A barbarian tribe’s mythic origin story is true, ancient DNA reveals

In 551 C.E., 150 years after the Goths joined other tribes to bring down the mighty Roman empire, a Gothic historian named Jordanes spun a dramatic tale about the origin of his people: “The Goths are said to have come … from a hive of races or a womb of nations,” sailing in a trio of ships 5 centuries earlier from a frozen island called Scandza. After landing on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, he wrote, they swept south, all the way to the Black Sea.