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## The Chain of Custody Problem: Bones and Their Labels
Martin Rundkvist’s critique — that the bones and grave goods could not be assumed to come from the same individual without independent verification — was methodologically serious. It pointed to a genuine problem in archaeological research involving older collections: bones, once separated from their original context and placed in museum storage, can become confused with other bones from the same or different sites.
The 2019 paper’s response to this critique was substantial. It described the verification process that the research team undertook to establish that the bones tested were genuinely from grave Bj 581.
Stolpe’s practice of labeling individual bones with their grave designation in India ink was the starting point. Each of the bones attributed to Bj 581 bore this marking, allowing them to be distinguished from bones from other graves in the museum collection. The research team compared the measurements of the available bones against Stolpe’s field drawings and against the bones of individuals from neighboring graves, looking for internal consistency.
The extra femur — the thigh bone that created the impression of possible multiple occupants in the grave — received particular attention. This bone bore a label identifying it as coming from grave Bj 854, a different Birka burial that predated Bj 581 by approximately a century. The bone had been misplaced at some point in the long history of the collection’s handling — moved, perhaps, when drawers were reorganized, or confused when comparative measurement required bringing it near the Bj 581 assemblage. Its origin from a different grave was documented by its label, not inferred.