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Exclusive: This 7,000-year-old woman was among Sweden's last hunter-gatherers

Buried on a bed of antlers and adorned with ornaments, this woman was a special member of her community—but why? 

NOVEMBER 11, 2019

Researchers used skeletal remains and ancient DNA to reconstruct the burial of a woman who lived in what is now southern Sweden 7,000 years ago.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GERT GERMERAAD, TRELLEBORGS MUSEUM

To the archaeologist who excavated her remains, she’s Burial XXII. To the staff at the museum where she will be displayed, she’s known as the “Seated Woman” (for now, at least, though they’re open to other suggestions). And to the artist who reconstructed her life-size image and imagined her piercing stare, she’s the “Shaman.”

Her real name was likely last uttered some 7,000 years ago in the fertile marshes and forests of what is now southwest Sweden. But while that name is forgotten to history, a team led by archaeologist and artist Oscar Nilsson was able to breathe life into her remarkable burial with a reconstruction that will be unveiled at Sweden’s Trelleborg Museum on November 17.

See how these facial reconstructions reveal 40,000 years of English ancestry.

The woman was buried upright, seated cross-legged on a bed of antlers. A belt fashioned from more than 100 animal teeth hung from her waist and a large slate pendant from her neck. A short cape of feathers covered her shoulders.

Archaeologists determined she was buried seated upright. A belt featured teeth from deer, wild boar, and moose, while her cape was fashioned from crow, magpie, gull, jay, goose, and duck feathers.

 

 

PHOTOGRAPH BY GERT GERMERAAD, TRELLEBORGS MUSEUM

From her bones, archaeologists were able to determine that she stood a bit under five feet tall and was between 30 and 40 years old when she died. DNA extracted from other individuals in the burial ground where she was found confirmed what we know about Mesolithic peoples in Europe—that they were dark skinned and pale eyed.

The advent of agriculture

Lars Larsson recalls excavating Burial XXII at the archaeological site of Skateholm, near Trelleborg, in the early 1980s. It was one of more than 80 ancient graves recorded at Skateholm, which ranged in dates from roughly 5,500 to 4,600 B.C. and included a variety of burial types, including people interred in pairs or with dogs, and individual dogs buried with rich grave offerings. Burial XXII was one of only a handful of seated interments, however, and archaeologists decided to excavate the burial as a single block that would to be transported to a lab for further investigation.


“That may have been the most difficult grave we excavated at Skateholm,” says Larsson, a professor emeritus of archaeology at Lund University.

Skateholm and other late Mesolithic burial sites in the region along the southern Scandinavian coastline hold particular interest to archaeologists as they reveal communities of hunter-gatherers that continued to flourish for nearly a thousand years after Neolithic farmers brought agriculture into mainland Europe.

Watch the face of a 9,000-year-old teenager be reconstructed.

It appears that geographical isolation wasn’t the reason for the late arrival of farming in Scandinavia, says Larsson, pointing to grave goods found at Skateholm that suggest trade contacts with agricultural communities on the European mainland. Rather, it was a choice.

“People tend to think of hunter-gathers as uncivilized humans,” Larsson says, “but why would they transition to agriculture when they had a great situation with hunting and gathering and fishing?”

A gateway between worlds

While researchers relied on human bones and DNA to create the physical reconstruction of the woman, Larsson is reluctant to imagine her role in society apart from saying it was “distinctive.”

Ingela Jacobsson, director of the Trelleborg Museum, agrees. “She had some sort of special position in society considering everything that she was buried with, but beyond that we cannot make any sort of determinations.”

The artist in Oscar Nilsson, however, zeroed in on what he thought he saw. “You can interpret the evidence in many ways, but in my eyes she is definitely a shaman. She's buried sitting up on the horns. It’s very striking and she very obviously was a person of great importance and dignity,” he says.


Adelasius Ebalchus lived in northern Switzerland 1,300 years ago. He was in his late teens or early twenties when he died.

PHOTOGRAPH BY OSCAR NILSSON

Patcham Woman was a resident of Roman Britain, and her burial may be a 1,700-year-old crime scene: She was discovered by ditch diggers in 1936, buried in a fairly deep pit with a nail driven deep into the back of her skull. More nails were scattered by her knees, and a male skeleton was found lying feet-to-feet with her. Signs of stress and disease in her spine and joints show she led a hard physical life before dying sometime between the ages of 25 and 35.

COURTESY ROYAL PAVILION & MUSEUMS, BRIGHTON & HOVE

Discovered in 1985 during building works in Brighton, UK, Stafford Road Man is among the first wave of Saxons to enter Britain after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Buried with a spear and a knife around 500 A.D., he lived an unusually long and active life and died after the age of 45.

COURTESY ROYAL PAVILION & MUSEUMS, BRIGHTON & HOVE

Artifacts from southern England show that both Neanderthals, such as this woman, and modern humans were residents of what is now southern England some 40,000 years ago.

COURTESY ROYAL PAVILION & MUSEUMS, BRIGHTON & HOVE

Ditchling Road Man, named for the road-widening project that revealed his remains in 1921, was part of the first wave of farmers from continental Europe that arrived in Britain with their distinctive Beaker pottery around 2,400 B.C. His remains show that he suffered several periods of malnutrition while growing up, which may have slightly stunted his growth. Ditchling Road Man died between the ages of 25 and 35 and was buried with a Beaker vessel by his feet and a small number of snail shells next to his mouth.

COURTESY ROYAL PAVILION & MUSEUMS, BRIGHTON & HOVE

Facial features have "smoothed out" over millennia, and humans look less masculine today, says reconstructor Oscar Nilsson, who recreated this face of a teenager who lived in Greece 9,000 years ago.

PHOTOGRAPH BY OSCAR NILSSON

The reconstruction of the "Huarmey Queen" is based on her 1,200-year-old remains from Peru. It took specialist Oscar Nilsson 220 hours to complete.

PHOTOGRAPH BY OSCAR NILSSON

Nilsson’s forensic technique starts with an exact 3D replica of the original skull, scanned, printed, and then modeled by hand to reflect bone structure and tissue thickness based on the individual’s origin, sex, and estimated age at death.

For the body, he recruited an acquaintance with a similar height and build to pose cross legged. Nilsson and his colleagues Eline Kumlander and Cathrine Abrahamson took plaster molds of the body model that were later cast in silicone. The clothes and adornments—including the belt fashioned from 130 animal teeth—were sourced locally and crafted by Helena Gjaerum.

But what draws the most attention is the woman’s riveting, intense expression.

“I seldom make reconstructions that have so much character,” says Nilsson, “but she is a character. As we came to the conclusion that she was a shaman, it was easier to create her facial expression. She’s not moving her facial muscles much, but it feels like she is communicating.”

“She's like a gateway between our world and the other world,” he adds, “and that has to be recognized in her face.”

Museum director Jacobsson says that she got goose bumps the first time she saw the reconstruction. “There was a special look in her eyes; it was really something.”

Maria Jiborn, an educator at the Trelleborg Museum, says she felt a strange sense of déjà vu when she looked into the face of the Mesolithic woman. “I remember thinking, hmm, haven´t we met before? Like she was familiar in some funny way. She probably looks like some distant acquaintance.”

“We are all humans through time and space,” she adds.

The reconstruction will be revealed on November 17 as part of the permanent exhibition “Eye to Eye,” which features several of the Skateholm burials, at the Trelleborg Museum. For more information, visit the museum’s website or Facebook page.

(Sources: National Geographic)

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