Karin Margarita Frei
Biographic Data
| ID | 631596 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karin Margarita Frei |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karin Margarita |
| FAMILY NAME | Frei |
| SIGNATURE | FREI K M |
| AFFILIATIONS | National Museum of Denmark |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5198-073X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 350 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 43 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The Biad Standards
This article presents a series of recommendations for the publication of archaeological data, to improve their usability. These 12 recommendations were formulated by archaeological data experts who mined thousands of publications for different data types (including funerary practices, accelerator mass spectrometry dating, stable isotopes, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany and pathologies) during the initial construction of the Big Interdisciplinary A…
Tales from Ginderup Mound in Thisted County, Denmark
The preservation of organic and human remains in Early Nordic Bronze Age mounds (1700 BCE -1100 BCE) permits new provenance work on this important period. Studies have shown that different mobility/non-mobility patterns were exercised by elite women during this time. To extend the database, we conducted strontium isotope analyses of the enamel from the second and third molars from the elite female grave from Ginderup in Thisted County, Denmark. A…
Interdisciplinary analyses of the remains from three gallery graves at Kinnekulle
In this paper, we investigate the Scandinavian Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Kinnekulle in southwestern Sweden. The above-mentioned periods in the study area are poorly understood and the archaeological record consists of a few stray finds and a concentration of 20 gallery graves. This study focuses on three of the gallery graves where commingled skeletons from successive burials were recovered. The human remains and the artefacts from t…
Constraining a bioavailable strontium isotope baseline for the Lake Garda region, Northern Italy
Visiting the Roman Iron Age Hoby chieftain burial after 100 years of its discovery - adding the strontium isotopic perspective
In 1920 on the island of Lolland, in southern Denmark the remains of one of northern Europe’s richest graves came to light, the Hoby chieftain burial. It revealed a large number of luxurious Roman goods, including two silver drinking cups decorated with Greek-inspired scenes from Homer’s Iliad. The burial dates to the beginning of the Roman Iron Age (1CE -200CE), and represents a key point in time when the Roman Empire failed to expand towards th…
Examining alternative constructions of power and mobility in the Early Nordic Bronze Age
The recent and ever-increasing amount of studies investigating human mobility for single individuals in the European Bronze Age (Bergerbrant et al. 2017; Blank et al. 2018; Cavazzutti et al. 2019a, 2019b; Felding et al. 2020; De Angelis et al. 2021; Frei 2012; Frei et al. 2015a, 2015b, 2017, 2019, 2020; Frei & Frei 2011, 2013; Frei & Price 2012; Hoogewerff et al. 2019; Knipper 2004; Ladegaard-Pedersen et al. 2020, 2021; Nielsen et al. 2020a, 2020…
Investigating sheep mobility at Montale, Italy, through strontium isotope analyses
In recent years, extensive archaeological studies have provided us with new knowledge on wool and woollen textile production at the Terramare site of Montale, in the Po plain, northern Italy. The large number of textile tools, and of zooarchaeological evidence suggesting intense sheepherding, hints at Montale being a specialized centre of wool production during the local Middle and Recent Bronze Age. The aim of our study has been to investigate, …
Mobility patterns in inland southwestern Sweden during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age
In this paper, we investigate population dynamics in the Scandinavian Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in southwestern Sweden. Human mobility patterns in Falbygden were studied by applying strontium isotope analysis combined with archaeological and bioarchaeological data, including mtDNA and sex assessment on a large dataset encompassing 141 individuals from 21 megalithic graves. In combination with other archaeological and anthropological records,…
Male Social Roles and Mobility in the Early Nordic Bronze Age. A Perspective from SE Jutland
This paper provides a discussion of the increasing amount of mobility data from the Early Nordic Bronze Age (Early NBA), c. 1600-1100 BCE with particular focus on NBA II and III (c. 1500-1100 BCE). As a male-oriented study, the intent is to develop current perspectives on gender roles in the Early NBA in relation to mobility. In order to achieve our aim, we conducted strontium isotope analyses and radiocarbon dating combined with an in-depth arch…
A strontium isotope pilot study using cremated teeth from the Vollmarshausen cemetery, Hesse, Germany
New insights from forgotten bog bodies
Late Neolithic Stenildgård Grave
