Stone Age DNA to provide new insights into kinship and diseases in humans and animals
New DNA analyses of bones from Stone Age graves and settlements in Falbygden will shed light on how individuals were related to each other. In a unique study, the Stone Age people's domestic animals will also be studied more closely in search of clues as to how they were managed and how new diseases came to humans.
DNA technology is constantly being refined and now researchers hope to find out more about the people buried in the megalithic tombs in Falbygden. The tombs consist of stone-built chambers that may contain the remains of up to 130 people. The calcareous soil in the area means that the bones are well preserved, providing unique opportunities to study ancient DNA across an entire region.
DNA from dogs and cattle
“We will study in detail how they are related to each other, both within a burial chamber and between graves in the area,” says Karl-Göran Sjögren, archaeologist and leader of the project.
The study will hopefully lead to new insights into how prehistoric societies functioned and how kinship relations depend on factors such as economy, demography and mobility.
The remains of domestic animals such as dogs, pigs and cattle will also be analyzed using the same technique.
“This is the first time that such a detailed study has been carried out on domestic animals from the Stone Age,” says Karl-Göran Sjögren.
New diseases from animals
In addition to getting a picture of how animal husbandry functioned over 5,000 years ago, the researchers hope to gain more clarity on the origins of some diseases that affect people even today. For example, plague infection has been detected in humans from this time in the Falbygden region, but it is unclear what the transmission routes were.
“We know that new diseases are introduced in connection with agriculture, the question is where do they come from, have they been transmitted from domestic animals? says Karl-Göran Sjögren. “Therefore, we will use DNA analysis to see if there are signs of zoonotic diseases in domestic animals in Falbygden”.
There will be no new excavations in Falbygden; only bone remains from previous excavations will be analyzed in the new research project; A Multi-species study of biological and social relatedness in Neolithic Sweden.
Previous results
In recent years, the University of Gothenburg has conducted several research projects involving archaeological excavations of settlements and megalithic tombs at Falbygden in Västergötland, Sweden. In collaboration with researchers from Lund University in Sweden and geneticists from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, they have published brand new findings in the prestigious journal Nature. The research is based on analysis of bone remains from people who lived in Falbygden during the Stone Age, about 5000 years ago.
“We have laid the groundwork in previous studies, now we will go into the details a little more. This has been made possible by new ways of analyzing DNA that have been developed in recent years,” says Karl-Göran Sjögren.
From the University of Gothenburg and the Department of Historical Studies, archaeologists Tony Axelsson and Malou Blank are also participating. Other researchers are Torbjörn Ahlström, osteologist at Lund University, and Martin Sikora and Frederik Seersholm, both geneticists at the University of Copenhagen.
Text: Cecilia Sjöberg
The research project, which is funded by the Swedish Research Council, will run for five years and consists of four different parts.
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One part of the project will focus on kinship within and between graves by analyzing human bones from megalithic graves.
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Another part will study relationships within animal populations by analyzing animal bones from Stone Age settlements.
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A third part focuses on the role of animals as reservoirs and transmitters of zoonotic diseases.
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The fourth part of the project studies mobility through isotopic analysis of both human and animal bones.
