0:00:49 > 0:00:51BOTH: Welcome to Reykjavik!
0:01:05 > 0:01:08Did the monks actually carve out the caves themselves?
0:01:14 > 0:01:17You can view your chromosomes as mosaics
0:01:17 > 0:01:19of the chromosomes of your ancestors.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53The texts that were written during the
0:05:53 > 0:05:5812th and 13th century remember the past in the 9th century
0:05:58 > 0:06:01as dominated first by Irish monks
0:06:01 > 0:06:05- as they call them, "Papa" - that came to Iceland.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10So the Icelandic texts remember Irish monks here about 870,
0:06:10 > 0:06:14in scattered settlements, not very many of them, and they are said to
0:06:14 > 0:06:19have left behind religious artefacts - bells and crosses and so on.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23But surely the references are so clear that they cannot be
0:06:23 > 0:06:27explained unless there is a historical reality behind them.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30So what you're talking about here is stories about the
0:06:30 > 0:06:31history of Iceland.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34How true to history do you think the sagas are?
0:06:35 > 0:06:40That is, erm, a fundamental problem we have.
0:06:40 > 0:06:44When you have texts that are clearly literary and artistic,
0:06:44 > 0:06:48written in the 13th century, trying to tell you
0:06:48 > 0:06:52and convince you as a reader that they are describing conversations,
0:06:52 > 0:06:57characters and events that took place in the 9th and 10th and 11th century.
0:06:57 > 0:06:59But when we start analysing them,
0:06:59 > 0:07:03we see that the whole historical framework is correct.
0:07:03 > 0:07:08They time the settlement in the late 9th century,
0:07:08 > 0:07:12and they know that they were pagan turning to Christianity.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16They know that they were coming from Norway and the British Isles,
0:07:16 > 0:07:20and that they got organised in a society in Iceland,
0:07:20 > 0:07:22in a very systematic fashion,
0:07:22 > 0:07:27laying out chieftains' farms and assembly sites,
0:07:27 > 0:07:33and they continued on to Greenland in the late 10th century.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37All this we can confirm with archaeology and other evidence.
0:07:37 > 0:07:42Until we had archaeological proof in the 1960s that the Norsemen
0:07:42 > 0:07:44were in Newfoundland,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47with a base camp that was used for exploring the lands
0:07:47 > 0:07:52further south, we couldn't confirm that this was historically accurate,
0:07:52 > 0:07:55but now with the archaeology and the sagas,
0:07:55 > 0:07:59we see that the archaeology in Newfoundland tells us
0:07:59 > 0:08:04exactly the same story as the sagas do, but, of course, without names.
0:08:04 > 0:08:06And without events,
0:08:06 > 0:08:10that's what the storytelling adds on to the archaeological information.
0:17:06 > 0:17:09This is a very isolated and bleak area
0:17:09 > 0:17:11for Irish monks to settle down.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16Well, when you think about the fact there would once have been
0:17:16 > 0:17:19a wall there, it wouldn't have been quite as bleak then
0:17:19 > 0:17:23as it is now, it would have been a warm and very sheltered place.
0:17:23 > 0:17:28As for the location, you're at a very accessible point here.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31You have the Westman Islands just over there,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34you have this wide coastal plain that's quite fertile,
0:17:34 > 0:17:36it would have been easy to find from the sea,
0:17:36 > 0:17:40it would have been a secure place cut into the hillside.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43Did the monks actually carve out the caves themselves?
0:17:43 > 0:17:44Well, that's what we believe.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48If you look over at the wall here you can see the tool marks
0:17:48 > 0:17:53that somebody's used to carve this cave, and also the shape of it
0:17:53 > 0:17:57reflects the fact that it is shaped out to be a dwelling.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59I'm looking at all these crosses,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02did they makes these crosses, carve them out?
0:18:02 > 0:18:04Well, we can't be sure that all of them are early.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08That one over there is a particularly spectacular example,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12you can see that the terminal's very visible.
0:18:12 > 0:18:14Yeah.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17The difficulty with a cross carved on a wall is that you
0:18:17 > 0:18:22can't date a carving, so you're going on artistic style.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27And what is impressive is that these do correspond to a family,
0:18:27 > 0:18:29as I say, of crosses found on the Faroe Islands
0:18:29 > 0:18:31and in the north of Scotland.