Occasionally, it becomes possible to re-excavate and reanalyse prehistoric monuments. Within the geographical area managed by Vesthimmerlands Museum, this happened in the case of the Late Neolithic Stenildgård grave on the western periphery of the town of Aars, Northern Danmark. The grave was excavated for the first time at the early 1930s and re-excavated in 2015 in connection with the construction of a ring road around the southern parts of Aar…
Tangled up in Blue’
IN 1938, a woman's burial was uncovered by road builders at Ketilsstaðir in north-eastern Iceland. Recently, her physical remains and associated funerary goods were re-examined by an international, interdisciplinary team and formed the basis for an exhibition at the National Museum of Iceland in 2015. This paper focuses on the items of dress that accompanied the woman in order to gain insights into the ways her cultural identity was expressed at …
Ølby Woman
The Early Nordic Bronze Age oak coffin burials include some of Europe’s best preserved human remains. Although traditional typological examinations thereof have not always found clear foreign references, recent provenance investigations from Egtved and Skrydstrup suggest that the two women were of non-local provenance. In order to investigate potential mobility patterns and how these might or might not be related to the archaeological evidence, w…
Interpreting Past Human Mobility Patterns
In the last decade, the exponential increase in migration studies focusing on the mobility of groups and single individuals—mostly based on aDNA and strontium isotope analyses—has provided an important extra layer of information regarding past social dynamics. The current relatively large quantity of data and their constant increase provide an opportunity to examine human mobility in unprecedented detail. In short, the course of academic dialogue…
Multi-isotope proveniencing of human remains from a Bronze Age battlefield in the Tollense Valley in northeast Germany
Ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes
The Maglemosian skeleton from Koelbjerg, Denmark revisited
The Koelbjerg individual, dated c. 8500 cal BC, represents the earliest human skeletal remains described from Scandinavia. Based on ancient DNA, strontium isotope and statistical anthropological analyses the individual’s sex, haplogroup and geographical provenance are here analysed and discussed. In contrast to previous claims, our genetic and anthropological analyses show that this individual was a male. Additionally, the strontium isotope ratio…
Iron and Viking Age grapes from Denmark – vine seeds found at the royal complexes by Lake Tissø
Since the mid 1990s the National Museum of Denmark and Museum Vestsjælland have conducted excavations on two royal residential complexes from late Germanic Iron Age and Viking Age. During the excavations a range of samples were collected for macrofossil analysis. In two of these samples two seeds of vine grapes dated to the late Germanic Iron Age and the Viking Age were discovered. So far they are the oldest grape seeds discovered in the present …
Origins of inhabitants from the 16th century Sala (Sweden) silver mine cemetery – A lead isotope perspective
Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe
Bronze Age wool
Diet and mobility among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Motala (Sweden) - The isotope perspective
Tracing the dynamic life story of a Bronze Age Female
Ancient human mobility at the individual level is conventionally studied by the diverse application of suitable techniques (e.g. aDNA, radiogenic strontium isotopes, as well as oxygen and lead isotopes) to either hard and/or soft tissues. However, the limited preservation of coexisting hard and soft human tissues hampers the possibilities of investigating high-resolution diachronic mobility periods in the life of a single individual. Here, we pre…
Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia
The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000–1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age w…
Strontium isotopes and human mobility in prehistoric Denmark
Was it for walrus? Viking Age settlement and medieval walrus ivory trade in Iceland and Greenland
Walrus-tusk ivory and walrus-hide rope were highly desired goods in Viking Age north-west Europe. New finds of walrus bone and ivory in early Viking Age contexts in Iceland are concentrated in the south-west, and suggest extensive exploitation of nearby walrus for meat, hide and ivory during the first century of settlement. In Greenland, archaeofauna suggest a very different specialized long-distance hunting of the much larger walrus populations …
Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe
Who was in Harold Bluetooth's army? Strontium isotope investigation of the cemetery at the Viking Age fortress at Trelleborg, Denmark
The circular fortress of Trelleborg on Zealand in Denmark is well known as a military camp with a key role in the formation of the Danish state under Harald Bluetooth in the tenth century AD. Taking a sample of 48 burials from the fort, strontium isotope analysis once again demonstrates its ability to eavesdrop on a community: at Trelleborg, the young men in its cemetery were largely recruited from outside Denmark, perhaps from Norway or the Slav…
