In 1972, two brothers hunting grouse on Greenland’s remote Nuussuaq Peninsula stumbled upon what they first took for a recent burial. Instead, Hans and Jokum Grønvold had uncovered one of the most extraordinary archaeological finds in Arctic history: eight naturally mummified bodies of Thule Inuit people, preserved for roughly five centuries with skin, hair, nails, and even tattoos still visible.
The discovery site, near the abandoned settlement of Qilakitsoq, contained two rock tombs in a crevasse. The corpses—six adults and two children—lay stacked vertically, separated by layers of animal hide, and still dressed in the furs they had worn in life. Alongside them were 78 pieces of clothing made from reindeer and sealskin. The Arctic environment had performed a near-perfect natural mummification: subzero temperatures combined with extremely dry air freeze-dried the bodies, protecting soft tissues, organs, and external features that normally decay within years.
Of the eight individuals, the best-preserved was a six-month-old infant. When first seen, the child was so intact that it was briefly mistaken for a doll. Archaeologists later determined the baby had almost certainly been buried alive with its mother—an act consistent with Thule beliefs that mother and child should enter the afterlife together, sparing the infant a slower death by starvation. A second young child, estimated at two to four years old and showing signs consistent with a form of Down syndrome, may also have been buried alive according to some interpretations of Thule custom, though sources differ on this specific case.
Three of the adult women were sisters. Buried with them were the 18-year-old daughter of one sister, the young boy, and the infant. A second grave held three other women: two related to the first group and one apparently unrelated, possibly having married into the family. DNA and kinship analysis confirmed these relationships and showed the group had received a traditional Inuit rock-grave burial that itself aided preservation through good drainage, airflow, and shelter from the elements.
Scientific examination of the remains has yielded a detailed picture of 15th-century Thule life. The people were likely simple hunters and foragers who died around 1475 AD. Researchers found evidence of kidney stones, tumors, constipation, and generally poor health among the adults. All the bodies contained large amounts of soot in the lymph nodes of the lungs—residue from seal-oil lamps burned in the confined spaces of their homes. Lice infestations were severe; fragments of lice recovered from intestinal contents indicate the parasites had contaminated food as people ate.
Infrared and ultraviolet examination revealed elaborate tattoos on the foreheads, eyebrows, and chins of the adult women. These were created by drawing soot-dipped sinew through the skin with a needle and almost certainly marked tribal and familial identity, applied at puberty or marriage. The young female mummy lacked tattoos, suggesting she had not yet reached those life stages. Dietary analysis showed a heavy reliance on marine mammals and fish (more than 75 percent of the meat consumed), supplemented by reindeer, other game, and plant matter such as moss found in one individual’s intestines.
The Thule Inuit who left these remains had migrated into Greenland centuries earlier, traveling in skin boats called umiaks and building houses of stone and whalebone. They maintained a shared language and cultural traditions across the Arctic, and historical records note contacts—and occasional conflict—with Norse explorers around 1200 AD.
The Qilakitsoq mummies stand among the best-preserved human remains ever recovered from Greenland. Four of them are now displayed at the Greenland National Museum. Their exceptional condition has advanced the scientific study of mummies and provided an intimate, almost startling window into the lives, beliefs, and daily hardships of a people who lived—and died—half a millennium ago on the edge of the known world.