0:18:31 > 0:18:36We associate them particularly with the early Christian settlement,
0:18:36 > 0:18:39that period when the Irish were moving into the Hebrides,
0:18:39 > 0:18:41up to Iona,
0:18:41 > 0:18:45and then steadily expanding out along the islands into the Atlantic.
0:18:45 > 0:18:47And these monks were actually Irish?
0:18:47 > 0:18:50That seems to be the likely explanation.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53They come from a movement that is traceable
0:18:53 > 0:18:55up through the Hebrides,
0:18:55 > 0:19:00starting with people like St Columba around about the 6th century,
0:19:00 > 0:19:05and then we see the progress of that Irish monastic expansion,
0:19:05 > 0:19:07if you like, up into the Outer Hebrides,
0:19:07 > 0:19:09the northern islands of Britain,
0:19:09 > 0:19:14the Faroe Islands, and now to here, in, what, about the 800s.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16How do you know that this cave in Seljaland
0:19:16 > 0:19:20and all the other caves in the area predate the earliest Norse settlers?
0:19:20 > 0:19:22We don't know for certain.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25On the one hand we have circumstantial evidence like the
0:19:25 > 0:19:27crosses on the wall, but as we've already said,
0:19:27 > 0:19:30these are not precisely dateable.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33But there's other types of dating evidence as well,
0:19:33 > 0:19:35as methods in archaeology improve.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39And there's a cave around the corner we can look at which
0:19:39 > 0:19:42actually has one example of that sort of evidence.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44I'll take you there.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48Jonathan, you were saying that this cave is potentially
0:19:48 > 0:19:49more important than the other caves.
0:19:49 > 0:19:54This one gives us some opportunities to start looking at dating evidence.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58And dating these sites is the crucial step we have to take
0:19:58 > 0:20:03now to establish whether or not these really are sites of the Irish.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05Here at this one, because of an excavation,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08we had the opportunity to date it more precisely.
0:20:08 > 0:20:09How do you do that?
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Successive volcanic events, you know,
0:20:12 > 0:20:14the eruptions of the volcanoes,
0:20:14 > 0:20:19outpourings from them, these put deposits on the landscape,
0:20:19 > 0:20:21which occur as stratified events
0:20:21 > 0:20:24to which everything else can be related.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28And in this case, particularly for this site,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31is a thing we call the "Landnam tephra".
0:20:31 > 0:20:36A tephra is a layer of volcanic material which can be dated,
0:20:36 > 0:20:40but we can bring these down to quite precise dates, and the Landnam tephra,
0:20:40 > 0:20:45as it's called, is a volcanic event that dates around about 870AD,
0:20:45 > 0:20:49and that 870, 871 - plus or minus two -
0:20:49 > 0:20:53horizon is one which relates very loosely to the
0:20:53 > 0:20:57arrival of the Norse settlers here, who came in about that time,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59that's the historic dating.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02And whether or not that historic dating is exactly right,
0:21:02 > 0:21:05where we find the so-called Landnam tephra,
0:21:05 > 0:21:10we always find the Norse on this side, and not on that side.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14We find them later than that volcanic event.
0:21:14 > 0:21:19Now, here, a few years ago, Kristjan Ahronson, from Bangor University
0:21:19 > 0:21:23in Wales, carried out an excavation not in the cave,
0:21:23 > 0:21:25but just here outside.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28And in that excavation he found the material that had been taken
0:21:28 > 0:21:31when the cave was dug and dumped out here.
0:21:32 > 0:21:38And the relationship of that material to the Landnam tephra
0:21:38 > 0:21:42is such that he feels the material from the cave is older
0:21:42 > 0:21:46and not more recent than that, so in other words,
0:21:46 > 0:21:48it's older than the Norse settlement.
