DNA study confirms details from ancient Norse saga

A new study explores how researchers used ancient DNA to corroborate the events of a Norse saga, published in the Cell Press journal iScience in October. 

The story describes a military raid in AD 1197, where a body was thrown into a well in central Norway near Sverresborg Castle.

In 1938, bones were discovered in a well in Norway, but researchers could only conduct a visual analysis. Now, advancements in technology have enabled researchers to analyze the remains found.

“This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found,” says Professor Michael D. Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum. “There are a lot of these medieval and ancient remains all around Europe, and they’re increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”

900-year-old skeleton

Using radiocarbon dating, researchers confirmed that the body is approximately 900 years old, and studies conducted in 2014 and 2016 confirmed that the body belonged to a male between 30 and 40 years old at the time of death.

“The text is not absolutely correct—what we have seen is that the reality is much more complex than the text,” says archaeologist Anna Petersén of the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research.

“We can corroborate what actually happened in a more neutral way,” says Dr. Martin Rene Ellegaard of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. 

Ellegaard analyzed samples from a tooth found in the skeleton to sequence his genome. This analysis revealed that he likely had blue eyes and either blond or light-brown hair. Additionally, it suggested that his ancestors were probably from the southernmost Norwegian county, which is present-day Vest-Agder.

“Most of the work that we do is reliant on having reference data,” says Ellegaard. “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.”

“Those reference data are literally thousands of genomes of modern Norwegians and many thousands of other European genomes,” says Martin.

Despite these advances, the technology has its limitations. To sequence the “Well-man’s” genome, researchers had to remove the tooth’s outer surface and grind it into powder, meaning the sample is no longer available for future tests.

“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,” says Ellegaard. “We need to consider what kind of tests we’re doing now because it will limit what we can do in the future.”