Prague, Dec 23 (CTK) – Researchers are trying to uncover the origin of the ancient elites living in the seat of the first Czech Premyslid rulers at Prague Castle in the 9th and 10th centuries, using ultramodern scientific methods, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday.
Experts are analysing the bodily remains of dozens of people from the burial sites in the Castle complex and its close surroundings to find out from which part of Europe these people came to the Czech Lands.
A DNA analysis from the preserved bones should answer the question to which European population these people belonged genetically, while the analysis of strontium isotopes from their teeth, in particular the first molars, would reveal whether they spent youth in Bohemia and Moravia (historical lands of the Czech Republic) or elsewhere, MfD says.
Though the extensive project combining several scientific disciplines is to be completed in 2018 only, the research team has already achieved the first results.
“A top-level university laboratory in Bristol, Britain, has examined the first 60 individuals buried at Prague Castle. The strontium isotopes have shown that ten of them did not come from the Czech environment originally. This is quite surprising since we expected their number to be higher,” Jan Frolik, from the Archaeological Institute of the Science Academy (AV), told MfD.
He added that now they must find out from where these people had come to Prague, which would be a complex process.
At present, the University of Bristol is analysing the samples of 90 other bodies from the graves at Prague Castle, MfD writes.
Apart from traditional archaeological and anthropological approaches, researchers apply the methods that have never been used in the Czech Republic yet.
Thanks to a microgenetic method examining tartar on teeth, they can find out from which particular illness the ancestors suffered, while the isotopes of their diet taken from the bones are able to determine what they ate.
Most recently, the team explored the graves in a castle garden in which the families of the prince´s retinue members, who accompanied the ruler in the 9th and 10th centuries, were buried. They were mainly women and children, while men often perished far from home, Frolik said.
The isotope comparison has definitively confirmed that these people lived luxuriously in terms of diet since they ate meat regularly unlike those from the graves situated outside the Castle whose diet consisted primarily of cereals, he added.
It has turned out that the ancient centre, the castle, was strictly divided from the rest of the country and that even the villagers living close to the ruler´s residence did not have much better living standards than those from more distant localities.
MfD writes it is well known that about one-third of the current Czech population originates from European progenitors, mostly Celts and Teutons. One quarter has the same genetic basis that appears in Ukraine most frequently now, and another quarter´s genetic basis is similar to that occurring in the Balkans.
Two waves of the Slavs came to the current territory of the Czech Republic in the past, one from the East and the other from the South, and a half of Czechs are their descendants. The genes of about 5 percent are similar to the Jews and Berbers (originating from Northern Africa), MfD says.
“It will be very interesting to find out the origin of the members of the Premyslid prince´s retinue who came to Prague from abroad. We anticipate that Vikings could be among them, for instance. It would be great if a DNA analysis confirmed it,” Frolik told MfD.
However, a genetic exploration is a very complicated and costly method and this is why the first results can be available during next year only, MfD adds.
