More than seven millennia ago, Stone Age mourners in what is now Sweden buried a boy with a crown of woodpecker feathers, and in another grave they buried a woman with multicolored fur and feather footwear, a new study shows.
These details were uncovered thanks to a newly developed technique that can identify traces of hair and feathers in soil taken from ancient graves, the researchers said.
In the study, published February 20 in the journal Archaeological and anthropological sciencesKirkinen and colleagues detailed the evidence of perishable materials they found in 35 burials at Skateholm, a Late Mesolithic archaeological site in southern Sweden near the Baltic Sea coast that hunter-gatherer groups used as a cemetery from 5200 to 4800 BC.
The researchers analyzed a total of 139 soil samples taken from the Skateholm graves. First, they identified fragments of bone, flint, charcoal and seeds in the soil. They then sieved and centrifuged the samples and looked at the remaining microparticles – fibers, hairs and feathers – under a microscope.
Mammal hair was recovered from 20 graves, but only 25% of them could be matched to a type of animal, including otters, deer and cows. In one grave, however, the researchers found evidence of hair from a lagomorph (mountain hare), a mustelid (weasel or stout), a bat and an owl, all recovered from the head area of a young adult male burial. Beads made from deer teeth also recovered from the head area suggest that the young man was buried with decorative headdresses.
From the analysis, the researchers concluded that at least 21 people were buried with feathers, many from species of waterfowl. Several of the feather particles were found in soil taken from the head and neck area of the deceased, which suggests that they may have been used in headgear.
In one grave, excavators found the skeleton of a child and an adult man buried with brown bear teeth, amber beads, bone and stone tools and red ocher. A soil sample taken from the space between them contained one deer hair and a possible woodpecker feather. These microparticles suggest that the child may have been wearing a deerskin garment and a headdress of woodpecker feathers.
And in the grave of an elderly woman, soil samples around her neck revealed waterfowl feathers that likely formed a headdress or feathered cloak. On her right heel, soil samples yielded a white hair from a weasel or a brown hair from a carnivore, suggesting she had been dressed in multicolored footwear that disintegrated over the centuries.
“The study underscores the importance of birds and their feathers, and it produces fascinating new knowledge,” study co-author Kristiina Mannermaaan archaeologist at the University of Helsinki, said in the statement.
Although the new technique works well, Kirkinen said, “species-level identification of microscopic feather and hair fragments is difficult, and this aspect of the analytical method can still be further developed.”
Future research may involve analyzing more recently collected soil samples and using sediment DNA analysis to increase the likelihood of finding soft organic remains, the researchers concluded.
Kirkinen, T., Larsson, L., & Mannermaa, K. (2026). Waterfowl, mustelids and bast fibers – evidence of soft organic materials at Late Mesolithic Skateholm I and II cemeteries, Sweden. Archaeological and anthropological sciences18(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-026-02415-7
