Danes 

It is interesting seeing these earlier stated patterns for major subclades I-Y2592, I-Z58, and I-Z63 pretty much holding true after the abundance of ancient dna we now have. Of course there is no one size fits all pattern for subclades so large and so old, but that being said I-Z58 does have a strong West Germanic correlation, I-Y2592 a strong Scandinavia Peninsula and Viking Age correlation, and I-Z63 a strong East Germanic correlation. Ancient dna evidence is pointing to a lot of I-Z58 leaving Sweden for Denmark during the Bronze Age, a lot of I-Z63 leaving Sweden for Poland during the Iron Age, and I-Y2592 chilling in the Scandinavian Peninsula until the Viking Age and beyond.

According to the authors the Anglo-Saxons were not from Zealand, so their departure to England would not have been a contributing factor. Also, the autosomal flow northwards into Zealand was not Southern European. It was South Scandinavian; basically, from Northern Germany. The volcanic winter of 536 CE and the Justinian plague of 541-549 CE seem to coincide with this population replacement on Zealand. Although based on what I read in the preprint I don’t think the authors think those were contributing factors?

​​​​​@@I1-M253Thanks for the reply. I just wanted to raise this quite speculative hypothesis ive seen. And it could possibly only be corroborated if they find samples that show Y-dna lines that have 'moved back' north. And no, the authors dont mention the other major factors (plague and the major cold spell). And im sure northern Europe became pretty empty for a very long time. In fact In the beginning of the 8:th century, the missionary in Northern Germany (that became St Boniface) wrote many letters. In one of them he complained on how small the population still was.

@@leojson7351 The Heruli are quite the mysterious tribe. According to Jordanes the Danes expelled the Heruli, but the Romans also have them in Southern Europe prior. Then they sort of “disappear” from history.

​​@@I1-M253Here is an excerpt from Encyclopedia Britannica "Heruli, an east Germanic people originally from Scandinavia. They raided towns in the Roman Empire, scoring their greatest success in ad 267, when they captured Byzantium and sacked Greek cities. Two years later, the eastern Heruli were crushingly defeated by the Roman emperor in a battle near Naissus (modern Niš, Yugos.). From then until the mid-6th century, when they vanished from history, their fortunes varied. They were subjugated first by the Goths, then by the Huns. Their kingdom on the middle Danube, founded in the late 5th century, fell to the Lombards early in the 6th century. Some survivors are reported to have returned to Scandinavia, while others entered Roman service" I think this is not entirely correct: there was even a Roman legion, early on, named after the Herulis, that was possibly deployed in many places in Europe. And I dont think they were 'subjugated' by the Goths, since they created their own kingdom in Hungary/Austria. But im sure they mixed with the Goths, as they were contemporary.

@@I1-M253 I´m a Dane who always believed in a South-Danes Iron Age migration from the Elbe bassin since linguistic observations seem to suggest this, even though the hypothesis hasn´t been very popular until now. The assumption is based on the many Danish (pre-German) placenames from Holsten and all the way down along the Elbe to the Anhalt and Thuringen area. There is the -sted/stedt names, the "möll-" names (rather than mühl-), Stendal (rather than Stein-thal) but most importantly the many placenames ending in "-sleben" which are regarded as being from pre-German Iron Age, as indeed there are no Otto´s-leben, Ludwigsleben, etc, but apparently a good amount of these "-sleben"-places with Danish names prefixed to them, including with my name written as Gispersleben. I´m glad that genetic ancestry now seems to confirm my suspicion of the Iron Age northbound migration of these southern Elbe-Danes. I strongly suspect the north-bound South-Danish migration was due to the Hunnic wars and the creation of new borderlines where Slavic allies of the Huns were allocated all lands east of the Elbe, and the Danes living in the area were forced to evacuate the eastern side of the Elbe perhaps because they had hesitated to participate in the military campaigns of Attila. However, I must also remind you and your viewers that the root "Dan" is attested very early in the Roman names "coDANovia" and "coDANus sinus" the ancient Roman names for the Danish isles and the Bay of Kattegat, respectively. That this root referes to the Danes is indicated by the fact that co- was a unstressed Roman prefix (as in comarca, [koˈmaɾka]) and that Kodaň is to this day the name for Copenhagen in the Czech language