Tracing the Spread of Germanic Languages using Ancient Genomics

Today, Germanic languages, including German, English, Frisian, Dutch and the Nordic languages, are widely spoken in northwest Europe. However, key aspects of the arrival and diversification of this Indo-European linguistic phylum remain contentious. By adding 712 new ancient human genomes we find an archaeologically elusive population entering Sweden from the Baltic region by around 4000 BP. This population became widespread throughout Scandinavia by 3500 BP, matching the distribution of Palaeo-Germanic, the Late Bronze Age predecessor of Proto-Germanic. These Baltic immigrants thus offer a new potential vector for the first Germanic speakers to arrive in Scandinavia, some 800 years later than traditionally assumed. Following the disintegration of Proto-Germanic, we find by 1650 BP a southward push from Southern Scandinavia into presumed Celtic-speaking areas, including Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. During the Migration Period (1575–1375 BP), we see this ancestry representing West Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons in Britain, and Langobards in southern Europe. We find a related large-scale northward migration into Denmark and South Sweden corresponding with historically attested Danes and the expansion of Old Norse. These movements have direct implications for multiple linguistic hypotheses. Our findings show the power of combining genomics with historical linguistics and archaeology in creating a unified, integrated model for the emergence, spread and diversification of a linguistic group.