Dataset Information

Palaeoproteomics identifies beaver fur in Danish high-status Viking Age burials - direct evidence of fur trade.

ABSTRACT: Fur is known from contemporary written sources to have been a key commodity in the Viking Age. Nevertheless, the fur trade has been notoriously difficult to study archaeologically as fur rarely survives in the archaeological record. In Denmark, fur finds are rare and fur in clothing has been limited to a few reports and not recorded systematically. We were therefore given access to fur from six Danish high status graves dated to the Viking Age. The fur was analysed by aDNA and palaeoproteomics methods to identify the species of origin in order to explore the Viking Age fur trade. Endogenous aDNA was not recovered, but fur proteins (keratins) were analysed by MALDI-TOF-MS and LC-MS/MS. We show that Viking Age skin clothing were often composites of several species, showing highly developed manufacturing and material knowledge. For example, fur was produced from wild animals while leather was made of domesticates. Several examples of beaver fur were identified, a species which is not native to Denmark, and therefore indicative of trade. We argue that beaver fur was a luxury commodity, limited to the elite and worn as an easily recognisable indicator of social status.

SUBMITTER: Brandt LO

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9328512 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Palaeoproteomics identifies beaver fur in Danish high-status Viking Age burials - direct evidence of fur trade.

Brandt Luise Ørsted LØ Taurozzi Alberto J AJ Mackie Meaghan M Sinding Mikkel-Holger S MS Vieira Filipe Garrett FG Schmidt Anne Lisbeth AL Rimstad Charlotte C Collins Matthew J MJ Mannering Ulla U

PloS one 20220727 7

Fur is known from contemporary written sources to have been a key commodity in the Viking Age. Nevertheless, the fur trade has been notoriously difficult to study archaeologically as fur rarely survives in the archaeological record. In Denmark, fur finds are rare and fur in clothing has been limited to a few reports and not recorded systematically. We were therefore given access to fur from six Danish high status graves dated to the Viking Age. The fur was analysed by aDNA and palaeoproteomics m ...[more]

PMID: 35895633

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Project description:BackgroundGiven the relative abundance of modern human DNA and the inherent impossibility for incontestable proof of authenticity, results obtained on ancient human DNA have often been questioned. The widely accepted rules regarding ancient DNA work mainly affect laboratory procedures, however, pre-laboratory contamination occurring during excavation and archaeological-/anthropological handling of human remains as well as rapid degradation of authentic DNA after excavation are major obstacles.Methodology/principal findingsWe avoided some of these obstacles by analyzing DNA from ten Viking Age subjects that at the time of sampling were untouched by humans for 1,000 years. We removed teeth from the subjects prior to handling by archaeologists and anthropologists using protective equipment. An additional tooth was removed after standard archaeological and anthropological handling. All pre-PCR work was carried out in a "clean- laboratory" dedicated solely to ancient DNA work. Mitochondrial DNA was extracted and overlapping fragments spanning the HVR-1 region as well as diagnostic sites in the coding region were PCR amplified, cloned and sequenced. Consistent results were obtained with the "unhandled" teeth and there was no indication of contamination, while the latter was the case with half of the "handled" teeth. The results allowed the unequivocal assignment of a specific haplotype to each of the subjects, all haplotypes being compatible in their character states with a phylogenetic tree drawn from present day European populations. Several of the haplotypes are either infrequent or have not been observed in modern Scandinavians. The observation of haplogroup I in the present study (<2% in modern Scandinavians) supports our previous findings of a pronounced frequency of this haplogroup in Viking and Iron Age Danes.ConclusionThe present work provides further evidence that retrieval of ancient human DNA is a possible task provided adequate precautions are taken and well-considered sampling is applied.

Project description:Quantifying the presence and environmental impact of invasive species is the starting point for research on management and nature conservation. North American beavers (Castor canadensis) were introduced to Argentina from Canada in 1946, and the species has been identified as a major agent of environmental change in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago in the Anthropocene. We studied the invasion status (distribution and density) of beavers through analyses of the dam densities in the Tierra del Fuego landscapes. We identified beaver dams with a GIS using visual interpretation of high-resolution aerial imagery from Microsoft Bing, Google Earth and HERE and related them to natural environmental gradients. These factors comprised geographic (vegetation zones and distance to streams), climatic (temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration and net primary productivity) and topographic (elevation and slope) data. The datasets (dams and factors) were combined, and the data from the different zonation classes were subsequently compared using ANOVAs and Tukey's mean comparison tests. Deviations from the mean density (x mean density-x total mean density) were calculated to visualize the deviations for the studied factors. The datasets were also evaluated using principal component analyses (PCA). Our results showed a total of 206,203 beaver dams (100,951 in Argentina and 105,252 in Chile) in the study area (73,000 km2). The main island of Tierra del Fuego presented a greater degree of invasion (73.6% of the total study area) than the rest of the archipelago, especially in areas covered by mixed-evergreen and deciduous forests. The studied geographic, climatic and topographic factors showed positive trends (higher beaver preference) with beaver spread, which were all significant (p <0.05) when compared across the landscape. Although beavers are flexible in their habitat use, our empirical records showed that they had marked preferences and were positively influenced by the most productive forests. Here, we describe a scientific panorama that identified the drivers of species invasion based on satellite data and the available ecological datasets. The identification of such drivers could be useful for developing new tools for management and/or control strategies of the beavers in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago.

Dataset Information

Palaeoproteomics identifies beaver fur in Danish high-status Viking Age burials - direct evidence of fur trade.

Publications

Palaeoproteomics identifies beaver fur in Danish high-status Viking Age burials - direct evidence of fur trade.

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