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LiveScience
LiveScience
Kristina Killgrove

Medieval babies and adults buried together in Sweden were not related, archaeologists discover — raising big questions about early Christian burial practices

Forensic facial reconstruction of a woman with light skin and blue eyes.

Early Christian communities in Sweden often buried children in the same grave with adults, but archaeologists have found that these individuals rarely shared close biological ties, raising the question of how medieval people interred their dead.

In a new study, researchers analyzed the DNA of 142 skeletons from three cemeteries in Sweden dating to the 10th to 14th centuries, focusing on collective burials in which two or more people were buried in the same tomb.

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