THE VIKING conquest of Britain may have been more than a thousand years ago, but new research has found evidence to suggest the warriors from the frozen north left behind a genetic footprint more evident in the North-East than elsewhere in the UK.

The BBC's Blood of the Vikings programme commissioned scientists from University College, London, to take DNA samples from two thousand men across the country.

And the first large-scale genetics survey of its kind found a pattern in some parts of the population that suggests the Vikings did not only pillage in Britain 1,200 years ago, but that they also settled here.

York, Morpeth and Penrith were among the towns and cities where tests were carried out.

York showed the most evidence of "invader input", although here researchers found it difficult to establish if the DNA traces found were Danish, Norwegian, Angle or Saxon.

Conversely, the Y-chromosomes of the men tested in Penrith showed a high incidence of Norwegian DNA signatures, suggesting Vikings from Scandinavia probably established sea routes from the Shetlands to the Hebrides and down the west coast to Cumbria and the Isle of Man.

A detailed analysis of the findings is included in the final part of the Blood of the Vikings series, screened on BBC2, at 9pm tomorrow.