Old Textiles – New Possibilities
Textile research has become an important field of archaeology. Although the established analytical methods are often viewed as specialized, their integration with other interdisciplinary approaches allows us to deal with broader archaeological issues and provides the interpretational base for a much more comprehensive investigation of textiles in ancient times. Analyses of fibres, dyes, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological remains, as well as p…
Multi-isotope proveniencing of human remains from a Bronze Age battlefield in the Tollense Valley in northeast Germany
Origins of inhabitants from the 16th century Sala (Sweden) silver mine cemetery – A lead isotope perspective
Mobility patterns in inland southwestern Sweden during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age
In this paper, we investigate population dynamics in the Scandinavian Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in southwestern Sweden. Human mobility patterns in Falbygden were studied by applying strontium isotope analysis combined with archaeological and bioarchaeological data, including mtDNA and sex assessment on a large dataset encompassing 141 individuals from 21 megalithic graves. In combination with other archaeological and anthropological records,…
Remains of a late Neolithic barrow at Kruszyn. A glimpse of ritual and everyday life in early Corded Ware societies of the Polish Lowland
Das Grab aus Kruszyn, 2009 in Kujawien entdeckt, rechnet zu einer kleinen Regionalgruppe der Schnurkeramik. Es zeichnet sich durch einen verhältnismäßig guten Erhaltungszustand und untypisch zahlreiche, aus Knochen und Geweih gefertigte Werkzeugbeigaben aus. Die aufgedeckten sterblichen Überreste wurden anthropologisch und isotopisch analysiert ( La tombe de Kruszyn, découverte en 2009 dans la région de Cujavie, fait partie d’un petit groupe régi…
Characterising the potential of sheep wool for ancient DNA analyses
Provenance of Ancient Textiles—a Pilot Study Evaluating the Strontium Isotope System in Wool
Strontium isotopes are used in archaeology to reconstruct human and animal migration routes. We present results of a pilot study applying strontium isotope analyses to modern sheep hair as a basis for its potential use as a provenance tracer for ancient woollen textiles. Our hydrofluoric acid‐based, lipid soluble analytical protocol, also tested on a number of ancient textile fibres, allows for contamination‐free, low blank strontium isotope anal…
Interpreting Past Human Mobility Patterns
In the last decade, the exponential increase in migration studies focusing on the mobility of groups and single individuals—mostly based on aDNA and strontium isotope analyses—has provided an important extra layer of information regarding past social dynamics. The current relatively large quantity of data and their constant increase provide an opportunity to examine human mobility in unprecedented detail. In short, the course of academic dialogue…
Sebbersund
The Huldremose Iron Age textiles, Denmark
Bronze Age wool
Diet and mobility among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Motala (Sweden) - The isotope perspective
Isotopic Baselines in the North Atlantic Region
The isotopic proveniencing of human remains, using ratios of strontium, oxygen, and/or lead isotopes, has been employed in archaeology for more than two decades. The basic principles are essentially the same for the different elements and involve comparison of isotope ratios in human tooth enamel with local levels from the place of burial. Because isotopic ratios vary geographically, values in human teeth (place of birth) that differ from those o…
Ølby Woman
The Early Nordic Bronze Age oak coffin burials include some of Europe’s best preserved human remains. Although traditional typological examinations thereof have not always found clear foreign references, recent provenance investigations from Egtved and Skrydstrup suggest that the two women were of non-local provenance. In order to investigate potential mobility patterns and how these might or might not be related to the archaeological evidence, w…
Removal of natural organic dyes from wool–implications for ancient textile provenance studies
New insights from forgotten bog bodies
Strontium isotope investigations of the Haraldskær Woman – a complex record of various tissues
Bog bodies form a unique group of archaeological human remains which offer unparalleled insight into the past. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have preserved their skin and other soft tissues through natural tanning processes in the bogs. We present the first comprehensive strontium isotope investigation of the Haraldskær Woman and her garments, dated to the Scandinavian Pre-Roman Iron Age (500-1 BC). Our interdisciplinary research …
The Biad Standards
