By Stephen Beech via SWNS
The body of a man thrown down a well over 800 years ago has finally been identified from his DNA.
A passage in the Norse Sverris Saga – the story of King Sverre Sigurdsson- describes a military raid that occurred in the year 1197, during which a body was thrown into a well at Sverresborg Castle, outside Trondheim in central Norway.
It is believed to have been an attempt to poison the main water source for the local inhabitants.
Bones were found in the well at Sverresborg Castle in 1938, but researchers at the time did not have the tools to do much apart from visual analysis.
Now Norwegian scientists have used ancient DNA to corroborate the events of the saga and discover details about the “Well-man.”
They say their findings, published in the journal iScience, blend history and archaeology with science – and set a precedent for future research on historical figures.
Professor Michael Martin, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’sUniversity Museum in Trondheim, said: “This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found.
“There are a lot of these medieval and ancient remains all around Europe, and they’re increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”
Radiocarbon dating and advanced gene-sequencing technology have allowed the researchers to craft a more intricate picture of who the Well-man was.
Radiocarbon dating showed that the body is around 900 years old.
Studies conducted in 2014 and 2016 confirmed that the body belonged to a man who was between 30 and 40 years old at the time of his death.
Archaeologist Anna Petersén, of the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research in Oslo, said: “The text is not absolutely correct – what we have seen is that the reality is much more complex than the text.”
Dr. Martin Rene Ellegaard, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said: “We can corroborate what actually happened in a more neutral way.”
As part of his work toward a doctoral degree, Dr. Ellegaard used samples of a tooth obtained from the Well-man’s skeleton to sequence his genome.
Using that data, the team was able to ascertain that he most likely had blue eyes and blond or light-brown hair, and his ancestors likely hailed from the southernmost Norwegian county of present-day Vest-Agder.
The research team was able to draw conclusions about the Well-man’s ancestry thanks to a large amount of reference data from the genomes of modern-day Norwegians made available through a collaboration with Professor Agnar Helgason at deCODE Genetics in Iceland.
Dr. Ellegaard said: “Most of the work that we do is reliant on having reference data.
“So the more ancient genomes that we sequence and the more modern individuals that we sequence, the better the analysis will be in the future.”
Martin said: “Those reference data are literally thousands of genomes of modern Norwegians and many thousands of other European genomes.”
But the research team says that even the latest technology has its limitations, as sampling the Well-man’s genome required removing the outer surface from his tooth – to avoid contamination from those who had handled it in non-sterile environments, such as during excavation—and grinding the tooth into a powder.
That means that the sample can no longer be used for further tests, and the team wasn’t able to get data on any pathogens the Well-man may have been carrying at the time of his death.
Dr. Ellegaard said: “It was a compromise between removing surface contamination of the people who have touched the tooth and then removing some of the possible pathogens.
“There are lots of ethical considerations.
“We need to consider what kind of tests we’re doing now because it will limit what we can do in the future.”
Next, the research team would like to test samples from other historical figures.
Martin said: “The important Norwegian Saint Olaf is thought to be buried somewhere in Trondheim Cathedral, so I think that if eventually his remains are uncovered, there could be some effort to describe him physically and trace his ancestry using genetic sequencing.”
Petersén added: “It’s a fantastic result on what Ellegaard and Martin’s method can bring to archaeology in such a strange or rare context like this is.”
