.

Joining me are some of the scientists
who've been conducting the genetic

and we'll also be talking to some of the
people who took part in it, including a

few who think they might be direct
descendants of Vikings.

But before we find out about the genetic
legacy of the Vikings, what do we know

about how the Viking Age in the British
Isles finally came to an end?

On 6th January 1066, the death of Edward
the Confessor, King of England, sparked

yet another battle for power.

Edward died without an heir or publicly
naming a successor.

So up stepped Harold Godwinson from one
of the most powerful Saxon families in

the land.

Only hours after Edward's body was laid
to rest at Westminster Abbey, Harold

seized the throne.

But the new king had powerful enemies
overseas who also had their eyes on the

English crown.

The first direct challenge would come
from the Viking king of Norway, the

Harald Hardrada.

Harald Hardrada was an ambitious ruler.

whose exploits earned him the name
Thunderbolt of the North.

His story is told here in Heimskringla,
a collection of Icelandic sagas that

record the history of the Norwegian
kings.

According to the sagas, at the age of
15, Harald fled Norway.

He made his way through Russia and
eventually across the Black Sea to

modern -day Istanbul.

Still in his teens, Harold became a
mercenary, fighting around the

for the Byzantine Emperor's elite force.

After ten years, he made a fortune and
headed home where he used his wealth to

raise an army and take the crown of
Norway.

For the next twenty years, he fought a
bloody war against the Danes before

turning his sights on an even bigger
prize.

Aged fifty, the Thunderbolt of the North
launched an attack on England.

In September 1066, a terrifying fight
appeared off the coast of Yorkshire.

Perhaps the greatest Viking fleet ever
seen, the chronicles tell of hundreds of

ships carrying thousands of warriors.

And somehow, the Vikings had managed to
keep all of their preparations secret.

Because when they arrived here at the
mouth of the Humber, King Harold of

England was 200 miles to the south.

Harold Hardrada's fleet made its way up
the River Ouse towards York.

Ten miles from the city, the Vikings
moored their ships and headed inland.

The English earls defending the city
gathered what troops they could and

out to Fulford to confront the Vikings.

The English fought to the bitter end.

but they were no match for Harold
Hardrada.

Fulford is now a suburb of York.

A few years ago, when a new riverside
development was being built, an ancient

burial ground was discovered.

Amongst the skeletons, were some that
showed signs of mutilation.

In this burial ground, we found quite a
number of skeletons, but one particular

group, close together, all of them had
injuries on the bodies. On this

particular individual, for example,
we've got evidence of a fierce combat,

something nasty, which left him marked
in many ways.

Someone has slashed at him with a sword
and cut deeply into the bone, right

through.

He's also been thrust through the
abdomen, perhaps with a spear.

Someone's gone hard in like that.

So this is someone who's been involved
in fierce combat, who's been hacked

who's suffered many wounds, and in that
combination, there's only one way he's

going to end up, and that's dead.

Almost every bone they looked at showed
signs of violent injury.

This is another femur, another thigh
bone, and you can see very clearly these

massive hacks in here which have done
considerable damage.

Here we've got someone who's perhaps
decapitated.

Here, someone who's actually had the top
of their skull virtually slide off.

To get a group like this suggests
they're the product of some major fight.

So we think that these are people who
were killed in the Battle of Salford,

September 1066.

And these could be people, victims of
that fight, who were taken back to one

the nearest Anglo -Saxon churches for
burial.

It was first blood to Harold Hardrada.

These men had been struck down defending
York, but now the Vikings would have to

face the full might of the English army.

After his great victory... Harold
Hardrada withdrew from York to await the

hostages and ransom money he'd been
promised.

In the afternoon of Monday, September
25th, just five days after the Battle of

Fulford, King Harold of England reached
the Viking camp at Stamford Bridge.

According to the chronicles, as he came
up over the brow of a hill, he saw the

Vikings camped out in the valley below.

Harold Hardrada, taken totally by
surprise by King Harold's lightning

march, only had about 20 minutes to
prepare for battle.

