When archaeologists find adults and children buried together in medieval graves, the most immediate idea is that they were part of the same family. A new study from Stockholm University, published in Science Advances, shows that this assumption does not always hold true.
The researchers analyzed the DNA of 142 individuals who lived between the end of the Viking Age and the Middle Ages. The group included over 60 children and adolescents recovered from various cemeteries: Sigtuna, near Stockholm; Västerhus, in Jämtland; and Fjälkinge, in Skåne.
The genetic results showed that close biological relatives were surprisingly rare among those sharing the same grave. This occurred even in cemeteries where numerous family ties were detected within the overall population.
“We often assume that adults and children sharing a grave were parents and children or other close relatives. In most cases, that was not what we found,” says Maja Krzewińska from the Centre for Paleogenetics at Stockholm University and the lead author of the study.
More than kinship in burial decisions
The findings indicate that decisions about who was buried next to whom were shaped by factors beyond blood ties. Social, religious, or community aspects may have played a significant role.
“Archaeologists have long debated the relationships between people buried together in these types of graves. Ancient DNA finally gave us the tool we were hoping for to directly test those interpretations,” says Anna Kjellström, a researcher in the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at the same university.
The genetic analysis also provided new information about childhood in early Christian Scandinavia. DNA allowed for the determination of the biological sex of children whose remains were too small to reliably identify from the bones.
Burial patterns showed that boys and girls generally followed the same cemetery customs as adult men and women. In Västerhus, for example, men and women were usually buried on opposite sides of the graveyard, and boys and girls were placed according to that same criterion.
Gender identity from an early age
The researchers interpret that gender identity was recognized from early stages of life and reflected in burial practices. “Children were not treated as a separate category. In death, they seem to have been treated according to the same social and religious principles as adult men and women,” explains Anders Götherström, a professor of Molecular Archaeology.
Among the individuals buried in Västerhus, the team also reconstructed the story of a particularly interesting family. A woman identified as Lady 56 was genetically linked to several other individuals in the cemetery: her parents, her brother, and two daughters.
However, the evidence from her grave suggests that her life may have transcended the local community of Jämtland. Lady 56 was buried with a scallop shell, an unusual object in a medieval Scandinavian grave. That shell was a widely recognized symbol of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.
Her presence indicates that Lady 56 may have completed one of the most famous pilgrimages of medieval Europe, traveling thousands of kilometers to the western edge of Christendom before returning home. She died before the age of 30. Her parents, brother, and daughters were also buried in different parts of the same cemetery.
