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‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

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Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#101

Post by hinkley »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #92
hinkley wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are five million Irish in Ireland and something like 75 million “Irish” in the US. And Chicago has more Polish that Warsaw, but that’s actual expats and their kids. Not great great great grandchildren of Margaret and John who came over in 1845.

> There are five million Irish in Ireland and something like 75 million “Irish” in the US. Reminds me of this sketch. [0] > And Chicago has more Polish that Warsaw, but that’s actual expats and their kids. This is one of those persistent myths. While Chicago has many Poles and people of Polish ancestry living there, it has never exceeded the population of Warsaw. And New York has more Poles than Chicago. [0] https://…

The reason I like to use the Polish example is that I got it straight from a Polish dissident, and a second one didn't correct me when I repeated it to him later.

Nobody has official numbers on populations that are a mix of documented and undocumented people. But I trust members of those groups and their relatives probably have a better estimate, even if it's offset by not having a degree in statistics.

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#102

Post by esseph »

SoftTalker wrote: post #27
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Minnesota and have literally never heard anyone ever say this about me or any other person of Scandinavian origin.

You've never heard of your NFL football team?

You're absolutely correct.

"They are named after the Vikings of medieval Scandinavia, reflecting the prominent Scandinavian American culture of Minnesota."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Vikings

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#103

Post by dmurray »

efskap wrote: post #9

[flagged]

It makes sense if you're Irish or British. People here who are blond and blue-eyed but whose ancestors come from Ireland assume they have Viking ancestry, and they're probably right since the Viking era was the main time Scandinavians mixed into the Irish gene pool. It doesn't have white nationalist connotations: the alt-right probably identify more with Celtic iconography if anything.

If you're American, it doesn't make as much sense, because Scandinavians and Germans have been coming to America for hundreds of years.

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#104

Post by vintermann »

amarant wrote: post #98
vintermann wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A historian I respect - don't want to name him in case I accidentally misrepresent his ideas - has speculated that the Norse didn't mix with the Sami because having a separate tribe of hunters (no major reindeer farming back then) was useful to them. Almost like a caste. If people live side by side for 1000s of years, I think that's fair to speculate - there has to be a reason they didn't just assimilate into each ot…

I don't give much credence to the theory though, having grown up in a part of Sweden where every village have their own "language"(we call them mål, which is like halfway between dialect and language, they're not officially recognised as minority languages, but they're more than just dialects: villages as little as 30km apart can't understand eachother at all, and one of them, Älvdalsmål, is notoriously more similar…

There are degrees of integration. People from Älvdalen, should they choose to, could move to Stockholm and change their dialect (one of the ways you know it's a dialect, is that they understand you much better than you understand them). It's been that way for a long time.

And from what I understand Älvdalsmål is, like all dialects, getting rounded at the corners and getting more understandable to other Swedes.

Even dialects that sound incomprehensible at first, if you're a native speaker you'll get used to it quickly. The difficulty of Älvdalska is superficial, it's actually very close to what you're used to, so you'll learn to understand them and they already know how to understand you.

Sami is completely different. It takes a long time to learn. Go back 150 years, and very few Sami would be able to move to the capital and pass as Norwegian or Swedish, their accent would give them away even if they did know the majority language. Go back another 50 years, and they may simply not have been allowed to even try to pass in many places (as I recall, the first Sami priest in Norway, Anders Porsanger, was rejected by his Trondheim congregation. He was simply too weird for them, even though he was highly educated and of course spoke excellent Norwegian).

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#105

Post by bazoom42 »

enjoykaz wrote: post #60

The no-mixing part is what got me. If "viking" was just a job open to anyone, you'd expect genetic mixing in the burial sites. But Swedish groups went east, Danes south, Norwegians west — distinct genetic clusters throughout. So it was a job, but one you apparently got by being born in the right place

Don’t take “job” literally. It wasn’t centralized in any way. It just meant if you had the resources you could build a ship, hire some henchmen, and go raiding. It is not surprising Swedes went East, Nowegians Northwest etc - just look at a map.