To reach the Vikings, the English had to
cross the river, and according to the

chronicles, the narrow bridge was held
by one ferocious Viking warrior.

It looked as if there was no way to
dislodge him until an English soldier

underneath the bridge and skewered him
from below.

Now, the real battle began.

The English were outnumbered, yet slowly
they wore down the invaders.

Until finally, Harald Hardrada himself
was killed.

But how had King Harald managed to
defeat one of the greatest of Viking

with an army that had just marched 200
miles?

Above all, it was the determination,
probably, to hang on to this kingdom

he'd only managed to win nine months
before.

He wasn't going to give that up early.

That's probably above all what inspired
him and his men to win what was an

amazing victory here at Stamford Bridge.

Stamford Bridge today is a peaceful
Yorkshire village.

Strangely, no traces of this legendary
battle have ever been found.

Despite all the carnage, not a single
bone or weapon have ever been unearthed

here.

But ten miles downriver... At a place
called Rickle, some intriguing finds

been made.

In 1956, a farmer dug up some skeletons.

And a few years ago, when the water
board were working down here, they found

even more.

In a series of excavations,
archaeologists have unearthed more than

skeletons.

Perhaps as many as 600 bodies were
buried here.

apparently all at the same time.

Who were these people?

And why are they here, miles from the
nearest churchyard?

It does seem strange to find so many
burials out here in the middle of

But according to the chronicles, Rickle
is where the battered remnants of the

defeated Viking army retreated to their
ships moored on the River Ouse and fled

England.

Could this be the resting place of the
Viking dead from the Battle of Stamford

Bridge?

For years, the bones from Rickle were
left in the care of the York

Archaeological Trust.

They were a bit of a puzzle, and no -one
knew quite what to do with them.

We asked the York team to take another
look.

The first challenge was to establish
whether these people were locals.

Or Viking invaders?

Amazingly, thanks to a new forensic
technique, the answer might lie in their

teeth.

Teeth from six skulls were sent to the
British Geological Survey Laboratories

near Nottingham.

By analysing the enamel, it might be
possible to tell where their owners came

from.

When fragments of tooth are vaporised by
a powerful laser beam, oxygen is given

off.

Oxygen atoms can exist in two slightly
different forms, or isotopes, and the

relative amounts of these two isotopes
can reveal where a person grew up.

The isotopes in this man's teeth will
tell us about the rainwater he drank in

childhood.

And the mix of oxygen isotopes in
English rainwater is very different from

mix in Scandinavia.

As soon as the results of the tooth
analysis were ready, I went to find out

Paul Budd and the team had discovered.

So what we have on our diagram here is
these are the six individuals that we

looked at from Rickle. And on this scale
here, this is the oxygen isotope

composition of the drinking water that
they had in childhood.

But the interesting thing about it from
our point of view is that the sort of

values that you would get in the United
Kingdom would really cover the range

going from about something like minus 5,
minus 5 .5 in the far southwest of the

country.

through to the north -east of the
country, about minus 8 .5.

And that's what we've marked on here,
this minus 8 .5 here, this dashed line.

All of our people are significantly
lower numbers than that. They're in this

range about minus 9 to minus 11.

So you're saying that somewhere from the
British Isles would have to be above

that line? Exactly, yeah. So where do
these people come from, then?

We can have a look at that now.

This is a map showing the oxygen isotope
composition of rainwater as it's

falling across northwestern Europe
today.

Now, you remember the range that we had
for our people was something like minus

9 to minus 11.

Now, that's really putting us across
here in this band, going sort of across

from sort of central Europe to Baltic
Europe through Sweden and then

Scandinavia. Given that... what we know
about what went on at Rickle, it seems

to me that the most likely explanation
is that these people come from somewhere

in Norway.

Yes, but certainly the results are
consistent with that.

It's quite interesting, isn't it?
Because it's the history and the science

actually fit together.

Yeah, it's unusual. Not what I expected,
actually.

Wasn't it? No.

No, I must admit, when you first came to
me with the material, and the material

was undated, and, you know, I thought,
well, these will all come up with UK

values. It'd be typical for the Rickall
area, I thought, but no.

