Recent research suggests that many of the Bronze Age people buried in Seddin, Germany, were not locals but came from outside the region. While archaeologists had previously uncovered artefacts from other parts of Europe around Seddin, this new study reveals that people themselves travelled and settled in Seddin.

This is the first bioarchaeological investigation on human skeletal remains from the Seddin area. While studying archaeological artefacts can reveal trade and exchange between different areas, it cannot determine whether this was accompanied by human travel. This new study sheds light on how people travelled around Europe during the Bronze Age.

“We were able to address this knowledge gap for the elite population at Seddin by investigating their skeletal remains, and identifying that their chemical composition was foreign to the region. However, the investigated individuals generally came from outstanding burial mounds, meaning that our results are not representative of the general populous, only the elites”, says Dr. Anja Frank, who has lead the study.

The study is the result of an international collaboration including researchers and archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg. The study concludes that Seddin—with its monumental burial mounds—must have been a significant hub of international connections between 900 and 700 BCE.

“This is reflected in the fact that most buried individuals show a non-local, foreign strontium signature”, says professor Kristian Kristiansen, University of Gothenburg.

“The strontium signatures of most of the buried individuals point both to south Scandinavia as well as Central Europe, and possible northern Italy.  This is in good accordance with the archaeological knowledge that shows intensified trade between these regions”.  

How the research was conducted

The international and interdisciplinary team analysed cremated remains from five Late Bronze Age burial sites around Seddin, including the 9th-century BCE Wickbold I mound, for their strontium isotope composition. Dr. Anja Frank explains how strontium isotopes can track past mobility. To determine whether a person is local or non-local, their strontium isotope composition needs to be compared to a reference baseline. For this purpose, the strontium isotope composition of the surrounding area of Seddin was defined using different environmental materials, including archaeological soil and surface waters.

“We measured strontium isotopes in the inner ear bones found within elite cremation burials. The inner ear bone is formed in early childhood and resistant to change after, even during cremation. During it’s formation the bone incorporates the strontium composition of our food and, due to its robustness, ‘safes’ it”, says Dr. Anja Frank.

Hence, if the strontium isotope composition of the inner ear bone of a Bronze Age individual does not match the strontium isotope composition found in the environment around the settlement they were buried in, meaning the area food was sourced from, they can be identified as non-local to the area.

“Identifying the area of origin is less straight forward, as multiple areas can have the same strontium composition, thus, we identified multiple, which were narrowed down further using the archaeological record”, says Anja Frank.

Kristian Kristiansen and Serena Sabatini, both archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have participated in the study. The study is published in PLOS One as open access: “ A Late Bronze Age foreign elite? Investigating mobility patterns at Seddin, Germany”