Genetic research into the deceased — four men, a boy and a girl — reveals family connections: The boy was the son of one of the men, while another man was a third-degree relative, perhaps a first cousin or great uncle, the researchers found.
One possibility is that those in the grave were killed in a battle, maybe with a neighboring community. But suspicion also falls on the Vikings: "We will never know if they were killed in a raid, but it remains a possibility because of the date of the grave" and the fatal trauma suffered by three of the men, said study co-author Elīna Pētersone-Gordina, an archaeologist at the University of Latvia.
The grave is one of hundreds at the Čunkāni-Dreņģeri cemetery, near the Gulf of Riga, a sheltered bay of the Baltic Sea. The cemetery site was discovered in 1924 and contains people who were buried in riverside terraces there between the seventh and 11th centuries, during Latvia's Iron Age.
Despite the apparently violent deaths, the group was buried with care and interred with traditional grave goods and according to local customs. The only female was buried with her head pointing toward the northwest, while all of the males were placed in a row beside her, with their heads pointing toward the southeast — a distinction also seen at other local burials from this time.
This careful burial hints that the dead were members of a respected group, while their burial in a single grave indicates that they died at the same time, the researchers wrote in the study.
Genetic studies showed that all of the dead had Indigenous Baltic ancestry, while aspects of the burial matched others in the Čunkāni-Dreņģeri cemetery, she said.
It's plausible that the people in the grave were killed by raiders, and the Vikings were the most obvious suspects, the researchers noted. "Given the timing, a Viking raid remains a possibility," Pētersone-Gordina said.
No relation
Although two of the men and the boy buried in the Semigallian grave (and possibly the girl, but ancient DNA could not be extracted from her remains) were related, the two other men were not.
Whatever it was — a raid or a battle — the event was brutal. Marks on the bones show that one man suffered defensive cuts on his forearm and hand, another was killed by a blow that shattered his jaw, and the third was almost decapitated.
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Although these individuals could have died from violence within their own community or from a neighboring community, it's also possible that they perished in a Viking raid, he told Live Science in an email.
See how much you know about ancient norsemen with our Viking quiz.
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