Who Were The First Icelanders?

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - With a population of 330,000, Iceland is a country with its own peculiarities. Genes are no exception: isolation and inbreeding throughout its history make this northern Atlantic island a paradise for genetic studies.

But who were the first Icelanders, and where did they come from? After analyzing ancient genomes of 25 individuals who lived on the island during its colonization 1,100 years ago, scientists may now have an answer.

In just over 1,000 years, Icelanders have gone through numerous changes in their gene pool, to the extent that Iceland's first settlers, who came to the island from Norway and the British and Irish Isles between the years 870 and 930, are much more similar to the inhabitants of their original home countries than to Iceland's present-day inhabitants.

An international team of scient, including used members of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), analyzed of ancient skeletal remains, specifically the teeth belonging to the first generations to populate the island.

The result of the study sheds more light on the genetic evolution, which led to a combination of genes from Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia. According to the conclusions of this study, the Norwegian genetic fingerprint of present-day Icelanders stands at 70%, while, in the case of the island founders, it was 57%.

"This work takes an in-depth look at the process which makes small isolated populations undergo random changes in their genetic variability over time. Present-day Icelanders have been affected by 1,100 years of profound genetic drift. This means they are more similar to each other, yet different to modern populations of continental Europe," CSIC researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox, who works at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology explains.

"Celtic settlers had fewer offspring than with those of Norwegian origin. This is probably because there were more men of Scandinavian origin compared to more women - who would probably have come to the country as slaves and servants - from Scotland and the rest of Britain," explains Lalueza-Fox.

"We have always known that Icelanders descended from Norwegians and Celts, and the analysis of the ancient genomes from the first colonists allows us to see what they were like, both before mixing started, as well as throughout the whole process," explains Sunna Ebeneserdóttir, a researcher from deCODE Genetics.

"It's like having a time machine. Now it is possible to study the actual people who participated in the founding of Iceland," adds Agnar Helgason, also from deCODE Genetics, and another of the study's authors.

Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com

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