Hard human tissues

To trace the Egtved Girl’s origin, we performed a strontium isotope analysis of enamel from the left mandibular first molar tooth. With the exception of the third molar, tooth enamel mineralizes during early childhood (e.g. the 1st molar mineralizes between peri-natal to 3 to 4 years of age) and it does not remodel thereafter, hence carrying childhood information on geographic origin6 (Supplementary Information). The Egtved Girl’s tooth enamel yielded a 87Sr/86Sr value of 0.71187 (± 0.0002; 2σ; Table 1). Similarly, we measured the strontium isotope signature of the associated child’s compact part of the occipital bone, the pars petrosa which was recently shown to be a valuable archive preserving origin information5 (Supplementary Information). The occipital bone yielded an 87Sr/86Sr value of 0.71190 (± 0.0002; 2σ; Table 1), a value which is indistinguishable from the Egtved Girl’s tooth enamel. Studies aimed at delineating the range of bioavailable strontium isotope compositions characteristic for present day Denmark (excluding the island of Bornholm and hereafter referred to as “Denmark”) resulted in a baseline range defined by 87Sr/86Sr values of 0.708 to 0.71118,19,20,21 (Supplementary Information). Bioavailable strontium from the Egtved burial site itself is defined by isotopic compositions which lie in the lower end of this scale with 87Sr/86Sr values ranging from 0.70852 to 0.70874 (Table 1). Hence, comparing the strontium isotope results from the Egtved Girl and accompanying child with the Danish baseline, it implies that both individuals originated from outside present day Denmark (Fig.1).

Table 1 Strontium isotope results from human remains of the Egtved Girl (tooth, hair and nail), textiles, oxhide, child bone and soil leachates. Full size table

Human soft tissues

To trace the Egtved Girl’s mobility during the final months of her life, we divided her 23-cm long scalp hair into 4 segments covering a total growth period of, at least, 23 months prior to death (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Information). The oldest period represented by the hair (segment 4, Table 1) which corresponds to, at least, 23 to 13 months prior to death, is characterized by an elevated strontium isotope signature (87Sr/86Sr = 0.71255). The middle segments 2 and 3 represent a period of, at least, 9 months and have similar lower strontium isotope signatures (87Sr/86Sr = 0.71028 to 0.71086). These two middle segment values are compatible with bioavailable signatures characteristic for Denmark18,19,21. However, the youngest scalp hair segment 1, corresponding to, at least, the final 4 to 6 months of the Egtved Girl’s life, again reveals an elevated strontium isotope signature (87Sr/86Sr = 0.71229) similar to that measured in the oldest part of the hair. Finally, data of the three segments from one of her fingernails (87Sr/86Sr = 0.71235 to 0.71240) corroborate with the youngest hair segment signature, which together cover the same final 4 to 6 months of her life.

Figure 3 Drawing depicting the sampling strategy to reconstruct a high-resolution life-mobility-timeline of the Egtved Girl. We sampled tooth enamel to reconstruct the first years of her life, segments of scalp hair to reconstruct, at least, the 23 final months of her life as well as segments of one of her fingernails to reconstruct the final approximately 6 month of her life. (Drawing by Marie Louise Andersson, with kind permission of the National Museum of Denmark). Full size image

Stable isotope signatures (δ15N = 8.6‰; δ13C = −21.6‰) of a c. 6-cm-long scalp hair corresponding to the same period as the youngest scalp hair segment analyzed for its strontium isotope composition indicate a terrestrial diet (Supplementary Table S3, Supplementary Fig. S3 and Supplementary Information). The partial sigmoidal curve defined by δ13C and δ15N could be suggestive of a seasonal diet variation, although the variance in nitrogen isotopes too, may potentially be interpreted as resulting from physiologically-related influences (Supplementary Fig. S3). Additionally, micro-morphological investigations of several scalp hairs reveal marked constrictions along shafts which may reflect periods of reduction/availability of protein22 (Supplementary Fig. S5 and Supplementary Information).

DNA was extracted from the Egtved Girl’s scalp hair and using high throughput sequencing technology we obtained >28 million DNA sequences (Supplementary Table S2 and Supplementary Fig. S2) which we intended to use for elucidating population affinity and phenotypic characters (Supplementary Information). However, the proportion of non-duplicated sequences identified as human was extremely small (0.04% and 0.13%, respectively in two extracts) and did not exhibit the molecular characteristics expected for ancient DNA with increased levels of cytosine deamination damage towards the termini. We therefore conclude that there is minor, if any, retrievable ancient human DNA preserved in the hair sample, most likely due to the acidic pH of the burial environment, combined with years of exhibition23.

Garment fibres

The measurements of the wool fibres indicate extensive selection and processing (Supplementary Fig. S6, Supplementary Table S4 and Supplementary Information), indicative of high quality textiles. The strontium isotope compositions from the animal fibres from the textiles and the underlying oxhide reveal a large range from 87Sr/86Sr = 0.71168 to 0.71551 (Table 1, Supplementary Table S1 and Supplementary Information), revealing that her outfit was made of raw materials gathered from outside Denmark. Only the raw materials from a wool cord placed in the container with the cremated remains of the child (ad 11847a, Table 1) yielded strontium isotope signatures that could imply local origin (87Sr/86Sr = 0.70982 to 0.71044).