The picturesque and remote Faroe Islands are located in the North Atlantic between Norway and Iceland. The first inhabitants arrived a lot earlier than previously thought, and almost 54,000 people live on the archipelago today.
We know that Viking explorers stopped off on the islands around 800-900CE. New evidence shows that humans were around 300 years earlier than that.
Researchers have found signs that sheep were on the Faroe Islands at that time, but only with people. The sheep's genes were discovered along with two lipids that are produced in the sheep's gut.
The study's lead author, paleoclimatologist and the study's author, says that the nail in the coffin is that people were there before the Vikings. The research was done at the Earth Observatory at Columbia University.
The team was able to be more certain about the time period they were looking at because of a layer of ash in the ground.
It's not surprising that there aren't many places on the island that are large enough for settlements, so it's likely that any structures that existed before 800CE were later.
The most conclusive evidence yet that people came to the Faroes before the Vikings is this research. It's not the first time the idea has been put forward, as the wind can carry seeds to new locations, and the weeds associated with pastures and human farming can be traced back for thousands of years.
The documents written by monks talk about the way in which the northern islands were inhabited before 800CE. It's difficult to know if these islands are the Faroes or not. There's evidence in the lake near the village of Eii on the island of Eysturoy.
"The early writings are tenuous, it's all circumstantial," says paleoclimatologist William D'Andrea from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. You can see the sheep's genes at once. It's like an off-on switch.
The researchers raise the possibility that these settlers were Celts, though they don't know who they were. Celtic words can be found in many places in the Faroese, while ancient Celtic grave markings can be found on the island.
The most important evidence that anyone arrived on the Faroes before the Vikings was a study that dated charred grains from under the floor of a Viking longhouse. The discovery of sheep on the islands adds more weight to the story.
Kevin Edwards, an environment researcher from the University of Aberdeen, worked on the paper and says that the research techniques used in this latest study could be used elsewhere to look for earlier human settlements.
Is there similar evidence to be found in Iceland, where similar arguments are made for a pre-Norse presence, and for which similar archaeological, pollen-analytical, and human DNA are forthcoming?
The research has been published.
