Osteologiske og paleobotaniske undersøkelser av skjelett og jordprøve fra Sverresborg, Trøndelag Folkemuseum, Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag

Abstract

Sverressaga records that during the siege and destruction of Sverresborg in 1197, the body of a murdered birkebeiner was cast into the well of Sverresborg in order to poison the water supply and thus make the fortress uninhabitable. Excavation of the well in 1938 identified a skeleton at a depth of approximately 5 meters. The fate of the skeleton remained unclear, as excavators in 1938 did not record how it was treated. In 2014 it was decided to attempt to locate and remove the skeleton, if it still existed. he skeleton was located and part of it removed (safety concerns prohibited the removal of the entire skeleton). The present report details the results of both an osteological analysis of the recovered boen material as well as a palaeobotanical analysis of a soil sample taken from the area around the abdomen of the skeleton and assumed to represent stomach contents at death. The skeleton represents an adult male, between the ages of 30 and 40 when he died, with chronic back problems and early onset arthritis of the hip. Palaeobotanical analyses did not return any significant results.