{"id":118735,"date":"2024-10-26T22:38:19","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T15:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=118735"},"modified":"2024-10-26T22:38:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-26T15:38:19","slug":"centuries-old-remains-found-in-a-well-may-be-man-from-norse-saga-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=118735","title":{"rendered":"Centuries-old remains found in a well may be man from Norse saga : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"storytext\">\n<div id=\"resg-s1-30025\" class=\"bucketwrap image large\">\n<div class=\"imagewrap has-source-dimensions\" data-crop-type=\"\" style=\"&#10;        --source-width: 3958;&#10;        --source-height: 2475;&#10;    \">\n        <picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3958x2475+0+0\/resize\/1100\/quality\/85\/format\/webp\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8e%2F1e%2F50a867b04bdabe19d2e02291b377%2Fexcavation-1938-photo-credit-riksantikvaren-the-norwegian-directorate-for-cultural-heritage-1.jpg\" class=\"img\" type=\"image\/webp\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3958x2475+0+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8e%2F1e%2F50a867b04bdabe19d2e02291b377%2Fexcavation-1938-photo-credit-riksantikvaren-the-norwegian-directorate-for-cultural-heritage-1.jpg\" data-format=\"webp\"\/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3958x2475+0+0\/resize\/1100\/quality\/85\/format\/jpeg\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8e%2F1e%2F50a867b04bdabe19d2e02291b377%2Fexcavation-1938-photo-credit-riksantikvaren-the-norwegian-directorate-for-cultural-heritage-1.jpg\" class=\"img\" type=\"image\/jpeg\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3958x2475+0+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8e%2F1e%2F50a867b04bdabe19d2e02291b377%2Fexcavation-1938-photo-credit-riksantikvaren-the-norwegian-directorate-for-cultural-heritage-1.jpg\" data-format=\"jpeg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3958x2475+0+0\/resize\/1100\/quality\/85\/format\/jpeg\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8e%2F1e%2F50a867b04bdabe19d2e02291b377%2Fexcavation-1938-photo-credit-riksantikvaren-the-norwegian-directorate-for-cultural-heritage-1.jpg\" class=\"img\" alt=\"A centuries-old skeleton found in a well may be a man written about in an old Norse story.\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3958x2475+0+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8e%2F1e%2F50a867b04bdabe19d2e02291b377%2Fexcavation-1938-photo-credit-riksantikvaren-the-norwegian-directorate-for-cultural-heritage-1.jpg\" data-format=\"jpeg\"\/>\n        <\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"credit-caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrap\">\n<div class=\"caption\" aria-label=\"Image caption\">\n<p>\n                In 1938, a partial excavation of a well revealed a man\u2019s skeleton \u2014 possibly that of a dead man thrown down the well in the 12th century.<br \/>\n                <b class=\"credit\" aria-label=\"Image credit\"><\/p>\n<p>                    Riksantikvaren (The Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage)<\/p>\n<p>                <\/b><br \/>\n                <b class=\"hide-caption\"><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>            <b class=\"toggle-caption\"><b>toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n    <\/div>\n<p>    <span class=\"credit\" aria-label=\"Image credit\"><\/p>\n<p>        Riksantikvaren (The Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage)<\/p>\n<p>    <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In the 12th and 13th centuries, Norway was racked by civil war. It\u2019s a period chronicled in an ancient Norse text called the <em>Sverris Saga<\/em>, which is named after king Sverre Sigurdsson.<\/p>\n<p>The saga tells of the king\u2019s ongoing feud with his chief enemy, the archbishop.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe ordered one of his closest associates to write his story to have a record of everything that happened in his life, \u201cso the <em>Sverris Saga<\/em> has a strong bias to King Sverre,&#8221; says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niku.no\/en\/ansatt\/anna-petersen\/\"><u>Anna Petersen<\/u><\/a>, an archaeologist with the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBattles are described in detail,\u201d she says, including one that took place around the year 1180 near the present-day city of Trondheim, in central Norway. The archbishop\u2019s fighters attacked the king\u2019s castle when the king was away.<\/p>\n<aside id=\"ad-backstage-wrap\" class=\"ad-wrap backstage\" aria-label=\"advertisement\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThey let everyone go,\u201d she says. \u201cThey saved their lives. But they completely destroyed the castle. They burned all the houses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then, Petersen says, \u201cthe archbishop\u2019s people wanted to do something nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The saga reads: \u201cThey took a dead man and cast him into the well headfirst, and then filled it up with stones.\u201d Peterse\u0301n says most scholars have assumed he was connected to the king.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps they wanted to poison the water supply or humiliate the king and his men.