Seated Woman

This reconstruction of a Swedish woman from 7,000 years ago (using DNA as well as bone and archaeological burial remains) tells us she died when she was between 30-40 years old. Despite this relatively young age by modern standards, it is likely the female members of her community were healthier than many of her global contemporaries. And lifestyle was the reason for this.

To get the obvious out of the way, geneticists have figured out that this woman matched the skin and eye color of many contemporary Europeans — dark skin and pale eyes dominated. But other aspects of this “Seated Woman” (aka Burial XXII) from the Mesolithic cemetery at Skateholm were atypical — she was seated upright and crosslegged in her grave, and she wore a pendant made of animal teeth and slate, as well as a short cape of feathers. Seated Woman perhaps held a position of high reverence in her community, but it is not possible to definitively call her a shamen.

Skateholm’s human inhabitants were also becoming increasingly unusual in that part of the world. This area of southwest Sweden was made up of marshes and forests that allowed for hunter-gatherers like Seated Woman to survive. And — as archaeological evidence suggests — to thrive, in comparison with their farming neighbor women contemporaries.

The move to agriculture wasn’t a positive one in terms of female nutrition, it turns out. Hunter-gathering diets usually supplied a relatively diverse diet, and one that contained more Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids (fish, meat, some plants). This was important for women, because those Omegas provided the ability to uptake the iron in food much more easily, which is critical for healthy blood. Women — who menstruate and give birth — need a larger supply of iron. Scientists have studied cultures who have turned to grain through agriculture and found much higher instances of bone-pocking and tooth-enamel decay among these women compared to hunter-gatherers. Corn-based diets of farming Central American women, for instance, show a real problem for women because of this.