Overview
- Ancient DNA from four shared burials at Ajvide showed many pairs were second- or third-degree relatives rather than parents, children or full siblings.
- Examples included a 20-year-old woman buried with two full-sibling children who were not her offspring, and a young girl interred with an adult man identified as her father.
- Two other graves paired third-degree relatives: a boy and girl likely cousins, and a girl with a young woman possibly a great-aunt and niece or cousins.
- Sex and kinship were inferred by DNA extracted from teeth and bones, using X/Y chromosome reads and proportions of shared DNA.
- The peer-reviewed findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, indicate these seal- and fish-reliant hunter-gatherers tracked extended lineages and remained genetically distinct from nearby farmers.