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, the text adds \u201cnothing about who this dead man was, where he came from, what group he belonged to,\u201d says Petersen.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in a study published in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/iscience\/fulltext\/S2589-0042(24)02301-0\"><em><u>iScience<\/u><\/em><\/a>, Petersen and her colleagues describe sequencing the genome of a sample of 800-year-old DNA that may well be the man thrown down that well centuries ago. The research offers a glimpse into where he came from and what he may have looked like before he met his tragic end.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\">Down the well and into the lab<\/h3>\n<p>In 1938, a partial excavation of the well some 21 feet deep revealed a man\u2019s skeleton \u2014 possibly that of the person described in the saga. The remains were left in place.<\/p>\n<aside id=\"ad-secondary-wrap\" class=\"ad-wrap secondary\" aria-label=\"advertisement\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Then, a decade or so ago, Petersen and her colleagues started the hard work of lifting out the uneven and slippery stones \u2014 along with a lot of rubbish \u2014 and uncovered the skeleton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe had a bad back and he has evidence of heavy manual labor all his life,\u201d she says. \u201cSo he was a tired man already before his death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Petersen knew there must be more to the story, so she teamed up with evolutionary genomicist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ntnu.edu\/employees\/mike.martin\"><u>Michael Martin<\/u><\/a> from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe managed to take a sample from two different bones from the skeletal remains,\u201d he says. \u201cFrom the cranium and the leg bone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin and one of his students, Vanessa Bieker, donned double gloves, hairnets, and booties, and entered the lab to collect as much DNA as possible from those old bones. \u201cIt\u2019s not a very comfortable working environment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very frustrated to find that it was almost entirely bacterial DNA,\u201d says Martin. There\u2019s been a lot of degradation of the original human DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then, another student, Martin Ellegaard, had the idea to look for more skeletal material.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce he got a hold of the teeth,\u201d Martin recalls, \u201cthen things really changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The root of one of those teeth had enough DNA that the researchers could sequence the man\u2019s genome and compare it to people today, including thousands of Norwegians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were able to deduce that he was a male,\u201d says Martin. \u201cWe could say that he was very likely to have blue eyes, blonde hair and an intermediate skin tone and that his ancestry traces back to a very specific county in southern Norway.\u201d This last piece of information suggested that people moved around in Medieval times.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"edTag\">A side character takes center stage<\/h3>\n<p>Martin says the findings add new detail to the centuries-old story. \u201cJust finding the remains shows [these stories are] not made up,\u201d he says. \u201cThey might be elaborated and exaggerated, but they\u2019re based on fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside id=\"ad-third-wrap\" class=\"ad-wrap third\" aria-label=\"advertisement\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The researchers say this is the oldest genome to be sequenced of a specific person from an old text. Was he a king\u2019s man, though?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fhi.no\/en\/ab\/departments-and-centres\/genetics-and-bioinformatics\/dana-hashim\/\"><u>Dana Kristjansson<\/u><\/a>, a genetic epidemiologist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health who wasn\u2019t involved in the study, agrees the results support the story of the man pitched down the well, but it\u2019s circumstantial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t prove that this person is actually that which was described,\u201d she says. \u201cSome of the stories tend to be more accurate than others, even if they involve real people and events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, this skeleton did belong to <em>someone<\/em> who lived at the time documented by the <em>Sverris Saga<\/em>, and these new details about his appearance and origins that are inscribed in his DNA personalize him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has been no one, says Petersen. \u201cBut now he has become someone. He has had a life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2024\/10\/25\/nx-s1-5162392\/old-norse-saga-dna\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1938, a partial excavation of a well revealed a man\u2019s skeleton \u2014 possibly that of a dead man thrown down the well in the 12th century. Riksantikvaren (The Norwegian &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=118735\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}