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.
This is so facinating! I remember hearing about this around 2016 when they did excavations, but didn’t know they found the guy already in the 1930s. It’s just awesome that the story of how this person died has survived a thousand years through the sagas.
I do think it’s a bit weird that the article focuses on whether he had some disease though- obviously throwing a dead person in the well is going to make the water undrinkable, regardless of whether said person was sick when they died…
I also found that a bit unexpected. But also, they may be banking on the idea that before science was a thing, you might not be certain that regular decay would poison the water and maybe you toss in the guy with plague to ensure you get the desired effect (not that you wouldn’t throw in an non-diseased person if you lack a plague guy).
I guess, but the again, pretty much any sentient creature could tell you that drinking the marshy water with dead stuff in it is a bad idea. That’s a pretty basic survival instinct that I think we had figured out well before we had modern science.