900-Year-Old Norwegian Corpse Is Probably “The Well-Man”

Ancient DNA analysis has helped to solve yet another historical mystery – this time, in Norway.

King Sverre Sigurdsson is considered a key figure in Norway’s medieval history, having ruled the country from 1184 to 1202 AD.

The Sverris Saga chronicles Sigurdsson’s pursuit of sovereignhood during a period of political unrest, where conflicting claims to the throne caused violent civil wars. The sagas provide historians with an insight into the power struggles at play in medieval Norway, though they were often composed many years – or even centuries – after the events occurred.

Sverre’s men were known as “Birkebeiner”, meaning “birch legs”, as they supposedly used bark from the birch tree as legwear. The opponents were known as “Baglers”, derived from the Norse word “bagall”, which means “bishop wand”.

According to the Sverris Saga, a military raid occurred against the Birkebeiners at Sverresborg Castle in 1197 AD. The surprise attack was launched by the Baglers while the castle’s residents ate their evening meal. A single passage of text describes a dead man’s body being thrown from the castle – by the Baglers – into a well below. In an alleged attempt to contaminate the drinking water, boulders were thrown atop the gentleman who would later become known as the “Well-man”.

For hundreds of years, the Well-man’s story was kept alive only through a single sentence in a historic text. Now, in a study published in iScience, scientists believe they have found his body.

“While we cannot prove that the remains recovered from the well inside the ruins of Sverresborg Castle are those of the individual mentioned in Sverris Saga, the circumstantial evidence is consistent with this conclusion,” the researchers said.

Analyzing ancient DNA from medieval remains

An excavation of the well at Sverresborg Castle in 1938 revealed human remains but, at that time, scientists could do little more than visually analyze the bones. Two studies published in 2014 and 2016 conducted osteological analyses of the remains, revealing that they belonged to a male who was likely aged 30–40 years when he died.

In a new study led by Dr. Michael Martin, a professor in the Department of Natural History at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, researchers extracted DNA from the Well-man’s tooth to sequence his genome.

“This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found,” said Martin. “There are a lot of these medieval and ancient remains all around Europe, and they’re increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”

Was Well-man a Birkebeiner or a Bagler?

Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the remains found in the well were ~900 years old. DNA analysis revealed much deeper insights about who the Well-man was and where he came from.

He most likely had blue eyes and blond to light-brown hair, the researchers said. By comparing his DNA to a vast amount of data from modern-day Norwegians, it can be inferred that his ancestors were likely from a southern region of Norwegian, known today as Vest-Agder. This surprised Martin and colleagues, as King Sverre’s army that fell victim to the Baglers’ raid was assumed to be from central Norway, whereas the raiders were believed to be from the South.

Well-man skeleton. Credit: Åge Hojem NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet.

Did the Well-man belong to the Birkebeiners or the Baglers?

“We note that the passage in Sverris Saga states that the Well-man was dead before the Baglers threw him into the well. Perhaps the Baglers threw one of their own dead into the well,” the researchers said.

“Most of the work that we do relies on having reference data,” said Dr. Martin Rene Ellegaard, who contributed to the study through his PhD work. “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.” In this study, the modern-day reference genomes hailed from deCODE Genetics in Iceland, courtesy of a collaboration with Professor Agnar Helgason at the University of Iceland.

Ancient DNA analysis requires compromise

The notion that the Well-man’s body was intentionally thrown into the well to contaminate the drinking water is speculative.

Unfortunately, to retrieve sufficient quantities of DNA from the Well-man’s tooth that was not contaminated by handling, the researchers had to remove the cementum and enamel and grind the tooth down to a powder.

“Although we detected no signs of pathogens in the metagenomic sequences retrieved from the Well-man’s tooth, we note that the stringent decontamination procedures used during tooth sample preparation (removal of tooth cementum and enamel, UV irradiation) may have removed pathogen DNA and thus rendered it undetectable,” they explained, adding that this does not mean infection was absent at the time of the Well-man’s death.

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

The research team noted that the value of these types of studies lies in their ability to corroborate or challenge historical texts, building a clearer, more accurate picture of notable events.

“The text is not absolutely correct – what we have seen is that the reality is much more complex than the text,” said archaeologist Anna Petersén of the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research in Oslo, Norway, a co-author of the study.

Martin and colleagues have set their sights on analyzing DNA from other notable figures in the history books, he said: “The important Norwegian Saint Olaf is thought to be buried somewhere in Trondheim Cathedral.”

“So, 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.”

Reference: Ellegaard MR, Ebenesersdóttir SS, Moore KHS, et al. Corroborating written history with ancient DNA: The case of the Well-man described in an Old Norse saga. iScience. 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111076