Indigenous DNA in Iceland – a Trace to Vinland?

A rare genetic trace in Iceland tells a story that sounds almost unbelievable: some Icelanders carry a maternal DNA line closely related to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Did a woman from North America come to Iceland with the Vikings around a thousand years ago?

Researchers found in about 80 Icelanders a rare maternal line called C1e. The remarkable thing: this mitochondrial line belongs to a group (C1) found above all among indigenous Americans. In Europe it is practically foreign.

The C1e Trace

The trail can be followed back to ancestors in southern Iceland around the year 1700. But because Iceland has been genetically rather isolated since its settlement, the scientists suspect the line reached the island much earlier – possibly as early as the year 1000.

Vinland and the Skrælingar

It was exactly then that the Vikings reached North America. The sagas tell of voyages to Vinland, often linked today with Newfoundland; there, at L’Anse aux Meadows, a Norse settlement is archaeologically proven. The Norse met indigenous people there, called Skrælingar in the sagas. One theory therefore runs: an indigenous woman may have come to Iceland with the Vikings – whether willingly, as a captive or as a partner, no one knows.

What It Would Mean

If this explanation holds, it would be more than a genetic curiosity. It would show that contact between Vikings and indigenous Americans was not only brief encounters. In at least one case there would have been real human connection – cohabitation and offspring. People crossed the Atlantic long before Columbus; and sometimes all that remains of an almost forgotten encounter is a tiny code in the genome.

The scientific proof

That the Vikings were in America before Columbus is long no mere saga but proven by hard science. Archaeology, natural science and genetics today draw a clear picture of the Norse voyages across the Atlantic.

L'Anse aux Meadows

The most important proof is the Norse settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland, discovered in 1960: houses, a smithy, typically Norse boat nails and tools. No doubt – northern people lived here around the year 1000.

The year 1021

In 2021 a sensational dating succeeded: from a cosmic radiation event in the year 993, which shows in the tree rings of the wood, researchers could prove that trees were felled at the site in the year 1021 – the first exactly dated year of a European in America.

Traces in the genome

Genetics too provides hints: in Icelandic genomes a rare lineage was found that may go back to an indigenous American woman who came to Iceland centuries ago. A fascinating but cautiously interpretable finding.