Skeletons found in famous viking burial sites in Scotland were local people who may have taken on viking identities, a new study has found.
Researchers found male skeletons from Newark, Buckquoy and Brough Road burial sites in Orkney were buried with swords and other viking memorabilia, despite not being genetically viking.
The team also discovered that Picts became vikings without genetically mixing with Scandinavians.
Picts lived in what is now eastern and northern Scotland during the Late British Iron Age and Early Medieval periods.
The research is part of a six-year project which debunks the modern image of vikings as brutal predators who travelled by sea from Scandinavia to pillage and raid their way across Europe and beyond.
Researchers sequenced the whole genomes of 442 mostly Viking Age men, women, children and babies from their teeth and petrous bones found in viking cemeteries.
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