0:21:48 > 0:21:53But if that is correct, this cave is built before the Norse horizon,
0:21:53 > 0:21:57so it must be built by people who have arrived earlier than
0:21:57 > 0:22:00that Norse settlement event.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02Now, it could be we've got the dating of the
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Norse settlement wrong and there were other Norse people here
0:22:05 > 0:22:07earlier than 870,
0:22:07 > 0:22:11but when you consider what we know about the fact that the Irish
0:22:11 > 0:22:13were here at some point before that,
0:22:13 > 0:22:15and we look at the other evidence with the caves
0:22:15 > 0:22:17and the carved crosses and so on,
0:22:17 > 0:22:21and the fact that the Norse settlers themselves tell us
0:22:21 > 0:22:23the Irish were here first, to me,
0:22:23 > 0:22:28it all adds up to a likelihood that the caves, which are traditionally
0:22:28 > 0:22:32associated with the Irish, could well have been built by the Irish.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34It's quite a plausible relationship.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18- EXHIBIT VIDEO:- Inside was one large room where the whole family lived.
0:25:19 > 0:25:23Children didn't have bedrooms, for example. They slept on benches
0:25:23 > 0:25:26either side of the fire, right beside their parents.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52From their camp, the Vikings traded silver and slaves...
0:34:12 > 0:34:19Slave woman, the most well-known, Melkorka, princess from Ireland,
0:34:19 > 0:34:24that comes here, speaks Irish, teaches her son - secretly -
0:34:24 > 0:34:28the Irish language and he later manages to go back to Ireland
0:34:28 > 0:34:31and meet his family there.
0:34:31 > 0:34:37She was sold on the slave market as a deaf and dumb woman,
0:34:37 > 0:34:40so she wouldn't speak a word.
0:34:40 > 0:34:41And on her own,
0:34:41 > 0:34:46when she was spending time with the son she gave birth to with her
0:34:46 > 0:34:51Icelandic master, she would speak fluent Irish and teach him that.
0:34:52 > 0:34:54That was part of her cover.
0:34:54 > 0:35:00And then it all came out, her royal background and so on,
0:35:00 > 0:35:01which she had not revealed.
0:35:01 > 0:35:07There are many characters of a lower social status that are farming,
0:35:07 > 0:35:12are wives or even slaves that have Gaelic-sounding names,
0:35:12 > 0:35:16and she would be the most prominent character.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43Also in the more adventurous sagas about Viking Age heroes,
0:35:43 > 0:35:47we also have many ideas from Irish literature
0:35:47 > 0:35:49transplanted into a Norse context.
0:35:49 > 0:35:54So it's both the notion of characters being defined as Irish,
0:35:54 > 0:36:01or Hebridean - many are said to come from the Hebrides -
0:36:01 > 0:36:05having different religions, different customs.
0:36:05 > 0:36:10Most of them were Irish-Christian at the time.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13And they would bring that Christianity with them to Iceland.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11SCREAMING AND BATTLE CRIES
0:44:53 > 0:44:55Imagine you're down here and you have two chromosomes -
0:44:55 > 0:44:59one from your father and one from your mother.
0:44:59 > 0:45:01And what I've done is I've coloured
0:45:01 > 0:45:05the chromosomes of your grandparents here, in different colours,
0:45:05 > 0:45:08to show you what happens to them as time passes.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11So what happened here is that your father's chromosomes
0:45:11 > 0:45:15are a mosaic of his parents' chromosomes.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20And then your chromosomes are a mosaic of your parents' chromosomes,
0:45:20 > 0:45:23which were already a mosaic of their parents' chromosomes.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28Now if we extrapolate or extend that back many generations,
0:45:28 > 0:45:32then what happens is you can view your chromosomes as having
0:45:32 > 0:45:35many, many different colours and lots of small fragments.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38And each of those fragments is from a particular ancestor,
0:45:38 > 0:45:41say, 1,000 years ago.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44So we can identify those fragments,
0:45:44 > 0:45:46and then we compare them to the fragments of other people,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49and we're trying to find matches,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52trying to find how much you match to other people.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55And that tells us how related you are to those other people.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58Agnar, I'm going to be a little bit selfish here,
0:45:58 > 0:45:59so, who am I most related to?
0:46:00 > 0:46:05OK, we can go straight to your results.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07They do require a little bit of explanation.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11What I'm showing you here is essentially how related
0:46:11 > 0:46:15you are to several different populations.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18Several different groups of people in Europe.
