How we created the portrait of Rav

Unfortunately, skeletal material from the Stone Age from the inland areas of southern Norway is lacking. So far no other analyses have been carried out that tell us directly about the appearance and genetics of people living in the interior. When portraying those who lived in the inland regions, we therefore have to build the stories on finds from surrounding areas.

The portrayal of Rav (Norwegian for Amber) is based on finds from a stone cist constructed from slabs, found at Verket, Hurum, in 1880. The cist was situated about 200 metres from the shoreline, is reported to have measured c. 2.2 × 1.6 metres and was built beneath a large stone (Østmo 2011: 88–92).

The grave contained the remains of what are thought to be three male individuals in their twenties, as well as single bones from a child and an older individual (cat. nos. 584a–c) (Holck in Østmo 2011: 95–103). Five flint daggers (C10476–C10480) were also found in the grave. The form of the daggers and four radiocarbon dates place the burials at around 2000 BC. The dates vary somewhat, however, and the burial chamber was probably used for repeated burials over several hundred years (Østmo 2011: 91–94).

Rav is modelled on individual 584a. The skeleton of this individual is almost complete, but there is some uncertainty as to whether the skull and the other skeletal elements belong to the same person.

The osteological analysis of 584a concludes that this is a man aged 20–25 years, around 173 cm tall, with a robust build. 584a had an injured foot, a healed injury to the collarbone, and signs of osteoarthritis on several limbs (Holck in Østmo 2011: 95–103; Melheim in Kristiansen et al. 2025: 199–201).
DNA samples have been taken from the individuals in the Verket grave (Daskalaki 2017), but as of May 2026 no detailed analytical results have been published. More generally, individuals from this period have a mixture of Nordic and Baltic ancestry (McColl et al. 2025: 17–21).
The reconstruction of eye, hair and skin colour is based on a study of predicting pigmentation from DNA, using genotype probabilities from NEO225, a female skeleton dated to c. 1800 BC, found near Falköping south of Lake Vänern in Sweden (Blank et al. 2018). This is one of the few individuals from this period in Scandinavia for whom the phenotype is known (Perretti et al. 2025). The genotype probabilities, which refer to the likelihood that an individual has a particular combination of genetic variants, indicate that the Falköping individual had brown eyes, dark brown or black hair, and medium‑brown skin. The individual is relatively typical of the European population in this period, even though there was considerable variation in appearance.

Sources

Blank, M., A. Tornberg og C. Knipper 2018 New Perspectives on the Late Neolithic of South-Western Sweden. An Interdisciplinary Investigation of the Gallery Grave Falköping Stad 5 4(1):1–35.

Daskalaki, E. 2017 Sampling details KHM, Kulturhistorisk museum, Oslo.

Kristiansen, K., L. Hedeager, G. Kroonen, S. M. Sindbæk, P. Ethelberg, S. Bergerbrant og K.-G. Sjogren 2025 Steppe Ancestry in Western Eurasia and the Spread of the Germanic Languages. S7.1. Archaeological and linguistic background to Scandinavian prehistory 2850 BC–750 AD (pdf) www.biorxiv.org.

McColl, H., G. Kroonen, J. Víctor Moreno-Mayar, F. V. Seersholm, G. Scorrano, T. Pinotti, T. Vimala, S. M. Sindbæk, P. Ethelberg, R. Fyfe, M.-J. Gaillard, H. M. Ellegård Larsen, M. F. Mortensen, F. Demeter, M. L. S. Jørkov, S. Bergerbrant, P. d. B. Damgaard, M. E. Allentoft, L. Vinner, C. Gaunitz, A. Ramsøe, I. Altinkaya, R. A. Henriksen, E. K. Irving-Pease, K. G. Sjögren, S. Sabatini, A. Fischer, W. Barrie, A. Ingason, A. Rosengren, A. Vaughn, J. Cao, J. Staring, J. Stenderup, F. E. Yediay, T. Ahlström, I. Akhvlediani, S. L. Albris, B. Atabiev, E. V. Balanovskaya, P. Bangsgaard, M. G. Belcastro, N. Card, P. Charlier, E. Chernykh, T. T. Christiansen, A. Coppa, M. De Coster, S. D. Denham, S. Desenne, J. Downes, K. M. Frei, O. Gábor, U. B. Gadiev, J. Z. Gårdsvoll, Z. T. Glørstad, J. Hansen, S. Heeren, M. Henriksen, V. Heyd, M. Høj, M. K. Holst, R. Jankauskas, H. Janson, M. D. Jessen, J. W. Johannsen, T. Johansen, O. T. Kastholm, A. Kern♰, R. Khaskhanov, K. I. Kjær, V. Kolosov, L. M. Kootker, K. Kyselicová, A. C. Larsen, T. Lejars, M. Løvschal, N. Lynnerup, Y. Magnusson, V. Y. Malashev, K. Mannermaa, V. Masyakin, A. L. Melheim, I. Merkyte, V. Moiseyev, S. B. Møller, E. Molnár, N. Mortensen, E. Murphy, B. H. Nielsen, D. Pany-Kucera, B. S. Paulsson, G. Plets, M. S. Ponce de León, H. Reiersen, W. Reinhard, A. Sajantila, B. Skar, V. Slavchev, V. Smrčka, L. Sørensen, G. Tiefengraber, O. C. Uldum, H. Vandkilde, J. Vega, D. Vitali, A. Voloshinov, S. Wåhlin, H. Wendling, A. Wessman, H. Wilhelmson, K. Wiltschke, J. Zilhão, C. P. E. Zollikofer, T. Sand Korneliussen, B. Chaume, J.-P. Demoule, T. Werge, L. Olsen, R. Nielsen, L. Hedeager, K. Kristiansen, M. Sikora og E. Willerslev 2025 Steppe Ancestry in Western Eurasia and the Spread of the Germanic Languages. S7.1. Archaeological and linguistic background to Scandinavian prehistory 2850 BC–750 AD bioRxiv:2024.2003.2013.584607.

Perretti, S., P. Santos, M. T. Vizzari, E. Tassani, A. Benazzo, S. Ghirotto og G. Barbujani 2025 Inference of human pigmentation from ancient DNA by genotype likelihoods. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 122(29):e2502158122.

Østmo, E. 2011 Krigergraver. En dokumentarisk studie av senneolittiske hellekister i Norge. Norske oldfunn, vol. XXVI. Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo.