COPENHAGEN, Denmark, June 11 (UPI) -- Forensic scientists studying human remains in two ancient Danish burial grounds dating to the Iron Age say they found a man of apparent Arabian origin.
The University of Copenhagen researchers said their finding suggests human beings were as genetically diverse 2,000 years ago as they are today and there was greater mobility among Iron Age populations than previously thought.
They said the finding also suggests people in the Danish Iron Age did not live and die in small, isolated villages, but were in constant contact with the wider world.
"Another interesting feature of the approximately 50 graves assessed so far on the two sites and also from other burial sites and time periods in Danish history is that none of the individuals seem to be maternally related to one another,"said researcher Linea Melchior. "We couldn't see any large families buried in the same location.
"This suggests that in the Danish Iron Age, people didn't live and die in the villages of their birth, as we had previously imagined."
The study appeared in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and in the online journal PLoS One.
