IPACE · Iceland: Physical Anthropology of Colonization and Evolution

Iceland: Physical Anthropology of Colonization and Evolution

What is the problem/issue being addressed? Migration has played a central role in the development of modern human biocultural diversity. As such, it has been a key topic of research in archaeology and physical anthropology, with early European migrations receiving an especially large amount of interest. Of the many migrations that occurred in Europe before and during the Medieval period, two events in particular dramatically changed the genetic and cultural identity of European island populations. These migration events were the Anglo-Saxon migration into Britain between the 5th and 7th centuries (Weale et al. 2002) and the founding of Iceland between the 9th and 10th centuries. Despite the impact that these migrations have had on the biocultural landscape of the islands, both events are plagued by important questions that have yet to be fully answered. First, there remains disagreement among scholars about whether the Anglo-Saxon migration represented a replacement of the Britons by Saxons or whether there was an acculturation of the Britons to Anglo-Saxon customs. As for Iceland, scholars are still uncertain about what populations contributed to the founding of the island. Although it is accepted that Vikings from Scandinavia were heavily involved in the founding of Iceland, the possible involvement of women from Ireland and the British Isles has been debated. Considering the importance of these events for understanding the cultural and genetic landscape of early Britain and Iceland, I designed a project that will provide novel evidence to help answer these two main questions – 1) Who is buried in Anglo-Saxon graves, Saxons or Britons? And 2) Were individuals from the British Isles involved in the founding of Iceland? To answer these questions, I will compare the three-dimensional cranial shape variation of individuals from the target populations (early Icelanders, early Anglo-Saxons) with individuals from the posited origin populations (Scandinavia, Saxony, Netherlands, British Isles). Why is it important for society? The findings of this project will be culturally and historically important for Northern Europe, especially Iceland and Britain. In addition, the findings will also highlight the benefit of using digital anthropology and shape analyses to identify genetic affinity of human skeletal remains, an issue that is becoming increasingly important as the benefits of using non-destructive techniques are recognized throughout bioarchaeology. What are the overall objectives? The study has two main aims: 1) to explore patterns of cranial variation of the target populations; 2) to identify similarities and differences in cranial shape between the target and origin populations that may indicate genetic relatedness. These aims will be accomplished by: 1) using 3D landmark based GM to capture the cranial shape of all target and origin populations; 2) performing an inter-population comparison of cranial shape to identify characteristics that may indicate population affinity between the target and origin populations.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union