And were you really surprised? I was
very surprised, yeah.

The results of the tooth analysis are
very exciting, but they're not quite

enough on their own.

These are the six skulls whose teeth
were unlined. And we now know that all

these people grew up in Scandinavia.

So it looks like the bodies buried at
Rickle were Vikings.

But did they fight alongside Harold
Hardrada at Stamford Bridge?

The bones are mostly men's, but there
are also a few women and children.

Could they all be Vikings killed in
battle?

We needed to know how these people died.

If we were lucky, the bones might
provide the answer.

So we called in forensic pathologist Dr
Bob Stoddart.

Bob, do any of these bones show signs of
violent injury?

Yes, they do.

For example, this bone shows numerous
surface cuts at a variety of angles.

So the individual concerned had multiple
blows with a sharp

-edged weapon cutting across the muscle
blocks.

along his left leg.

This bone is a sacrum of an adult male.

And here is a wound that has been
produced by the tip of a sharp weapon,

as perhaps a sword.

So it's gone in just above the pubic
bone, probably gone through the bladder

rectum, into that.

So that bone is actually from...

In the back, but the wound has gone in
from the front.

Stabbed right through and into the bone?

Yes.

Remarkably, a quarter of the bones show
unmistakable signs of sword cuts and

stabbings. But what about the rest?

Could they too have died in battle?

Many of those victims are going to be
people who have suffered soft tissue

injuries and they've bled to death or
they've had some essential organ.

irredeemably damaged, but the bones may
not show any sign of that.

But what about the women and children
whose bones were found at Rickle? What

were they doing in a battle?

Well, it could be that the Viking army
included women and children to help cook

and care for the warriors.

After all, Harold Hardrada hadn't come
on a quick raid.

He was expecting a long campaign to
conquer England.

Thanks to this new research, I'm now
convinced that these bones are the long

-lost remains of Vikings who fought at
Stamford Bridge, fatally wounded in

battle or cut down as they fled to their
ships.

The defeat of Harold Hardrada was a
turning point.

The people buried here nearly 1 ,000
years ago, were part of the last great

Viking army to die fighting on English
soil.

Never again would Vikings attempt a full
-scale invasion of England.

For 250 years, marauding Vikings
terrorised the British Isles.

Thousands of them must have made the
voyage across the North Sea, and we know

that some of them stayed here.

The evidence comes from ancient
chronicles, from the Viking artefacts we

and from hundreds of place names of
Scandinavian origin.

But we've no idea of how many immigrants
there were and where exactly they

settled, which is why we commissioned a
survey of the British Isles, looking for

Viking blood in the people today.

We've been working with scientists from
University College London, led by

Professor David Goldstein.

Over the last year, they've collected
DNA samples from nearly 2 ,000 men in

Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia.

Look at either side of your cheek, yes.

Giving a DNA sample mostly meant just
scraping a few skin cells from the

of the mouth, but we were also helped by
blood donor centres and dentists.

Only men were sampled, but the
scientists were studying the Y

only men have.

because it changes very little over the
generations.

The Y chromosome my son Barnaby
inherited from me was handed down almost

unchanged from my father and from his
father before him and so on.

The Y chromosome provides a direct link
to the past.

The team's first task was to collect
samples from Scandinavia.

They looked at the Y chromosomes of
males most likely to be descended from

Vikings.

and found distinctive genetic markers.

They then looked for these markers in
the Y chromosomes of British men.

Unfortunately, these markers won't
identify Viking ancestry on an

basis, but the proportion of people with
Scandinavian markers on their Y

chromosomes will tell us about the
overall amount of Viking ancestry in

area.

In all, we looked at more than 30 sites
across the British Isles.

The team focused on small towns where
historically there's been little

migration, and we only sampled men who
could trace their male line back at

two generations in the same area.

How many generations can you trace your
male line? 17.

17?

So the proportion of Scandinavian Y
chromosomes in the modern population of

area should indicate the scale of the
original Viking settlement.

