Viking ancestry?

[jbml]

I have a friend who makes hand-made historical shoes for re-enactment, museums and so on. She works from precise foot measurements and shape drawings, rather than generic lasts, so each shoe or boot is a perfect fit for the wearer (and very comfortable they are, too).

She says that Viking-descended feet and Anglo-Saxon descended feet have very different, and distinctive, shape profiles.

How does she know who is 'Viking-descended' or 'Anglo-Saxon-descended' a thousand years after these supposed ethic groups disappeared into the wider mix?

Statistical deduction from the vast preponderance of one type in the Danelaw and the vast preponderance of the other type outside the Danelaw.

[Erato]

Foot types:  Scots-Irish vs. English.  I have the English type.

http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/footloose-in-archaeology.htm

[alanmack]

Thanks for the link Erato. At  least I fit the pattern; Scots-Irish feet and Dupuytren's Contracture. My background is Anglo-Welsh and Anglo-Scots, but the Anglo bits are both very definitely Southern English.

[Zen rabbit]

I would imagine that it could be worked out from archaeological finds. Shoes in Viking finds being different from Saxon finds

[bykerlads]

The actor Bill Nighy has the hands typical of Dupuytrens.
He has not had it treated and you can see it clearly if you watch his hands on film.
Apparently, there is a specialist doctor in Sheffield who offers effective treatment for Dupuytrens hands.

[Gadget]

I have a very slight Dupuytrens contracture of my left little finger. It's so slight that it doesn't bother me but I can't straighten it in any plane. However, I also have the English feet shown in the link that Erato posted.  (I always thought they were of the Egyptian type).

I'm mainly of Welsh-Anglo-Scots ancestry so I suppose I'm a bit of a mongrel.

[Skoosh]

How about the so-called Greek foot with the second toe longer than the big toe. The St Kilda natives & the Statue of Liberty have this in common.

Skoosh.

[Zen rabbit]

I think we are all a bit of a mongrel really. I am a bit of  Welsh-anglo mix with quite a few family lines wandering in from the Welsh borders.

[Redroger]

As one who carried the Viking Gene which went to Russian, Constinople, and Sicily amongst other places I bookmarked that link with interest. Thanks. i definitely have the narrower type feet.