The analysis found that around 80 Icelanders in four contemporary families hailed from ancestors who lived in Iceland in 1710 and 1740. They carry a newly-discovered variant of mitochondrial DNA called C1e. Remarkably, this variant is closely related to other C1 variants that are unique to the first Indians to settle in America 14,000 years ago. It was identified in 11 contemporary Icelanders, and traced back genaeologically (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21419).

Because the variant is in mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed down the mothers’ line, the first Amerindian arriving in Iceland must have been a woman, and must have arrived centuries before 1710.

“As the island was virtually isolated from the tenth century, the most likely hypothesis is that these genes corresponded to an Amerindian woman who was brought from America by the Vikings around 1000,” says lead researcher, Carles Lalueza-Fox of Spain’s Institute of Biological Evolution in Barcelona, in a press statement from Spain’s national research council, CSIC. Lalueza-Fox analysed the DNA in collaboration with Decode Genetics, an Icelandic company in Reykjavik that stores genetic records of the Icelandic population.

To dig even deeper into the past, he is now examining DNA from more people who live in the same region that the four families hail from, near the Vatnajokull glacier in southern Iceland. The hope is to trace other ancestors who go back even further than 1710.

The findings tally with mediaeval Icelandic accounts of voyages by Vikings to the New World in the 10th century.

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