Joining us here at Stowe, we've got
Professor David Goldstein, who was in

of the entire project, and Jim Wilson,
Neil Bradman and Julia Abernethy, who've

all been working on the genetic results.

Well, thank you all very much for
coming.

Now, David, what exactly were you hoping
to find from this survey?

Well, in short, what we were trying to
do is assess the magnitude of the

contribution of the Vikings to the
British Isles. But is it actually going

tell us how many Vikings came over here
and exactly where they settled?

Well, I don't think that we...

would ever get a very precise number for
how many Vikings came over and settled.

But it still can give you a sense,
because if we see a lot of Y chromosomes

today in some part of the British Isles
that have an origin in Scandinavia, then

clearly there had to be a fair number of
individuals coming over to bring those

Y chromosomes.

Now, we know that the Viking raid in the
British Isles came from two separate

places, from Norway and from Denmark.

So we've been looking for two different
sets of gene markers.

Now, let's start with the Norwegians.

From Norway, they crossed the North Sea
to Shetland and Orkney.

In Shetland, I saw the unmistakable
remains of Viking longhouses.

Heading south, I arrived in Orkney,
taken over by Vikings and ruled by

until the 1400s.

From the archaeological evidence, it
seems obvious that there was a strong

Viking presence in these islands.

And the early results of our genetic
survey appeared to confirm that.

David, your initial results from Orkney
and Shetland suggested that there was

about 30 % of the chromosome types were
from Norway. But you suggested that

these figures might go up with the
detailed statistical analysis.

I mean, have they? Well, remember, we
first talked about just looking through

the Y chromosomes.

and identifying those that looked pretty
clearly like they had a Norwegian

origin. And when we did that, it was
something like 30 % that looked pretty

clearly like they were from Norway.

But then we carried out a statistical
analysis to make an overall assessment

the proportion of the chromosomes that
had a Norwegian origin.

And when we did that, the figure was at
60%. 60 % doubled?

Yeah. That's an enormous number.

Yeah, it tells us that the majority of
the Wycromson heritage traces back to

Norway. Now, Jim, I mean, you're not
only a member of the survey team, but

come from Orkney as well, and you must
have had some idea that there was going

to be a strong Viking legacy there. But
did you expect it was going to be

anything like this?

Well, I mean, you could never really
know, but I thought, I expected we would

find quite a lot because of the strong
cultural Norse heritage we have. But,

yeah, I was also a bit surprised.

From Orkney, the Vikings took the sea
road southwest to the Hebrides.

And on the north coast of Scotland, in
Durness, we found a strong Norwegian

genetic signature suggesting that they'd
settled here along the way.

And in the Hebrides, where we found new
evidence of Viking longhouses, more than

30 % of the men we sampled had Norwegian
chromosome type.

From the Hebrides, the Vikings sailed
round into the Irish Sea.

One target was the Isle of Man.

Each year, the islanders still gather
for an open -air Viking -style

A number of pagan graves have been
unearthed here with beautiful Viking

artefacts.

What you have to do is scrape the inside
of my mouth ten times.

And the results of the genetic survey.

suggested at least 15 % of men we
sampled on the Isle of Man have

ancestry.

So all along the sea road, we've been
able to detect the Vikings' genetic

legacy.

David, are you pleased with these
results?

We're delighted to get a clear signal.
Often when you do these kinds of

the results that you get are difficult
to interpret and aren't clear. But here

we, in fact, have some very, very clear
signals.

It's very clear that there was a
significant genetic contribution from

Shetland and Orkney. Now, as you
continue moving, you get to the

get to the Isle of Man, the contribution
lessens, but we still see evidence,

clear evidence, of Norwegian
contributions there, too.

Now the real prize for the Vikings lay
at the end of the sea road, Ireland.

The samples we took in Castlereagh
produced no hint of Scandinavian

types.

This area, the rural heart of Ireland,
turned out to be almost totally of

ancient Britain or Celtic ancestry.

The Vikings are much more likely to have
settled along the coast.

They founded several towns, including
Dublin, one of their most important

trading centres.

Dublin was once the centre of a major
Viking slave trade.

