Can a skull tell you whether someone needed deodorant? Or whether a medieval saint struggled with early-morning prayers? At the ancient DNA exhibition Muinais-DNA – Avain menneisyyteen (Ancient DNA – A Key to the Past) at Museum Centre Vapriikki in Tampere, the answer is: sometimes, yes. Here’s what I learned about Finland’s past from old bones.
Inside an ancient DNA lab
The exhibition opens with a recreated clean room: a researcher in a full protective suit, mask and goggles, pipetting under a sterile hood. Next to it sits a cranium from Vilusenharju in Tampere, dated to the 12th–13th century. The first lesson is humbling: bones that look well preserved don’t always hold usable DNA. This sample only revealed that the person was male (XY chromosomes).
An interactive station nearby lets you turn a dial and step through how a sample is processed in the lab – great if you’re visiting Vapriikki with kids.
Ice Age Europe: Neanderthals and woolly mammoths
Between roughly 35,000 and 15,000 years ago, after the Neanderthals disappeared, modern humans were the only human species left in Europe. They lived in a harsh, cold climate, hunting big game like mammoths and gathering berries, nuts and fish. DNA shows these groups varied from region to region, and many people had darker skin and eyes than Europeans today.
A replica of the La Ferrassie Neanderthal skull, found in France in 1909, belonged to a man over 50 who lived about 45,000 years ago. His skeleton shows several serious fractures that had healed – a hint that others cared for him. Below it are stone tools Neanderthals used for hunting, butchering and preparing hides.
DNA research isn’t only about people. Woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island in Siberia were cut off by rising seas about 10,000 years ago and survived until roughly 4,000 years ago – around the time the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Their small population led to inbreeding, yet researchers think several factors together, not inbreeding alone, caused their extinction.
Languages, jewellery and the Leväluhta water burials
Finnish and Sámi belong to the Uralic language family, spoken from Fennoscandia to Siberia and Hungary. Researchers now think Uralic languages spread partly through Bronze Age trade networks, and that Proto-Finnic reached Finland from the south and east only around the beginning of the Common Era. Genes can’t tell us what language someone spoke, but linguistics and genetics fill in each other’s gaps. Iron Age brooches, clasps and glass beads with Baltic, Scandinavian and Gotlandic styles show how connected this region already was.
At Leväluhta in Isokyrö (around 400–700 CE), the dead were laid to rest in water – a rare custom in Iron Age Finland. These were the first individuals in Finland studied with ancient DNA. Most were women, which has inspired theories of a sacrificial site, a slave cemetery or the graves of midwives and shamans. Of the five analysed, four are genetically close to modern Sámi and one looks Scandinavian.
Earwax, body odour and a triple burial
My favourite part! Five bronze earspoons from the 12th–13th centuries introduce the ABCC11 gene, which decides whether your earwax is wet and yellow or dry and grey. Wet earwax is most common in Europe and Africa, dry earwax in East Asia and among Indigenous Americans – only about 10% of Europeans have it. All the ancient Finns tested had the wet type.
The same gene affects sweat odour. In the triple burial at Toppolanmäki, Valkeakoski, the man carried one copy of each variant (CT), so he probably smelled less strongly than the two women buried with him (both CC). The museum asks, tongue in cheek, whether that made him stand out. Another woman from the same site, aged about 45, turned out to be blonde and blue-eyed, and her face has been reconstructed.
Early birds and night owls: the PER1 gene
The PER1 gene is linked to our body clock. A Viking Age woman (c. 800–900 CE) buried in Hattula carried a “morning person” variant. Meanwhile, remains believed to be those of Bishop Henry – Finland’s patron saint, found in Turku Cathedral in 1924 – carried a variant typical of evening people. Imagine a night-owl bishop facing dawn prayers in a medieval monastery!
What DNA can’t tell us
The exhibition ends on a thoughtful note. DNA can determine biological sex even from children’s or poorly preserved bones, and it has overturned many guesses based on grave goods. But it can’t tell us how someone saw themselves, what language they spoke, or what their community expected of them. A display of Finnish folk-healing objects – a bear paw for children’s mouth infections, a dried mole against malaria – shows how far our understanding of the body has come.
Tips for your visit
- Where: Museum Centre Vapriikki, Alaverstaanraitti 5, Tampere – an easy walk from the city centre.
- Time needed: about 1.5 hours. All panels are in Finnish and English.
- Tickets & hours: check vapriikki.fi before you go. One ticket covers Vapriikki’s other exhibitions too.
- Photos: the halls are dark, so turn off the flash.
Do you know your earwax type – and are you a morning person or a night owl? Tell me in the comments!
More from Tampere
Plan your trip to Tampere
A few things that make a museum trip to Tampere easier:
- Stay online: get a Finland eSIM from Airalo before you land – handy for maps and museum tickets on your phone.
- Things to do in Finland: book tours, saunas and city experiences on Klook.
- Where to stay: search hotels and flights to Tampere with the box below.
© Mythstrip. All photos in this post are my own. They may not be copied, reproduced or reused in any form without written permission.
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