What Did Vikings Look Like and What Was Their Genetic (DNA) History?

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:20 Viking Hair Colour
0:55 How Tall Were Vikings?
2:26 Female and Male Facial Structure
3:02 Viking Appearance
3:36 Filming Location
4:15 Viking Genetic History
5:05 Viking DNA Vs Mainland Scandinavia
6:54 Danish Viking or Anglo-Saxon DNA?
7:35 A Family Affair
9:29 Support

What did Vikings actually look like and what was their genetic history?

Vikings are often portrayed as tall, strong and blonde, but how close to the truth is this? ”I have never seen people with a more perfect body build. They are like date palms and their skin is reddish," is how the Arabic author, Ibn Fadlan, described the Vikings.

What colour hair did Vikings have? Certain research has shown that the Vikings in West Scandinavia (i.e. Denmark) were mostly red-haired. However, in North Scandinavia, in the area around Stockholm, blonde hair was more common. A 2020 study however found that Viking frequently had children with people from other lands, and this led to many Vikings having dark hair as opposed to the blonde hair you would normally associate with Vikings.

It is thought that the faces of men and women in the Viking Age were more alike than they are today. The women’s faces were more masculine than women’s today, with prominent brow ridges. On the other hand, the Viking man’s appearance was more feminine than that of men today, with a less prominent jaw and brow ridges.

In fact, this similarity means that it’s difficult to determine the sex of a Viking skeleton from the skull alone, and other markers need to be used, like pelvis width for instance. Beards were common for Viking men, and men’s hair was usually long, around shoulder-length, with slaves being the main ones with short hair.

How tall were the Vikings? This is a simple question, but the answer is annoyingly complicated. The average height of a Viking is estimated to have been somewhere between 172-175 cm tall (5.6-5.7 ft), and a woman had an average height of 158 cm (5,1 ft), with access to nutrition being a key feature in this. Although finding an authoritative figure on this proved tricky. For the figures I’ve seen, this doesn’t seem particularly taller than other Europeans. Although slightly late in the Viking period, Englishmen are thought to have been on average around 1.72 m in the 11 century.

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#vikings #history #scotland

[celtichistorydecoded]

Please let me know your thoughts below...

[Takengrant]

I was adopted so I never knew my ancestors but I was told by my preschool teacher(Mrs. Anderson) that I was Scandinavian. I did my DNA recently and she was correct. One of the tests showed a 80 percent direct match to a Nordic Viking from 800 AD. I am tall, pale, blonde but with red highlights.when I visited Denmark it was like going home. I loved the food, culture and the Danes spoke Danish to me even though I’m from the US.

[rns]

Many decades ago I served in Europe with the Nordic battalions.

One thing I noticed right off, most of the Nordic guys and gals, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, were pretty darn tall and large. Even many of the girls were hovering at 6 foot, attractive too!

They seemed larger than the rest of us. Which were UK, US, and Russian forces.

Now not all of Nordic soldiers fit that mold. Some of them were brown haired and eyed and of normal stature.

But it seems like they had a larger number of 6’4+ huge guys overall.


I’m 6ft and I felt short.

Then again go to the Netherlands and there are some freakishly tall people there too!

My 2 cents for the modern age.

[anniebranwen]

My father was blonde pale blue eyes, and pale skinned. I did my DNA test and I have swedish and Danish, Scottish. Right on 🎉

[ruadhagainagaidheal]

I’ve a typical highland Scot body shape. 5’6” and stocky with auburn hair and blue eyes. O negative blood group. My parentage is far north of Scotland and western isles (Wick and Stornoway) Not the archetype viking but my DNA is 68% Norse and the rest is Celtic. They’re right about the good looks though !

[bh]

I am Swedish, Norwegian & Dutch. My Grandfather always told me that we "...HAVE ENOUGH DUTCH FOR FLAVOR...."!
I was never quite sure what that was supposed to mean when I was a child but as I grew up I took it to mean that nobody quite knew how they should 'take' us, they never quite had any of us 'figured out'!
All of the women in my family stand at 5'11" - 6'2". All of the men stand at 6'1' - 6'8" & built like "BRICK SHIP YARDS" was the common family reference when describing how all the males were built. Another thing I heard just as often when describing the girls & women was "....I'D BE VERY CAREFUL TO *NOT* GET ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HER...." in addition to comments about how savage 'a momma bear is if you're dumb enough to try to cross her!' & "... DON'T WORRY ABOUT *HIM*, IT'S *HER* YOU'VE GOT TO WORRY ABOUT...!"
In a family reunion photo of nearly 200 of us, there were a few with darker hair but nearly every one else is blonde hair, bright blue to deep blue eyes, there are a few with green eyes & a handful with red hair, an even smaller handful with light brown hair! All of us are in the area of 6' - 6'5" there were a few over 6'5", I know that one of them, my Grandfather's youngest brother's son who stands 6'8" & used to play football for the USC TROJANS when he was in school at USC! We made the 'TALL ONES' stand in the back for the photo, LOL! I, myself, am blonde haired, blue eyed, first born of 6 children, one has darker blonde hair & one has greenish-blue eyes, the rest of us - all blonde & blue. I have 2 cousins, from my uncle's 6 children, (my father's brother) who have redish blonde hair, 2 have blonde hair & 2 have light brown hair. The brown haired 2 have green eyes, the other 4 all have blue eyes.
Our last name in OLD NORSE means "HOLY OAK", this additional bit of family history has been handed down through our family - "...AS IN - 'THOR'S HOLY OAK'..."
We have always understood what that means to us!
Our family history has been carefully charted throughout & shown to go to the early 1500AD at a historical location where we pick up again in another historical location going all the way back Saving this for Family privacy & we have traced our very first 'modern' family members to boarding a ship headed for America in the mid 1600's landing in Long Island, NY. From there going west to settle in what is now Minnesota & there is even a town there bearing our last name! The same is recorded with our last name where that ship landed in Long Island!

