You report that a new genetics company based in Iceland hopes to profit by the genetic homogeneity of the country's population (This Week, 3 May, p 12). You said that almost all Icelanders are descendants of Vikings from Norway.
I admit that the Icelandic population is homogeneous, but its ancestors were not exclusivelyor even mostlyNorwegian. A study done on blood proteins several years ago showed that, on the contrary, the single group with the greatest similarity to the Icelanders is the population of Ireland. The strikingly high rate of red-haired people in Iceland and Ireland provides another indirect indication of the relationship.
If you read English translations of the old Norse sagas, you notice fairly frequent references to the Vikings taking slaves from Ireland. In other words, the kidnapped women and men who went unwillingly to Iceland appear to have made a bigger contribution to the human ...
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