Bj 581 was a case where the circularity became visible. Visible, but not immediately corrected.
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## The Bones: What Later Analysis Found
The skeleton recovered from Bj 581 did not immediately present itself as incontrovertibly male. Stolpe recovered only a portion of the original bones — accounts vary slightly, but approximately forty of what may have been a larger original complement, with the skull bones that carry the clearest sex markers absent or incomplete.
In the 1970s, an osteo-archaeologist named Berit Vilkans examined the available remains. She assessed average height, noted slim forearm bones, and evaluated a pelvic bone that she judged to be female. Her assessment suggested the individual was a woman. The absence of the skull limited her confidence. The museum records kept the male designation.
The osteological evidence, in other words, had raised questions about the male assumption before the DNA era. The challenge did not produce a revision. It produced a question that remained open.
In 2016, osteo-archaeologist Anna Kjellström of Stockholm University revisited the remains and reached the same conclusion Vilkans had four decades earlier: the skeleton was female. The bones that survived — the forearm, the pelvis — were more consistent with female morphology than male. Kjellström’s assessment provided the impetus for the genomic study that followed.
The 2017 paper — published in the *American Journal of Physical Anthropology* and led by Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University, with co-authors including Kjellström, Torun Zachrisson, Magdalena Krzewińska, Veronica Sobrado, Neil Price, Torsten Günther, Mattias Jakobsson, and Anders Götherström — extracted ancient DNA from two sources: a left canine tooth and a left humerus (upper arm bone). Both samples were tested to verify DNA degradation consistent with ancient material rather than modern contamination. Both yielded the same result.