In 1921 , archaeologists excavating near the Danish village of Egtved unearth a 3,400 - twelvemonth - old oak tree coffin comprise the remains of a high status Bronze Age female between 16 and 18 years sure-enough . They called her the Egtved Girl . While no bones survived the partially acidic , waterlogged environment in the casket , her pilus , tooth enamel , nails , and parts of the brain and skin were all preserved . She was buried in wool garment including a blouse and a unretentive , corded skirt , and she had a record - shaped bronze belt plate , which represent the sun . She may have been a priestess of the Nordic sun - worshipping cult . And by her head , there was a small container with the cremated remains of a five or six - year - old child .
Now , thanks to a combining of biomolecular and biogeochemical analyses , a multidisciplinary team lead by Karin Frei from theNational Museum of Denmarkis finally able to line Egtved Girl ’s origin and piece together some details of her life . Theworkwas issue inScientific Reportsthis week .
The factor atomic number 38 subsist in the Earth ’s freshness , and its amount varies with the geology of the area . Plants , animate being , and humankind absorb strontium from the water we drink ( and the plants and beast we eat ) , making strontium a GPS of sorts . Based on the ratio of different atomic number 38 isotope in the enamel from a molar on her lower jaw and the raw material used to make her clothes , the Egtved Girl originated from outside of the Jutland peninsula of present - day Denmark . The wool threads and the oxhide she was laid to take a breather on likely total from Schwarzwald , or the Black Forest , in southwest Germany about 800 klick ( 500 miles ) south of Egtved .
“ The fleece was made from sheep that either graze in dissimilar geographical areas or that they grazed in one vast area with very complex geology , ” Frei says in anews loss . “ And Black Forest ’s bedrock is characterized by a likewise heterogeneous strontium isotopic range . ”
The team looked at the strontium isotopic signatures in her hair , which was 23 centimetre ( 9 inches ) long , as a record of her bowel movement during the last 23 calendar month of her animation . She traveled back and off across large distance during this clip , likely to where she was born . The isotope signatures in her thumbnail and her scalp haircloth – the most late segment that grew in during her last four to six month – evoke that she spent several month far from Egtved before returning within a calendar month of her death .
Furthermore , her hair also revealed that she had a varied diet with stop of reduced protein inspiration or availableness . They also grapple to extract DNA from her scalp tomentum , but it was mostly unusable because of the acidic burial environment .
" In Bronze Age Western Europe , Southern Germany and Denmark were the two predominant inwardness of power,”saysstudy co - authorKristian Kristiansen from the University of Gothenburg . “ My guess is that the Egtved Girl was a southerly German girl who was render in marriage to a man in Jutland so as to forge an alliance between two powerful families . ”
She was eat up on a Summer ’s mean solar day in the yr 1370 BC .
range of a function : Karin Margarita Frei , National Museum of Denmark ( top ) & Roberto Fortuna , with kind permit of the National Museum of Denmark ( middle )
