They came from far and wide – strontium isotope analysis of the individuals buried at the early Christian site of Varnhem in southwestern Sweden

• The Christianization of Sweden (8th–11th centuries) was a period of political, social, and religious 3 change, and it implies a period of movement and mobility. Recent excavations at the Varnhem 4 estate church grounds (Kata Gård), originally built around AD 1000 in Västergötland, Sweden, 5 have yielded information about this period. This study uses strontium isotopes to investigate the 6 lives of these early Christians buried at Varnhem and determine who the non-locals were. Our 7 results indicate that a large part of the adult population was non-local and had spent their 8 childhoods in other geological areas, whereas the children had local strontium isotope signatures.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)