Old Photograph Fladdabister Shetland Islands Scotland

Old photograph of crofters horse ploughing at Fladdabister located eight miles South of Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland. Fladdabister is an unusual Shetland settlement, with some fascinating ruins with Dutch influenced building styles among the older croft houses. The expanding population of Scandinavia led to a shortage of available resources and arable land there and led to a period of Viking expansion, the Norse gradually shifting their attention from plundering to invasion. Shetland was colonised during the late 8th and 9th centuries, the fate of the existing indigenous population being uncertain. Modern Shetlanders have almost identical proportions of Scandinavian matrilineal and patrilineal genetic ancestry, suggesting that the islands were settled by both men and women in equal measure



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