This article presents a series of recommendations for the publication of archaeological data, to improve their usability. These 12 recommendations were formulated by archaeological data experts who mined thousands of publications for different data types (including funerary practices, accelerator mass spectrometry dating, stable isotopes, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany and pathologies) during the initial construction of the Big Interdisciplinary A…
Constraining a bioavailable strontium isotope baseline for the Lake Garda region, Northern Italy
Investigating sheep mobility at Montale, Italy, through strontium isotope analyses
In recent years, extensive archaeological studies have provided us with new knowledge on wool and woollen textile production at the Terramare site of Montale, in the Po plain, northern Italy. The large number of textile tools, and of zooarchaeological evidence suggesting intense sheepherding, hints at Montale being a specialized centre of wool production during the local Middle and Recent Bronze Age. The aim of our study has been to investigate, …
A strontium isotope pilot study using cremated teeth from the Vollmarshausen cemetery, Hesse, Germany
The Huldremose Iron Age textiles, Denmark
Provenance of Ancient Textiles—a Pilot Study Evaluating the Strontium Isotope System in Wool
Strontium isotopes are used in archaeology to reconstruct human and animal migration routes. We present results of a pilot study applying strontium isotope analyses to modern sheep hair as a basis for its potential use as a provenance tracer for ancient woollen textiles. Our hydrofluoric acid‐based, lipid soluble analytical protocol, also tested on a number of ancient textile fibres, allows for contamination‐free, low blank strontium isotope anal…
Removal of natural organic dyes from wool–implications for ancient textile provenance studies
Old Textiles – New Possibilities
Textile research has become an important field of archaeology. Although the established analytical methods are often viewed as specialized, their integration with other interdisciplinary approaches allows us to deal with broader archaeological issues and provides the interpretational base for a much more comprehensive investigation of textiles in ancient times. Analyses of fibres, dyes, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological remains, as well as p…
The geographic distribution of strontium isotopes in Danish surface waters – A base for provenance studies in archaeology, hydrology and agriculture
Characterising the potential of sheep wool for ancient DNA analyses
Who was in Harold Bluetooth's army? Strontium isotope investigation of the cemetery at the Viking Age fortress at Trelleborg, Denmark
The circular fortress of Trelleborg on Zealand in Denmark is well known as a military camp with a key role in the formation of the Danish state under Harald Bluetooth in the tenth century AD. Taking a sample of 48 burials from the fort, strontium isotope analysis once again demonstrates its ability to eavesdrop on a community: at Trelleborg, the young men in its cemetery were largely recruited from outside Denmark, perhaps from Norway or the Slav…
Isotopic investigation of human provenience at the eleventh century cemetery of Ndr. Grødbygård, Bornholm, Denmark
Bornholm is a Danish island almost in the center of the southern Baltic Sea. The strategic location of the island, its rich archeology, and its complex geology make it an intriguing location for the isotopic study of past human mobility. The focus of this study is on the large cemetery of Ndr. Grødbygård in the southern part of the island, which dates to the eleventh century AD and contains 553 individuals in 516 graves. The majority of the buria…
Exploring the potential of the strontium isotope tracing system in Denmark
Migration and trade are issues important to the understanding of ancient cultures. There are many ways in which these topics can be investigated. This article provides an overview of a method based on an archaeological scientific methodologydeveloped to address human and animal mobility in prehistory, the so-called strontium isotope tracing system. Recently, new research has enabled this methodology to be further developed so as to be able to app…
Sebbersund
Strontium isotopes and human mobility in prehistoric Denmark
A ritual site with sacrificial wells from the Viking Age at Trelleborg, Denmark
The promontory facing Storebælt with the well-known circular Viking Age military fortress of Trelleborg erected by Harold Bluetooth in AD 980/981 seems to have been an important ceremonial space prior to the erection of the fortress and contemporary with a nearby high status settlement dated to the seventh to the eleventh century. This study presents new cross-disciplinary investigations focusing on three sacrificial well-like structures (47, 50 …
Galgedil
Galgedil is a Viking Age cemetery located in the northern part of the Danish island of Funen. Excavations at the site revealed 54 graves containing 59 inhumations and 2 cremation burials. Previous study of the remains to date has included light isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in collagen (10 samples) and the radiocarbon determination of the age of 8 samples. In addition, aDNA was investigated in 10 samples from the cemetery. Here we report the an…
