Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist
An 800-year-old Norse story about a military raid has been verified by analysis of ancient DNA.
Sverris Saga is one of the Kings’ sagas – a series of Old Norse tales which tell the lives of Nordic kings. Work on Sverris Saga began in 1185 CE under direct supervision of the king it describes: Sverre Sigurdsson of Norway.
One of its passages depicts a military raid in 1197 CE. A body was thrown into a well at Sverresborg Castle outside Trondheim in central Norway, nearly 400km north of Oslo. It’s likely that the body was thrown into the well in an attempt to poison the water source.
A study published in the journal iScience used ancient DNA to verify the events of the saga and discover details about “Well Man”.
“This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found,” says Michael D. Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum in Trondheim. “There are a lot of these medieval and ancient remains all around Europe, and they’re increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”
Remains were found in a well at Sverresborg Castle in 1938, but researchers at the time weren’t able to do much more than a visual analysis.
The new study involved radiocarbon dating and gene sequencing to reveal new details. Well Man’s remains are confirmed to be about 900 years old. Earlier studies revealed that he was 30–40 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 Anna Petersén of the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research in Oslo.
Using modern Norwegian DNA data as a reference, the team believes Well Man had blue eyes and blonde or light brown hair. His ancestors likely came from the southern Norwegian county of present-day Vest-Agder.
Such techniques have also been used to give detailed glimpses into the lives of ancient Nordic people dating back thousands of years.
The researchers say that they would like to test samples from other historical figures.
“The important Norwegian Saint Olaf is thought to be buried somewhere in Trondheim Cathedral,” says Martin. “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.”