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#106

Post by samaltmanfried »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #89
libraryatnight wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the US with white dudes who literally think their heritage is "Viking" and make it a big part of their identity - I appreciate your point but I also understand why someone might pick that title.

People believe in all kinds of fanciful nonsense to try to feel "special". In the US in particular, people will draw on some distant real or imagined ancestry to try to establish some kind of feeling of ethnic identity. Part of the reason may be the feeling of vacuousness of American identity from an ethnic point of view, as well as the dissolving religious identity which historically functioned as a substitute for e…

I'm so glad someone brought this up. It irks me when I hear Americans detail every minor fraction of their genetic makeup: 1/4 Italian, 1/8 German, 1/16... etc. But they don't speak any of these languages, they've never even visited these countries. It's such a matter of pride for a lot of Americans, but it's just a costume.

A quote I found here on HN, that I really liked: "Americans will say they are Italian because their great grandma ate spaghetti once, but God forbid someone is American because he was born there" - mvieira38 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43930642)

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#107

Post by troosevelt »

samaltmanfried wrote: post #106
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People believe in all kinds of fanciful nonsense to try to feel "special". In the US in particular, people will draw on some distant real or imagined ancestry to try to establish some kind of feeling of ethnic identity. Part of the reason may be the feeling of vacuousness of American identity from an ethnic point of view, as well as the dissolving religious identity which historically functioned as a substitute for e…

I'm so glad someone brought this up. It irks me when I hear Americans detail every minor fraction of their genetic makeup: 1/4 Italian, 1/8 German, 1/16... etc. But they don't speak any of these languages, they've never even visited these countries. It's such a matter of pride for a lot of Americans, but it's just a costume. A quote I found here on HN, that I really liked: "Americans will say they are Italian because…

Does it really bother you that people care about their heritage? US culture is a culture that assimilates, people remember where they come from. It's almost mean-spirited that yall fault them for this. Better than forgetting. I remember where my ancestors came from because they came here from somewhere they were not wanted.

What I would ask you is why does it irk you, why do you care? Is it some hindance to my culture that I want to learn about it and try to "cosplay"? What would you prefer that we act as though we're here sui generis? Is somebody's culture lesser because they're not in that country at that time?

People of Italian ancestry in the US did not forget everything about their past, in many cultures that transition is even more recent; I remember my immigrant grandmother. Comes off as gatekeeping people who would otherwise be your relatives.

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#109

Post by samaltmanfried »

troosevelt wrote: post #107
samaltmanfried wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad someone brought this up. It irks me when I hear Americans detail every minor fraction of their genetic makeup: 1/4 Italian, 1/8 German, 1/16... etc. But they don't speak any of these languages, they've never even visited these countries. It's such a matter of pride for a lot of Americans, but it's just a costume. A quote I found here on HN, that I really liked: "Americans will say they are Italian because…

Does it really bother you that people care about their heritage? US culture is a culture that assimilates, people remember where they come from. It's almost mean-spirited that yall fault them for this. Better than forgetting. I remember where my ancestors came from because they came here from somewhere they were not wanted. What I would ask you is why does it irk you, why do you care? Is it some hindance to my cultur…

It irks me because it usually manifests as embracing cartoonish stereotypes of the most superficial aspects of the culture: "I'm 1/64th Italian, so I like pizza. I'm 1/16th German, so I like beer. etc."

It doesn't keep me up at night, but I think it's tacky and vulgar.

Re: ‘Viking’ was a job, not a matter of heredity: ancient DNA study (2020)

#110

Post by ajxs »

necovek wrote: post #66
hinkley wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are five million Irish in Ireland and something like 75 million “Irish” in the US. And Chicago has more Polish that Warsaw, but that’s actual expats and their kids. Not great great great grandchildren of Margaret and John who came over in 1845.

This source puts that number at 35M of people with "some" Irish descent: https://overlandirelandtours.com/blog/why-are-there-more-iri... — that means that most of them probably have some other heritage too. People say similar stuff about Serbians in Chicago (how it's the second biggest Serbian city after Belgrade), but usually all of that is overestimated significantly. Just like people overestimate their local city…

People say a very similar thing about the number of Greeks in Melbourne, Australia.
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