Isotope analysis identifies the origins of individuals buried in a cemetery in medieval Vilnius, Lithuania, finding that they came from hundreds of kilometres away and were Christian, pointing to unexpected diversity in Europe’s last pagan state.
Lithuania was famously the final pagan state in Europe. Whilst the rest of the continent converted to Christianity, Lithuania remained officially pagan until Catholicism was adopted in AD 1387.
Despite this, the degree to which Lithuania’s population remained pagan or converted to Christianity was unclear, as was the extent of migration from the wider Christian world.
Using isotope analysis of human remains from a 13th-14th-century cemetery on Bokšto Street, in Vilnius Old Town, an international research team revealed that some of the earliest Christians buried there likely arrived from the regions of the former Kievan Rus’, corresponding to present-day western Ukraine and southern Poland.
Archaeological evidence, including Byzantine-style ornaments, crosses, chaplets and imported grave goods, had long suggested connections with the Ruthenian and Byzantine worlds. The new isotope evidence now provides direct biological confirmation that migration played a role in the formation of Vilnius’ earliest Christian communities.
“Archaeologists have long suspected that the Civitas Ruthenica community included migrants from the Ruthenian lands. The isotope data now provide direct evidence that at least some individuals buried at Bokšto came from far beyond Lithuania,” explains Dr Rytis Jonaitis of the Lithuanian Institute of History, co-leader of the long-term archaeological investigations at the Bokšto Street cemetery.
The study also found that, unlike the men, most women buried in the cemetery were local to the Vilnius region, pointing towards a community shaped by migration and intermarriage. The findings suggest that local women may have adopted Christianity through contact with migrant men from Orthodox lands.
By combining evidence from grave goods, burial customs and isotopic analyses, researchers are able to reconstruct not only where individuals came from, but also how they became integrated into medieval Vilnius’ society. The findings support the view that medieval cities were shaped by mobility, cultural interaction and adaptation.
“Human remains preserve remarkable information about mobility, diet and social interaction that cannot be detected through archaeology alone”, says first author of the study, Professor Giedrė Motuzaitė Matuzevičiūtė from the Faculty of History at Vilnius University and the Lithuanian Institute of History. “By combining archaeological and historical investigations with multi-tissue isotope analysis of human osteological remains, we can, for the first time, directly identify individuals who migrated into medieval Vilnius during the city’s earliest formation. This research shows that Vilnius was already a highly diverse and internationally connected city from the very beginning of its history.”
This also raises broader questions about migration in medieval Europe. Movement into Vilnius may have been linked to political ties between Lithuania and Ruthenian territories, trade opportunities, religious mobility, or displacement associated with the Black Death pandemic, which devastated much of Europe in the mid-14th century.