Were these shackles meant for the necks
of Irish slaves to be shipped to Viking

colonies?

And dozens of burials have yielded the
largest collection of Viking weaponry

outside Scandinavia.

So Dublin would seem an obvious place to
search for the Vikings' genetic legacy

in Ireland.

So where do you look in Ireland, then,
David?

Well, we wanted to pick a place where
there was a record of Viking activity,

we didn't want to have a metropolitan
area that had a lot of recent

like Dublin.

So we took an area north of Dublin
called Rush.

And what did you find?

Very little.

Very little?

Yeah, we didn't find any...

We didn't find evidence that there was
much of a genetic contribution from

Norway to that area of Ireland.

Maybe they just didn't settle there in
large numbers. They just traded there or

raided there but didn't settle.

We don't know. But in any event, we
don't see much genetic evidence of

Norwegians there.

There may be surviving pockets of Viking
descendants in other places along the

Irish coast.

But if the Vikings of Dublin never
settled outside the city walls, we may

find their genetic legacy.

From Ireland, the ancient chronicles
tell of Norwegian Viking raids off the

coast of Wales, on Anglesey.

It looks like it's a male, can you
imagine?

Here, I helped to excavate contorted
remains, the likely victims of a Viking

attack.

And I was shown hacked pieces of silver
and inscribed weights, evidence of

Viking traders.

But again, the genetics results failed
to show any clear signs of Norwegian

ancestry on Anglesey or in either of the
two other sample sites in Wales.

Like Central Ireland, Wales seemed to be
predominantly ancient Britain or

Celtic.

From their bases in Ireland...

There's evidence that the Norwegian
Vikings also occupied parts of England,

particularly the north -west around the
Wirral and Cumbria, including one of our

sample sites, Penrith.

On the Wirral, the chronicles tell of a
Viking army landing here in the year

902.

A few miles away, at Thingwall, this
hill was almost certainly the site of a

Viking parliament, or thing.

Further north...

Stone sculptures provide clear evidence
of a Viking presence.

And there's another strand of evidence
that the Vikings were here.

In some Cumbrian villages, people speak
a dialect that contains many words

derived from the Old Norse that the
Vikings spoke.

They're more likely to be understood in
Oslo than in London.

Ted Ralph and Gene Scott Smith gave me a
quick lesson.

I tell you something, Jean, we've picked
a gay wild spot for a bit crack this

morning. I tell you, Jean, we've
certainly picked a cold spot for our

conversation.

Aye, we have.

Did you come up here late and when there
was a barn, Ted?

Did you come up here playing when you
were a child, Ted?

Aye, I can mind yance we came up here
with our pace eggs to roll them down

row. Yes, I remember coming up here at
Easter and rolling my Easter eggs down

the hill.

Given all this evidence of Norwegian
Vikings, what would the DNA sampling

these areas reveal?

So, David, what did you find in the
north -west of England?

When we looked at all the English fights
together,

One of the sites actually stood out as
having the most Norwegian genetic

material, and that was Penrith. So
that's very exciting because of the

correspondence with the material
archaeological evidence of Viking

there and the genetic legacy.

Now, Neil, I understand that you looked
at the Wirral, right?

Somewhere else where there's quite a lot
of evidence for the Vikings. So what

did you find there?

Well, the Wirral's interesting because
in the north of the Wirral we had a mini

Viking kingdom, which we didn't have in
the south. However, when we looked at

the genetic data, we find no difference
between the north and the south.

But what's exceptionally interesting is
that the Wirral, while being very

similar as a whole to the rest of
England, is different from Wales,

because of the Welsh being... So we have
this clear distinction that the Wirral

goes with the area to the north, where
it's English, and different from the

south, the Welsh.

So are you telling me that there were no
Vikings in the Wirral then?

Well, we're not even saying that there's
no genetic legacy from Norway there in

the Wirral today. We're certainly not
saying there were never any Vikings

But what we're saying is that we can't
see any evidence of a greater genetic

contribution from Norway to the Wirral
than other parts of England.

