5,500-Year-Old Gotland Cemetery Reveals Stone Age Family Ties Through DNA!
A 5,500-year-old cemetery on the island of Gotland is giving us an extraordinary glimpse into family life among one of the last hunter-gatherer communities in northern Europe.
The site, known as Ajvide, is closely linked to the Pitted Ware Culture. These were coastal hunter-gatherers who continued to live by seal hunting and fishing along the Baltic Sea long after farming had taken hold across much of Europe. While agriculture was reshaping societies elsewhere, these communities maintained a very different way of life.
What makes Ajvide particularly fascinating is how modern DNA analysis is helping us understand not just who these people were, but how they were related to one another.
Photo Credit: Johan Norderäng
The cemetery contains at least 85 known graves, and eight of them include more than one individual. Researchers analysed DNA from 10 individuals buried together in four of these shared graves. They also compared the results with previously published genomic data from 24 other people from Pitted Ware sites across Gotland. By combining this data, they were able to map biological relationships both within and between communities.
What they found was striking: every shared grave contained relatives. These weren’t just simple parent–child burials either. The relationships ranged from first-degree relatives, such as parents and children, to second and third-degree relatives, including half-siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. In several cases, those buried together were not from the same nuclear family. Instead, extended kinship networks appear to have shaped burial practices.
In one grave, a young woman of about 20 years old lay with two small children, a boy and a girl, placed on either side of her. DNA testing revealed that the children were full siblings, but the woman was not their mother. She was most likely their father’s sister or possibly a half-sister. The arrangement suggests a close family bond, even though it wasn’t a direct parent–child relationship.
In another burial, a young girl lay on her back with the remains of an adult man placed above her. Genetic analysis identified him as her father. Interestingly, his remains appear to have been moved from another location, suggesting deliberate reburial.
A third grave contained two children who shared a third-degree relationship, most consistent with cousins. In yet another, a young girl was buried with a slightly older woman who was also a third-degree relative, perhaps a great-aunt or cousin. Notably, at least one child appeared in most of the graves studied.
Photo Credit: Göran Burenhult
To uncover these relationships, researchers extracted DNA from teeth and bones. Biological sex was determined by examining sex chromosomes: two X chromosomes indicated a girl, while one X and one Y indicated a boy.
They then measured relatedness by calculating how much DNA individuals shared. First-degree relatives share roughly half their DNA. Second-degree relatives share around a quarter, and third-degree relatives share about one-eighth. These proportions allowed the team to reconstruct family connections with remarkable precision.
The broader genetic picture also tells an interesting story. The Pitted Ware population on Gotland carried around 80 per cent ancestry from earlier Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and about 20 per cent from farming groups. Close relatives were also identified across different sites on the island, suggesting regular contact and intermarriage between nearby communities.
Well-preserved multiple burials from hunter-gatherer societies are rare, which makes Ajvide particularly valuable. It offers a rare opportunity to explore social structure in detail. The findings clearly show that kinship played a direct role in burial customs, and that family bonds extended well beyond the immediate household.
Researchers now plan to analyse more than 70 additional individuals from the cemetery. With further study, we may gain an even clearer understanding of social ties, mobility and everyday life within this resilient coastal community, one that held on to its hunter-gatherer identity while the rest of Europe was changing around it.