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The fusion of history, archeology and genetics unravels an 800-year-old Nordic mystery. Researchers from Norway used ancient DNA to tell a story from… Sverris Saga, where a man’s body was thrown into a well. Genetic analysis reveals what the man might have looked like and where his ancestors came from. The findings are described in a study published Oct. 25 in the journal Cell Press iScience and the methods used could help scientists identify other historical figures.
“This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found,” said Michael D. Martin, co-author and genomicist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said in a statement. “There are many of these medieval and ancient remains throughout Europe, and they are increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”
[Related: Stone circles unearthed in Norway mark ancient children’s graves.]
The Sverris Saga
The Old Norse Sverris Saga describes the reign of King Sverre Sigurdsson and is an important source of knowledge about the region in the late 12th and early 13th centuries AD. One of the passages describes a robbery Sverresborg Castle outside Trondheim in central Norway that took place in 1197 CE. The writer mentions a dead man who was thrown into the well, but the reason why he was thrown into the well is much more sinister than just a simple drowning. Historians suspect the body was thrown in way to poison the local main water source.
In 1938, the bones believed to be those of the ‘Well-man’ were found within the walls of the castle, but scientists at the time could do little more than visual analysis. Today’s scientists have done just that radiocarbon dating and advanced gene sequencing technology that allowed them to build a more solid picture of the Well man’s identity.
Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the remains are about 900 years old. Research of 2014 and 2016 also confirmed that the body belonged to a man who was between 30 and 40 years old when he died.
“The text is not absolutely correct – what we have seen is that the reality is much more complex than the text,” says co-author and archaeologist Anna Petersén of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. said in a statement.
“We can confirm in a more neutral way what really happened,” research says co-author Martin Rene Ellegaard from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology added.
A 900 year old genome
In this new studythe team used samples of a tooth from the Well-man’s skeleton to sequence his genome. The team was then able to determine that he most likely had blue eyes and blond or light brown hair. His ancestors probably came from the southernmost Norwegian province of present-day Vest-Agder.
To analyze this very old genome, they used a large collection of reference data from the genomes of modern Norwegians and other Euopeans, in collaboration with Agnar Helgason of deCODE genetics in Iceland.
“Most of the work we do depends on reference data,” says Ellegaard. “So the older genomes we sequence and the more modern individuals we sequence, the better the analysis will be in the future.”
[Related: Some modern-day Scandinavians lack the ancestral diversity of Vikings.]
According to the team, the discovery of the Well man’s remains and their connection to this passage is in Sverris Saga gave them the opportunity to bring inferences based on ancient DNA into historical research.
“Although we cannot prove that the remains recovered from the pit in the ruins of Sverresborg Castle are those of the person mentioned in Sverris Sagathe circumstantial evidence is consistent with this conclusion,” the authors wrote in the study.
Tooth powder
Even with all this data and better research methods, that is true still restrictions to this technology. Sampling Well-man’s genome required removing the outer surface of his tooth to prevent it from becoming contaminated with DNA from those who handled it during the excavation. Also, the tooth had to be ground into powder and the sample cannot be used for further testing. The team was unable to obtain data on pathogens the Well man may have been carrying at the time of death.
“It was a compromise between removing surface contamination from the people who touched the tooth and then removing some of the potential pathogens… there are a lot of ethical considerations,” Ellegaard said. “We need to think about what kind of testing we do now because this will limit our options in the future.”
The team is also keen to test samples from other historical figures, including Saint Olaf– the patron saint of Norway – believed to be buried near Trondheim Cathedral.
“So I think that if his remains are eventually uncovered, some effort can be made to physically describe him and trace his ancestry using genetic sequencing,” Martin said.