Out of the whole of England, only
Penrith provided definite evidence of

Norwegian Viking settlement.

But we also know that Norwegian Vikings,
in alliance with the Danes, controlled

much of the North East.

During the Viking Age, York was ruled by
a series of kings whose origins were in

Norway.

But in York, our genetic survey failed
to find evidence of Norwegian ancestry.

So maybe the Norwegian Vikings in
Yorkshire were just a ruling elite, and

genetic input was too small to be
detected.

Or perhaps, as scientists discover more
about the human genome, we'll uncover

more evidence for the Viking settlers in
England.

On the Wirral, even though the
population as a whole failed to show any

significant Norwegian input...

By chance, a sampling produced one very
intriguing individual case.

I went to Hoy Lake, on the tip of the
Wirral, to meet Bill Housley.

Before we told him what we'd found in
his DNA, I wanted to know whether there

was anything about his family history
that might suggest a Viking connection.

Bill, how long have your family lived in
this area?

My family, looking back at family
records, go back about 150 years, which

quite a long time. That's not bad, is
it? No, not at all.

But do you think your family might go
back even further than that in this

Yes, I would think so. I should imagine.

Yes, we probably do go further back than
that.

Housley men have been seafarers for
several generations.

His father was a fisherman, and his
father before him.

His great -uncle Stephen was a member of
the local lifeboat crew in the 1920s,

and the connection with the sea still
continues today.

I was never a full -time fisherman.

Main reason for that, because by the
time I'd reached an age whereby I was

to use or work a boat, fishing was on
decline.

I'd come out of the army after
completing my national service and

looked at the industry and thought, no,
I could do a little bit better than

this. So I started selling fish then. So
I've been involved in the industry now

for 36 years.

On the very shore where the Housleys
have moored their boats for generations,

archaeologists have uncovered evidence
of a flourishing Viking beach market.

Over the years, hundreds of pieces of
jewellery have been found, lost by

traders and trampled into the soft sand.

Could Bill and his family be the modern
-day descendants of a Viking who came

and settled on the Wirral a thousand
years ago?

It was time to tell Bill that we'd found
a distant relative of his amongst our

Norwegian samples.

So, David, could you tell us the result
of Bill's test?

Well, we just looked through all the Y
chromosomes that we observed in the

world, compared them to Norwegian ones,
and looked for matches. And we actually

found a perfect match between your Y
chromosome and Y chromosomes that we

observed in Norway.

Now, I have to say that we can't be
certain from that that your Y chromosome

actually came from Norway. But if we had
to take a guess, our guess would be

that it's a Norwegian origin.

So there we are, Bill.

You seem to be one of the few people who
we can point to and say that you're

probably a... Viking ancestry.

I'm absolutely delighted.

I just can't get over this. So how do
you feel about this, Marilyn?

He explains a lot, doesn't he?

Oh, dear.

He doesn't show evidence of Viking
behaviour, does he, at times? Oh, yeah.

You may not be able to blame that on his
white chromosome.

Do you think it's going to make any
difference to your life?

I don't suppose so, really.

I mean, it's nice.

thought and feeling to know that there
is a strong possibility I am descended

from the Vikings of Norway and that's
something that I'm just delighted with.

Anyway, thank you very much for coming.
Thank you for having me. It's been very

interesting. Thank you.

Bill's ancestors, the Norwegian Vikings,
mainly colonised the north.

But what could we find out about the
Danish Vikings?

whose armies made such a huge impact on
the rest of England.

In 878, the half of England that lay
above a line drawn roughly from London

the Wirral was officially handed over to
the Danish Viking army.

It became known as the Danelaw and was
dominated by Vikings for half a century.

Here at Weststow in Suffolk, we'd have
been within the Danelaw.

Now, later...

In the 11th century, England, which had
been lost to the Vikings, was

reconquered by King Canute, and for the
next 20 years, the whole country was

under Danish rule.

There's strong evidence that some of
these Danes settled in England.

There are all the place names ending in
B, the Danish for farmstead or village.

But were these villages taken over by a
small Viking elite, or was there a mass

migration of Viking peasants?

