5 November 2024 The Future is the Product of the Past

A Thousand-Year-Old Iron Age-old grave in Finland Is Ascribed to a Prominent Non-Binary Person

Archaeologists found a weapon grave in Finland’s Suontaka Vesitorninmäki in 1968. The remains discovered in the burial have been at the center of a heated controversy regarding the gender of its inhabitant ever since. Initial interpretations of the bones suggested a lady was buried there, although these views have long been contested.

Now, DNA research of the burial, including an assessment of its contents, soil samples, and microremains, has once again challenged long-held beliefs. According to the study, the 1000-year-old burial might be that of a non-binary individual.

The new findings not only call into question long-held beliefs but also raise the potential that non-binary persons were formerly welcomed and valued among their peers. According to the results of the DNA study, which was published in the European Journal of Archaeology, the inhabitant of the burial was a respected person with non-binary gender identification.

For decades, it was thought that two remains, a man and a woman, were buried in the Suontaka burial. Inside the burial, jewelry resembling modern women’s clothes, such as oval brooches and woolen garments, was discovered. At the same time, it possessed masculine characteristics, such as a hiltless sword.

However, recent DNA research revealed that the burial only contained the bones of one individual, who appeared to have the uncommon Klinefelter disease. One in every 660 males is born with an extra copy of the X chromosome, which causes the syndrome (XXY). Males with the syndrome are still genetically male, but the disease can result in larger breasts, a tiny penis and testicles, poor sex desire, and infertility.

In the researcher’s articles, “For decades, the grave has been a popular example of powerful women in Late Iron Age and early medieval societies. The grave was used as evidence of female leaders in the past. The decorated bronze-hilted sword allegedly found in the Suontaka burial is presented as a female warrior’s weapon, ” they said.

A plan of the Suontaka burial. ‘Täckdike’ marks the water pipe trench which led to the discovery of the grave. (Photo: Finnish Heritage Agency)
A plan of the Suontaka burial. ‘Täckdike’ marks the water pipe trench which led to the discovery of the grave. (Photo: Finnish Heritage Agency)

“The buried individual seems to have been a highly respected member of their community,” the study’s leading author Ulla Moilanen an archaeologist from the University of Turku, told The Guardian. “They were laid in the grave on a soft feather blanket with valuable furs and objects.”

According to the researchers, one explanation is that the individual was accepted as a non-binary “because they already had a distinctive or established status in the society for other reasons,” such as being from a wealthy or prominent family or being a shaman.

The researchers studied the microscopic animal hair and fiber remains in the soil retrieved from the grave, and studied ancient DNA (aDNA) in the bone remains to infer the individual’s chromosomal sex. It should be noted that historically, the gender identity of the burials was inferred from the objects or remains of objects found nearby. However, with the advancement of technology and modern genetics, new methods have been developed to determine the sex of the remains.

What is non-binary?

Non-binary individuals are persons who do not identify with a certain gender. People who are neither male nor female, according to the National Centre for Transgender Equality, use a variety of words to identify themselves, with non-binary being one of the most prevalent. Genderqueer, agender, and bigender are examples of alternative words.

None of these phrases signify the same thing, yet they all refer to a gender experience that isn’t just male or female.

Cover Photo: An artist’s reconstruction of the burial, showing the position of the objects on the body. (Photo: Veronika Paschenko/European Journal of Archaeology)

Related Articles

Africa May not be Where the First Pre-Human First Appeared

22 March 2021

22 March 2021

According to one opinion: About 2 million years ago, our first ancestors moved north from their hometown and left Africa....

A 12.000 -year-old temple was found during excavations in Boncuklu Tarla in southeastern Turkey

21 October 2021

21 October 2021

A temple thought to be 12 thousand years old was unearthed in Boncuklu Tarla in the Ilısu Neighborhood of Dargeçit...

Philippines Cagayan Cave Art 3500 Years Old

29 June 2021

29 June 2021

A depiction depicting a human-like figure on a cave wall in Penablanca town, Cagayan province, is Southeast Asia’s first directly...

Cave paintings discovered in western Turkey carry the region’s past back to prehistory

18 December 2021

18 December 2021

During the archaeological survey carried out in and around the ancient city of Alinda in Aydın province in western Turkey,...

Turkish researchers use Artificial Intelligence to read cuneatic Hittite tablets

9 January 2023

9 January 2023

Thanks to a project implemented in Türkiye, 1,954 ancient Hittite tablets are being read for the first time using artificial...

Thor’s hammer amulet discovered in Sweden

23 October 2022

23 October 2022

Archaeologists have unearthed the Thor’s Hammer amulet, which they call “one of its kind” in Ysby in southwestern Sweden’s Halland...

Archaeologists have uncovered the first human representations of the people of mythical Tartessos

19 April 2023

19 April 2023

Archaeologists representing Spain’s National Research Council (CSIS) excavating at the site of Casas del Turunuelo have uncovered the first human...

Archaeologists uncover intact 16th-century quayside in the Belgium town of Leper

24 March 2022

24 March 2022

Excavations at Leper (Ypres), located in the West Flanders province of Belgium, have uncovered a 16th-century quayside. The find was...

Collectors In The Prehistoric World Recycled Old Stone Tools To Preserve The Memory Of Their Ancestors

16 March 2022

16 March 2022

A first-of-its-kind study at Tel Aviv University asks what drove prehistoric humans to collect and recycle flint tools that had...

Radiocarbon dating shows that the Roman settlement of Karanis survived in Egypt until the Arab Conquest in the 7th century AD

13 May 2024

13 May 2024

New research results are rewriting the history of Karanis, an ancient Greco-Roman agricultural settlement in the Fayum oasis in Egypt....

1,400-year-old coins found in a piggy bank in ancient city of Hadrianopolis

3 January 2024

3 January 2024

Archaeologists unearthed a collection of 10 coins believed to date back nearly 1,400 years, retrieved from what appears to be...

Archaeologists unearth 600,000-year-old evidence of Britain’s early inhabitants

22 June 2022

22 June 2022

New finds have indicated that some of Britain’s earliest people lived in the Canterbury suburbs. According to the research, led...

A 3,300-year-old tablet found at Büklükale from Hittite Empire describes catastrophic invasion of four cities

11 March 2024

11 March 2024

Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,300-year-old clay tablet depicting a catastrophic foreign invasion of the Hittite Empire in Büklükale, about 100...

Venice of the Pacific: The mysterious Micronesian ruins of Nan Madol

12 July 2022

12 July 2022

Sometimes art and architecture challenge our perceptions of what was formerly thought to be feasible and what our forefathers were...

Archaeologists discover 1,300-year-old ski trapped in Norwegian ice

6 October 2021

6 October 2021

The melting of an ice sheet in Norway has uncovered a pair of remarkably well-preserved skis that had been undisturbed...