In 1921, an extraordinary figure from prehistory re-emerged after 3500 years. Named after her burial place in southern Jutland, Egtved girl was a teenager, buried with rich grave goods including the remains of her clothing, an example of ancient beer and a striking bronze belt.

Experts always believed Egtved girl was a native of Bronze Age Denmark. But a recent analysis of strontium isotopes from the girl’s reveals a different origin-and offer a fascinating insight into prehistoric trade, social interaction and the role of women in Bronze age society.

Egtved Girl: A Background

 

Experts have established the time of Egtved girl’s burial using botanical remains. She was interred in a coffin made out of a hollowed out oak trunk sometime during the summer of 1370BC.

The coffin was lined with cowhide, and the body and offerings covered with a woolen blanket. Little remains of Egtvard girl’s body except for her hair, brain, teeth, nails and some skin. But her short tunic style top and knee length skirt made of cords-similar to those found on contemporary bronze models of priestesses from Grevensvaenge, Zealand, a Danish Island do remain, as well as bronze arm rings, a horn comb and the her distinctive bronze belt plate.

At her feet lay a bark bucket, which contained a type of beer made from cowberries or cranberries, wheat, bog myrtle and pollen. Completing the burial ensemble were the cremated remains of a 5-6 year old child. Egtved girl’s age at death has been estimated to be between 16-18 years old, making the child too old to be her own. But it may be that she was a human sacrifice, sent to accompany the young woman to the afterlife.

 

The Origins of Egtved Girl.

 

Archaeologists always assumed Egtved girl was Scandinavian-not only because of her place of burial but because of the style of her clothing and her Nordic style belt plate. But clues were missed to suggest that she might be from elsewhere.

“One of her armbands was..southern German, if you looked closer, which no one did in the past,” explained Professor Kristian Kristiansen of the University of Gothenburg and the Department of Geosciences  and the Centre of Geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen, in an interview with History and Archaeology online.

Professor Kristiansen is part of a collaboration with Karin Margarita Frei of the National Museum of Denmark and the Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen. Together, they have studied strontium analysis of Egtvad girl’s hair, thumb nail and teeth, as well as the fibres from the blanket and ox hide lining of the coffin, reveal a much different origin for the remains.

 

Strontium Isotope Analysis

 

Strontium is an element in the earth’s crust that is absorbed by animals and plants in their food and drink. The prevalence of strontium varies from location to location. So by measuring its isotopic signatures in organic archaeological remains, it is possible to pinpoint the subject’s origins.

Karin Margarita Frei has applied this principle to Egtved girl’s remains. “I have analyzed the strontium isotopic signatures of the enamel from one of the Egtved girl’s first molars which was fully formed/crystallized when she was three or four years old,”said Dr Frei, “ the analysis tells us that she was born and lived her first years in a region that is geologically older than and different from the peninsula of Jutland in Denmark.”

 In fact, her evidence suggests that Egtved girl’s origins were 500 miles away from  her place of death at Schwarzwald in the Black Forest of south west Germany-a fact backed up by analysis of her woolen blanket and ox hide coffin lining.

 “ The wool that her clothing was made from did not come from Denmark. ” explained Dr .Frei, ”The strontium isotope values vary greatly from wool thread to wool thread. This proves that the wool was made from sheep that either grazed in different geographical areas or that they grazed in one vast area with very complex geology and Black Forest’s bedrock is characterized by a similar heterogeneous strontium isotopic range.”

 

 

The Journey from the Black Forest

 

Strontium analysis from Egtved girl’s hair also chart the stages of her journey from her home to her final resting place-as well as her movements in the last two years of her life-the first evidence of a prehistoric person’s movements through life.

“ if we consider the last two years of the girl’s life, we can see that 13 to 15 months before her death, she stayed in a place with a strontium isotope signature very similar to the one that characterizes the area where she was born,”explained Dr Frei, ”Then she moved to an area that may well have been jutland. After a period of c. 9-10 months there, she went back to the region she originally came from and stayed there for four to six months before she travelled to her final resting place, Egtved.”

 

 Women and Trade in  Prehistory

 Bronze age Denmark was a rich source of amber, much sought after in Mycenaean Greece and the Middle East. Southern German middlemen facilitated that trade, with bronze as the currency for payment.

“ In Bronze Age western Europe, southern Germany and Denmark were two dominant centres of power, very similar to kingdoms, “explained Professor Kristiansen. “ we find many direct connections between the two in the archaeological evidence.”

Professor Kristiansen believes that Egvted girl’s journey was the result of a marriage between two powerful families as part of a partnership agreement linked to this trade.

 

The Significance of Egtved Girl

 The new isotropic evidence has widened the significance of Egtved girl within European prehistoric archaeology-especially regarding the role of women in trade and commerce.

“I personally think that it is rather significant, concretely in relation to our understanding of how much people moved/travelled and how fast they did it,” Dr.Frei told History and Archaeology Online. “This seems indeed to have been a highly dynamic society. Furthermore, women seem also to have been part of these movements”

Egtved girl’s movements before her death seem to be particularly important in this regard. “The new evidence shows that women could move long distances, something we thought mainly male warriors and traders did,” Professor Kristiansen explained to History and Archaeology Online.

The frequency of Egtved girl’s movements also has a significance for trade. According to Professor Kristiansen, Egtvard girl’s repetition of the same journey twice in two years  shows the frequency of organized travel and trade in the Bronze Age, not only across Europe but as far off as Mesopotamia and Egypt.

“ What we are beginning to understand,“ said Professor Kristiansen, ”is that the Bronze Age  was truly global and trade was the driver.”

 

Sources

 

The Egtved Girl, Nationalmuseet