This was the main question that we hoped
our genetic survey would help to

answer.

But in England, the number of Viking
descendants today may have been greatly

distorted by the dramatic events which
unfolded at the end of the Viking Age.

In 1066, just days after the English
King Harold had defeated the great

army of Harold Hardrada, England was
invaded again.

Duke William and his Norman army crossed
the Channel and landed at Pevensey near

Dover.

Two weeks later, they defeated King
Harold in one of the most famous

in English history, the Battle of
Hastings.

On Christmas Day 1066, Duke William of
Normandy

was crowned King William I of England.

But from our point of view, if we're
searching for Viking blood in today's

population, then William the Conqueror's
victory complicates matters.

The problem is that William the
Conqueror was the direct descendant of a

But what about the rest of his army?
Were they descended from Vikings too?

Did they all bring Scandinavian Y
chromosomes to England?

The story of the Normans began 200 years
before the Battle of Hastings.

In the middle of the 800s, the Vikings
began raiding the rich lands of northern

France.

They sailed up rivers to plunder the
poorly defended monasteries.

In the spring of 841, they reached the
Abbey of Jumièges, conveniently located

on the banks of the River Seine.

With over 900 monks, Jumièges was one of
the largest abbeys in France.

The Vikings knew that on a Sunday,
everyone here would be peacefully at

So, according to the chronicle, that's
when they chose to attack.

20 miles up the River Seine lies Rouen.

By 861, it had been sacked and burnt six
times.

After 60 years of being overrun by the
Vikings, the French king decided to do a

deal with them.

He arranged to meet the Vikings at a
place called St. Clair -sur -Epte to

up a peace treaty.

Rollo, the Viking leader, was apparently
made to swear an oath on these, the

sacred but...

rather grisly relics of St Clair
himself.

In return for ceasing his raids and
protecting the rest of the country from

other Vikings, Rollo was given the city
of Rouen by King Charles the Simple and

all the surrounding lands along the
north coast of France.

Rollo's descendants became the Dukes of
Normandy.

So by 1066, when the Normans invaded
England, from a genetic point of view,

this effectively another Viking
invasion?

It all depends on how many Vikings
originally settled in Normandy.

In Rouen, I went to meet a local expert
in Scandinavian languages.

Professor Jean Renaud believes that
clues to the original number of Viking

settlers might be found in Normandy's
place names.

The most interesting place names to tell
us how many the Vikings could be is the

oldest ones.

I mean, the real Scandinavian Viking
names, I mean, real place names, made

of two Scandinavian elements. A place
name like Brickbeck.

is very typical of an original place
name for the third generation.

Bric is Bricci, the slope.

Bec is Beccur, the little brook. So Bric
-Bec is the little brook down the

slope.

This is a very typical Scandinavian
name.

Jean Renaud has identified only a couple
of hundred villages in Normandy with

pure Scandinavian names, compared with
the thousands in England.

So he believed the Viking settlers can't
have made a great impact on the genetic

mix of Normandy.

Therefore, the Norman army probably
didn't bring much Viking blood to

1066.

And our genetics survey seems to support
this.

In the Channel Islands, which were
heavily colonised by the Normans, we

only a tiny hint of possible
Scandinavian ancestry.

But in other ways... the Norman conquest
could still have had a major impact on

the Vikings' genetic legacy in England.

In 1069, the people of York,
traditionally a Viking stronghold,

Norman garrison on the Castle Mound.

They resented the heavy taxes imposed by
their new King William, and when Danish

Vikings offered assistance, simmering
resentment erupted into open rebellion.

William's reply to the York uprising was
swift and vicious.

The Vikings fled without a fight and
William's troops stormed into town.

King William was determined that Viking
sympathisers throughout the north would

never again be a threat to his
authority.

The fate of villages like Middleham, 30
miles from York, is recorded in the

famous Doomsday Survey.

The Doomsday Book was written in 1085
and lists the taxable value of every

and hamlet before and after William's
conquest.

This is the entry for the Manor of
Middleham.

In Middleham, three ploughs possible.

