Well, I THINK this calls for DNA testing to see if the sheep are indeed related to the Visigoths, or even the Scots....
Vikings or their predecessors traveled far more extensively and earlier than many people think. There are hieroglyphics in Runestone State Park in Heavener, Oklahoma http://www.oklahomaparks.com/detail.asp?id=1%2B5U%2B5325 long before the Spanish or French explored the area.
This doesn’t have anything to do with Viking Kitties, does it?
I have never hearda anything else than our sheep being from Norway (or Scandinavia in general).
If she finds DNA that says they are from Gotland there could be a simple reason for it. Since sheep were taken from Scandinavia to Iceland about 1200 years have come and gone, during wich time a lot of influx of new sheep DNA to Scandinavia has probably happened. But in islands like here in Iceland, in Shetland islands (Hjaltland like we call them), Faoerer island and Gotland the old stock was preserved and isolated.
Probably because the sicknesses that must have come with the migration of sheep to the rest of Scandinavia, and we people of the islands have not wanted to endanger our sheep when they have heard about the sicknesses.
About weather sheep from scandinavia have been part of the genetic makeup of the british sheep, it is probable, as England used to be called Danish Law, as it was under Danish control for quite some time.
Sometimes people seem to be able to spin crazy stories from little or no evidence, probably they already had spun them, but then tried to find any proofs for them. It is not scientific.
Ping
How do they explain their 6 loses this year?
Bloody Vikings...
Damn ... can’t imagine going thru the rest of my life not knowing this ... now my life (knowledge wise) is complete.
Didn’t read the article. But the Goths did come from Southern Sweden. Some of them might have been ancestors of the Vikings, not the other way around. At any rate, they might have been closely related.
How does Gothic compare with Old Norse liguistically? There is part of the answer.
Oh not those Vikings, never mind.
Yes, Scandinavia, where the men are men and the sheep are nervous!