Scientists analyzed the DNA of 142 people who lived from the late Viking Age through the Middle Ages. The group included more than 60 children and adolescents whose remains came from graves at Sigtuna near Stockholm, Västerhus in Jämtland, and Fjärkinge in Skåne.

Shared medieval graves were often not family graves

Genetic evidence showed that close biological relatives buried in the same grave were surprisingly rare. This was also true in cemeteries where researchers found many biological relationships among the wider population.

“We often assume that adults and children sharing graves are parent and child, or other close relatives. In most cases, that’s not what we found,” says study lead author Maya Krzewińska of the Center for Paleogenetics at Stockholm University’s Department of Archaeology and Classics.

The findings indicate that burial decisions were shaped by more than close biological relationships. Social, religious, and other community factors may also have influenced who was buried together.

“Archaeologists have long debated the relationships between people buried together in these types of tombs. Ancient DNA finally gives us the tools we’ve been waiting for to directly test these interpretations,” says Anna Kjällström, a researcher at Stockholm University’s Department of Archaeology and Classics.

Children followed adult burial customs

Ancient DNA also provided new clues about childhood among early Christians in Scandinavia. Researchers used genetic evidence to determine the biological sex of children whose remains were too young for their sex to be reliably identified from their bones.

Burial patterns showed that boys and girls often followed the same cemetery customs as adult men and women. At Västerhus, for example, men and women were usually buried on different sides of the churchyard. Boys and girls were placed according to the same pattern.

Researchers say this suggests that gender identity was recognized early in life and reflected in burial practices.

“Children were not treated as a separate category. After death, they seem to have been treated according to the same social and religious principles as adult men and women,” says Anders Götherström, professor of molecular archaeology at the Center for Paleogenetics at Stockholm University’s Department of Archaeology and Classics.

Ancient DNA reconstructs medieval families

Researchers also reconstructed the stories of some of the most prominent families buried at Västerhus.

A woman identified as Lady 56 was genetically related to several other people buried in the churchyard. DNA linked her to her parents, brother, and two daughters. However, evidence from her grave suggests that her life may have extended far beyond the local community of Jämtland.

Lady 56 was buried with a scallop shell, a rare object in medieval Scandinavian graves. The shell was also widely recognized as a symbol associated with pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

Its presence suggests that Lady 56 may have completed one of medieval Europe’s most famous pilgrimages, traveling thousands of kilometers across the continent to the western edge of Christian Europe before returning home.

Lady 56 died before the age of 30. Her parents, brother, and daughter were also buried in different parts of the same cemetery in Jämtland.

Ancient DNA offers new insight into medieval society

Taken together, the findings demonstrate how archaeogenetics can reveal much more than biological family relationships. By combining ancient DNA with archaeological evidence, researchers can begin to reconstruct how medieval communities were organized, how children were treated, how religious practices shaped burial customs, and how people were connected in both life and death.