Gilpatrick had a manor there.

Value before 1066, 20 shillings.

Now Ribbold has it, waste.

So, before 1066, Middleham had been a
relatively prosperous hamlet owned by

called Gilpatrick, presumably a Viking
settler.

But in 1069, William's men came along,
turfed him out, and so comprehensively

destroyed the place that 16 years later,
at the time of the Doomsday Survey...

There wasn't a single acre of land here
being cultivated.

William's troops swept through the land.

Families fled south to sell themselves
into slavery.

It was a devastating blow to the
descendants of Danish Vikings in the

The Norman Campaign of 1069 was a savage
attack on the civilian population of

England. And many of the villages
destroyed were just the sort of places

the Danish Vikings would have settled.

And this came on top of the St. Brice's
Day Massacre, another mass slaughter of

Danish immigrants in England that had
taken place 70 years earlier.

So the story of the Vikings in England
raises many fascinating questions.

Was there ever a mass settlement of
Viking peasants?

And how many of the settlers survived
the subsequent persecutions?

We'd hoped our genetic survey might help
solve these mysteries.

But we knew that identifying the
descendants of Danish Vikings might be

difficult. It turned out to be
impossible.

The Danish Vikings came from virtually
the same population stock around North

Germany as the Angles and Saxons who'd
invaded Britain 400 years earlier.

Disappointingly, our survey revealed
that their chromosome types are too

to allow us to say anything about where
Danish Vikings settled in England.

But when we looked at all these
continental invaders as a single group,

some surprising results.

Curiously, in England, we found that a
higher proportion of people in the north

that descended from these invaders than
along the south coast.

David, what's the picture from the whole
of England, then?

Well, one thing really that's...

stands out is that there's a little bit
of everything everywhere.

So we don't see really sharp differences
from one place to another.

Things are just graded.

we can see small differences but not
sharp differences. So there's really

great deal of mixing.

Is that the same with Scotland as well?
Well, in fact, it is similar because in

the coastal sites in southern England
that we looked at, we estimated an

indigenous component there that's very
similar to what we estimate for

So we found the highest concentration of
the continental invader's DNA in

northern England.

But surprisingly, mainland Scotland had
about the same percentage of German and

Danish descendants as southern England.

Only in Central Ireland and Wales did we
find populations almost entirely

descended from ancient Britons or Celts.

Along the Northern Sea Road, there's a
different picture.

From Shetland all the way down to
Cumbria, we found strong signs of

ancestry.

There can be no doubt these were the
lands of the Vikings.

So David, do you think that you've found
all the Vikings in the British Isles?

Well, we certainly haven't found all the
Vikings, and in fact it's not even

really the right way to look at it,
because what we're doing is looking at

the Y chromosome, and we can say
something about...

the origins of sets of Y chromosomes.

However, that doesn't tell us about the
rest of the genetic makeup of the

individuals that we looked at. And in
fact, in the case of the Vikings, they

spread so far and wide that I wouldn't
be at all surprised if they made genetic

contributions. In fact, I'm sure they
did to peoples in all sorts of places.

Vikings in the Middle East, perhaps the
Vikings even made contributions to, say,

the Caribbean through British...

presence in the Caribbean, though in
fact I would suspect that there are

Norwegian and Danish genetic
contributions running through lots and

people in the British Isles. So
individually we're all a wonderful

as a nation we're a wonderful mixture as
well. That's exactly it.

For nearly 300 years the Vikings
terrorised Northern Europe.

With their long ships, they conquered
kingdoms and opened up trade routes

stretching from the Arctic to the Middle
East.

But then they vanished into the shadows
of Dark Age history.

Now, at last, archaeological
discoveries, combined with new

techniques, are helping to reveal the
true story of the Vikings.

I grew up thinking of the Vikings as a
brief, violent episode in our history,

marauding invaders whom we fought off
and sent home.

But now we know that they didn't just
sail away. They stayed and became an

integral part of the rich genetic mix of
the population.

And a thousand years later, many of us
still have, flowing through our veins, a

little of the blood of the Vikings.