[barnowl]

I have a small amount of DNA from Norway and France. A distant ancestor went as a knight to England with William Of Normandy. The Vikings went to Paris, married and ruled. The Normans were said to be the partial descendants of the 'North' men.

[j.j.]

Interesting stuff. I'm an American and the majority of my ancestry is Dane. But i did a 23&Me test there was no surprise on my percentages it was mostly Scandinavian and German. However it also gave me my paternal haplo group which is R--L21 when I researched this it's highest concentration is found in Ireland and Scotland. So my guess is that my paternal ancestor was enslaved or adopted by Vikings and ended up in Denmark.

[occidentadvocate.]

You must remember, in Scandinavia arable land was scarce. For centuries they were fighting amongst them selves over access to land? Thats a form of positive genetics, in that the weaker types are removed, and the stronger more fearsome and robust pass on their genes. The weak are thus weeded out. Add to that, these people passed on land to the strongest most capable son, not the oldest? Hence the best had the land to attract a women, and pass on his better genes. This is how over thousands of years they became bigger, and developed a martial way of life. It became a Warriors society. They are still taller and fairer then us. In 2006 me and my mate were on Holiday in Tenerife. In a complex that was all Scandinavian people. Im 6ft tall, and most the women were my height. Most the men were well over 6ft 3. Some looked about 6ft 8. Most the wee kids i saw had platinum hair. Fine people. Good natured i liked them. The women were very attractive.

[Jamestele]

I think they were tall, based on Viking burial site excavations. They always claim that they're grandparents were dark, etc., but BS. They are generally tall, blonde, good looking, and should just accept that they are good looking and have a great history. They are very accepting and progressive today, which is likely part of why they're happy people. I've always admired my Germanic friends' culture.

[deviritter]

Thanks for this! Beautiful area - can’t wait to visit Scotland one day.
My mothers Danish, all my cousins are there in Jutland. My DNA shows my Danish heritage is based in Copenhagen, Jutland, and there’s a big chunk of Scottish as well.
We’re all taller than the historical findings, with the women 5’5”-5’11”, and the men 5’10-6’2”. But i expect everyone has gotten taller thanks to more food. Blond predominates, but in-laws brought in dark brown hair and eyes. My cousin Søren looks like a Viking poster boy with white blond hair, ice blue eyes, and sharp features. Folks in Yorkshire look a lot like my uncles. The idioms in York also translate fairly neatly into Danish idioms, suggesting some influence way back when.

[lukemn]

I live in SW Minnesota and many people around here, including me, can trace their families back to the Alesund area. I'm 196cm and while still above average I'm much closer to the average in this area than other places I've lived.

[LuisAldamiz]

They said the same of ancient Celts, they also said they loved to bleach their hair. 🤣

Statistically speaking the fairest of them all are the Frisians, which are not really Norse ("Vikings") although close enough maye. Unless you are into another variant of extreme paleness, which is red hair (and associated skin color, also ruddy but still quite pale in general), and then it is the Scots who win at the most carrot-like. But the one who wins at the most Trump-like character ever is some Galician peasant woman, made famous by Internet memes.

[kellidove]

I theorize that Doggerland was perhaps not as far back in History as currently believed, this is likely why people that seem to be separated by thousands of years and miles of ocean are so genetically similar. They are al one people, with the exception of parts of Ireland.

[guymcmullan]

What about the Rh neg type 0, blood type of the European and Caucasus mountains 🐓☠️

[farrahwalker]

Stop trying to kill my fantasy that all Vikings look like Travis Fimmel 🤨lol

[williamwofford]

Thanks!!
I see a lot of diverse comments about the size of Vikings. Yes. There were tall Vikings and short Vikings no different than the population of today. I have some Nordic and I’m 5’8” with an odd blend of brown, blond and red hair

[ricochet]

A local Barber would come in for coffee every day at the restaurant I worked at. He was known for his love of history. He was in his 50's in 1969. I told him my Great Grandmother was a Black Swede per my mom. She had Black hair, turqoise eyes and white skin as did my mother and different other family members. This history buff said that centuries ago, several ships of Roman soldiers crashed in the fjords of Sweden and married the Highland women, and thus were called "Black Swedes". Maybe fabrication - I don't know. Thought I would throw it out there.

[fullyawakeloyah]

The Germanic tribes mostly had red blonde hair blue green eyes with lean muscle tall excellent physical specimens this was written by the Roman historian but obviously our ancestors inter married as they moved about training our skulls facial features were bigger a dentist done am experiment he’d go to peoples who lived by there traditional diet and compared their skulls jaw structure with the same peoples who’d went on to eat the modern diet and it was seriously telling

[richardjohnston]

Apparently there was one at the battle of Stamford bridge it was suggested he was a giant he apparently stood in the middle of the bridge fending off Anglo saxons until one of the Anglo saxons sailed under the bridge put a spear through him I'm English have a bit of Danish and Swedish DNA so thinking it was probably a distance Viking ancestor...

Great video 👍🏻 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇯🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