Isotopic Baselines in the North Atlantic Region
The isotopic proveniencing of human remains, using ratios of strontium, oxygen, and/or lead isotopes, has been employed in archaeology for more than two decades. The basic principles are essentially the same for the different elements and involve comparison of isotope ratios in human tooth enamel with local levels from the place of burial. Because isotopic ratios vary geographically, values in human teeth (place of birth) that differ from those o…
Tracing the dynamic life story of a Bronze Age Female
Ancient human mobility at the individual level is conventionally studied by the diverse application of suitable techniques (e.g. aDNA, radiogenic strontium isotopes, as well as oxygen and lead isotopes) to either hard and/or soft tissues. However, the limited preservation of coexisting hard and soft human tissues hampers the possibilities of investigating high-resolution diachronic mobility periods in the life of a single individual. Here, we pre…
Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia
The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000–1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age w…
Isotopic Proveniencing of the Bodzia Burials
This chapter provides a brief discussion of some of principles and procedures of isotopic proveniencing and paleodiet studies, and summarizes some isotopic information from Poland and the possible homelands of the Bodzia individuals in Scandinavia and the Ukraine. The isotopic analysis of the Bodzia burials was able to identify a single local individual, D165, and 10 non-local individuals among the burials. The Bodzia study reiterates an importan…
Strontium isotope investigations of the Haraldskær Woman – a complex record of various tissues
Bog bodies form a unique group of archaeological human remains which offer unparalleled insight into the past. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have preserved their skin and other soft tissues through natural tanning processes in the bogs. We present the first comprehensive strontium isotope investigation of the Haraldskær Woman and her garments, dated to the Scandinavian Pre-Roman Iron Age (500-1 BC). Our interdisciplinary research …
Remains of a late Neolithic barrow at Kruszyn. A glimpse of ritual and everyday life in early Corded Ware societies of the Polish Lowland
Das Grab aus Kruszyn, 2009 in Kujawien entdeckt, rechnet zu einer kleinen Regionalgruppe der Schnurkeramik. Es zeichnet sich durch einen verhältnismäßig guten Erhaltungszustand und untypisch zahlreiche, aus Knochen und Geweih gefertigte Werkzeugbeigaben aus. Die aufgedeckten sterblichen Überreste wurden anthropologisch und isotopisch analysiert ( La tombe de Kruszyn, découverte en 2009 dans la région de Cujavie, fait partie d’un petit groupe régi…
Was it for walrus? Viking Age settlement and medieval walrus ivory trade in Iceland and Greenland
Walrus-tusk ivory and walrus-hide rope were highly desired goods in Viking Age north-west Europe. New finds of walrus bone and ivory in early Viking Age contexts in Iceland are concentrated in the south-west, and suggest extensive exploitation of nearby walrus for meat, hide and ivory during the first century of settlement. In Greenland, archaeofauna suggest a very different specialized long-distance hunting of the much larger walrus populations …
Diet and mobility among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Motala (Sweden) - The isotope perspective
The Maglemosian skeleton from Koelbjerg, Denmark revisited
The Koelbjerg individual, dated c. 8500 cal BC, represents the earliest human skeletal remains described from Scandinavia. Based on ancient DNA, strontium isotope and statistical anthropological analyses the individual’s sex, haplogroup and geographical provenance are here analysed and discussed. In contrast to previous claims, our genetic and anthropological analyses show that this individual was a male. Additionally, the strontium isotope ratio…
Iron and Viking Age grapes from Denmark – vine seeds found at the royal complexes by Lake Tissø
Since the mid 1990s the National Museum of Denmark and Museum Vestsjælland have conducted excavations on two royal residential complexes from late Germanic Iron Age and Viking Age. During the excavations a range of samples were collected for macrofossil analysis. In two of these samples two seeds of vine grapes dated to the late Germanic Iron Age and the Viking Age were discovered. So far they are the oldest grape seeds discovered in the present …
Origins of inhabitants from the 16th century Sala (Sweden) silver mine cemetery – A lead isotope perspective
Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe
Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (39 works) · Archaeology (36 works) · Geography (35 works) · History (17 works) · Isotopes of strontium (17 works) · Strontium (17 works) · Chemistry (15 works) · Geology (15 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (13 works) · Provenance (13 works)