0:46:18 > 0:46:24Now, I have ordered the population labels here by how
0:46:24 > 0:46:28closely related they are to you, or how closely related you are to them.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32And it may be no surprise for you to see that the greatest kinship
0:46:32 > 0:46:36is to people from Ireland. You probably already knew that.
0:46:36 > 0:46:37No surprise.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41And then the second most close relationship is to
0:46:41 > 0:46:44people from Scotland, but you are significantly more related to
0:46:44 > 0:46:48- people from Ireland than you are to people from Scotland.- Right.
0:46:48 > 0:46:53The third closest relationship is to people from England,
0:46:53 > 0:46:57and it does tend to be the case that you tend to be most related
0:46:57 > 0:46:59to people who live closest to you.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03So geography is a key factor in the structure of kinship
0:47:03 > 0:47:05and your relationships to other people.
0:47:05 > 0:47:09But maybe the interesting and fun thing to see from your results
0:47:09 > 0:47:14- is that, in fourth place, we have Iceland.- You're joking?
0:47:14 > 0:47:18And then after that we have Denmark and Norway - Scandinavia.
0:47:18 > 0:47:21So, the history of Iceland is that
0:47:21 > 0:47:25we believe there is evidence to suggest that it wasn't only
0:47:25 > 0:47:29Norwegians and Scandinavians that settled in Iceland,
0:47:29 > 0:47:34the Vikings who came to Iceland, they dropped by in the British Isles
0:47:34 > 0:47:39and in Ireland, and took with them people from Ireland, to Iceland.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43It happens that you are more closely related to people from Iceland
0:47:43 > 0:47:48than you are to people from Denmark and Norway.
0:47:48 > 0:47:50Now, that tells us
0:47:50 > 0:47:54that your genealogical relationship to Icelandic people being
0:47:54 > 0:47:58greater than that to Scandinavian populations, that is
0:47:58 > 0:48:04due to common ancestors that Icelanders have with Irish people
0:48:04 > 0:48:07that are part of the people who moved to
0:48:07 > 0:48:09Iceland during the settlement period.
0:48:09 > 0:48:14- So essentially, you have ancestors that you share with me.- Yeah.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18And those ancestors are the families who were split,
0:48:18 > 0:48:22where some people came to Iceland and some people remained in Ireland.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25And you have chromosome fragments that you have inherited from
0:48:25 > 0:48:29those ancestors, and I and other Icelanders have
0:48:29 > 0:48:32chromosome fragments that they have inherited those ancestors in common.
0:48:33 > 0:48:37So this is telling us something not only about your history,
0:48:37 > 0:48:39but about the history of your population,
0:48:39 > 0:48:43about the Irish population and the Icelandic population,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46and the fact that there is this special genealogical relationship
0:48:46 > 0:48:49between Icelanders and Irish.
0:48:49 > 0:48:50So what about the rest of my friends,
0:48:50 > 0:48:53what is the bigger picture with all ten of us?
0:48:53 > 0:48:59In many ways, the results for your friends are similar to yours.
0:48:59 > 0:49:03There are some of the ten who actually
0:49:03 > 0:49:05have Iceland in third place.
0:49:05 > 0:49:08That is, they're more closely related to Icelanders than
0:49:08 > 0:49:10they are to the English population.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15And there are others that have, like you, Iceland in the fourth position.
0:49:15 > 0:49:17But in general, we see the same picture,
0:49:17 > 0:49:23and for me the most interesting part of the results is this
0:49:23 > 0:49:26closer relationship to Iceland than to other Scandinavian populations.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29And that's indicating these common ancestors that Icelanders
0:49:29 > 0:49:32have with the people of Ireland.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36And we see that result coming up again and again for
0:49:36 > 0:49:38all the people from Ireland, so that's the general picture.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41Were you expecting this result?
0:49:41 > 0:49:43I was expecting something like this,
0:49:43 > 0:49:47I wasn't expecting it to be that clear, to be honest,
0:49:47 > 0:49:49but I was kind of hoping,
0:49:49 > 0:49:52because our previous research had indicated that there was this
0:49:52 > 0:49:56special connection between Ireland and Scotland and Iceland.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59And it's nice to see it borne out, and it's nice to see
0:49:59 > 0:50:03we can pick it up even from looking at one individual, like yourself.
0:50:03 > 0:50:07You carry in you the history of your whole population.