A 12th-century Norse saga tells of an invading army from the south razing a castle stronghold and throwing a dead body into the well to render the water undrinkable. Human remains believed to be those of this so-called "Well-man" were discovered in the 1930s, providing valuable potential outside confirmation of the tale. Scientists have now sequenced the DNA of those remains, and while they could not prove once and for all that the remains are those of the Well-man, their findings are consistent with that identification, according to a new paper published in the journal iScience.
Much of what we know about early Norse and Icelandic history comes from the sagas, many of which were written by scholars centuries after the events described—most likely based on oral traditions or earlier now-lost manuscripts. One notable exception is the Sverris Saga, which covers the reign of King Sverre Sigurdsson (1151–1240 CE), a tumultuous period marked by warring factions all vying to claim the throne. Norse scholars think that at least part of this saga was written contemporaneously at the king's request, and it contains detailed descriptions of many battles and speeches and a large cast of characters.
King Sverre's claim to the throne was that he was the son of King Sigurd Munn, killed in 1155 CE by his brother. Sverre's men were known as "Birkenbeiner" because their legwear and shoes were made of birch bark. Among the rival factions were the "Bagleres" from southern Norway. In 1197, King Sverre was spending the winter in Bergen in his stronghold, Sverresborg Castle. Bagler fighters snuck into the castle via a secret door and plundered the place, burning all the homes within the castle walls. That's when they threw a dead man down the local drinking well, subsequently filling the well with boulders.
Archaeologists first excavated the well in 1938 and found parts of a human body at its base under several boulders. Additional excavations didn't occur until 2014 and 2016, yielding even more new body parts. “This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found,” said co-author Michael D. Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum in Trondheim, Norway. “There are a lot of these medieval and ancient remains all around Europe, and they’re increasingly being studied using genomic methods.”
Osteological analyses from 2014 and 2016 indicated that the remains were those of a man between 30 and 40 years of age. The left arm was missing, but excavators did find the man's left-hand fingers, as well as the skull, detached from the upper torso. There were signs of severe trauma, but researchers couldn't determine whether those injuries occurred before or after death. However, there was a blunt-force injury to the back of the skull, along with two sharp cuts, that are unlikely to be postmortem and could be the cause of death. Radiocarbon dating of the bones indicated the remains were about 940 years old, give or take 30 years, consistent with the Well-man's time period.
It’s in the DNA
Martin and his co-authors sought to gain additional information about the remains by sequencing the Well-man's genome in hopes of learning more about his ancestry and physical characteristics in particular. They were able to extract DNA from a single premolar tooth taken from the mandible. The tooth's cementum and enamel were removed, the tooth was ground into powder, and the sample was zapped with UV radiation to ensure it wasn't contaminated. To determine ancestry, the team compared the Well-man's DNA to a database of more than 6,000 modern-day Norwegians.
The results: The Well-man was indeed male, between 30 and 40, with blue eyes and blond or light-brown hair, and his ancestry was traced to southern Norway, most likely present-day Vest-Agder. This is interesting because King Sverre's men were from central Norway, and it had long been assumed that the dead body thrown into the well was part of that army. It was the invading Baglers who hailed from southern Norway. The authors are careful to note that one cannot definitively conclude that therefore the Well-man was a Bagler, but it's certainly possible that the Baglers tossed one of their own dead into the well.
As for whether the action was a form of 12th-century biological warfare intended to poison the well, the authors weren't able to identify any pathogens in their analysis. But that might be because of the strict decontamination procedures that were used to prepare the tooth samples, which may have also removed traces of any pathogen DNA. So they could not conclude one way or another whether the Well-man had been infected with a deadly pathogen at the time of his 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 co-author Martin Ellegaard, also of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “We need to consider what kind of tests we’re doing now because it will limit what we can do in the future.”
The fact that the Well-man hailed from southern Norway indicates that the distinctive genetic drift observed in southern Norway populations already existed during King Sverre's reign. "This has implications for our understanding of Norwegian populations, insofar as it implies that this region must have been relatively isolated not only since that time, but also at least for a few hundred years beforehand and perhaps longer," the authors concluded. Future research sequencing more ancient Norwegian DNA would shed further light on this finding—perhaps even the remains of the Norwegian Saint Olaf, believed to be buried near Trondheim Cathedral.
iScience, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111076 (About DOIs).
