5,500 years ago, a teenage girl was buried with her father’s bones on her chest, new DNA study reveals

abdulmanannet77@gmail.comFebruary 18, 2026

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5,500 years ago, a teenage girl was buried with her father’s bones on her chest, new DNA study reveals

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A rare Stone Age cemetery on a Swedish island reveals that some of Europe’s last hunter-gatherers were buried not with their extremely close relatives but with people more distantly related, according to a new DNA analysis.

However, some burials included close biological family members, including that of a teenage girl whose father’s bones were placed on and next to her, the researchers found.

Ajvide was occupied for at least four centuries and archaeologists have found tons of pottery and animal bones, in addition to a cemetery. Excavations of the cemetery revealed that eight graves contained more than one person. Researchers initially assumed that the people in the tombs were closely related. But advances in ancient DNA analysis have opened up the possibility of fully investigating family relationships in the Ajvide cemetery.

“As it is unusual for this type of hunter-gatherer tombs to be preserved, studies of kinship in archaeological hunter-gatherer cultures are rare and generally limited in scope,” Tiina Mattilapopulation geneticist at Uppsala University, said in a statement statement. Mattila led the genetic analysis of four of the burials and the study was published Wednesday February 18 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

two human skeletons excavated by archaeologists

A young girl was buried with a group of bones belonging to a young adult woman who was distantly related to her. (Image credit: Johan Norderäng (CC BY))

In one tomb, excavators found the skeleton of an adult woman as well as the skeletons of two young children. The researchers’ DNA analysis revealed that the children were a boy and a girl, full siblings. However, the woman was not their mother and could have been their father’s sister or half-sister.

A second grave contained the skeletons of a boy and a girl buried together. DNA analysis showed they were third-degree relatives – who share an eighth of their DNA – and likely cousins. In the third grave, DNA analysis of the skeletons of a girl and a young woman revealed that they were also third-degree relatives, likely cousins or a great-aunt and great-niece.

a female skeleton in the ground with two small child skeletons near her shoulders

The burial of two children who were siblings and a woman who was their aunt or half-sister. (Image credit: Göran Burenhult (CC BY))

And in the fourth grave, there was a young teenage girl buried on her back, in a lying position, with a pile of bones on top and next to her. Through DNA analysis, researchers discovered that the bones were those of the girl’s father. Her death likely predated his own, and her bones were likely dug up and moved elsewhere to her daughter’s grave, researchers said.

“Somewhat surprisingly, the analysis showed that many of those who were buried together were second- or third-degree relatives, rather than first-degree relatives – in other words, parents and children or siblings – as is often assumed,” co-author of the study. Helena Malmströmarchaeogeneticist at Uppsala University, said in the release. “This suggests that these people had a good knowledge of their family lineage and that relationships beyond the immediate family played an important role.”

This study of Ajvide burials is the first to explore family relationships between Neolithic Scandinavian hunter-gatherers, according to the release. But more work is planned, as researchers will now analyze all the skeletons recovered from the cemetery to learn more about the ancient social structure of hunter-gatherers, their life history and their burial rites.