scholarly journals Configurations of Religion in Late Iron Age and Viking Age Scandinavia

2019 ◽  
pp. 339-373
Author(s):  
Andreas Nordberg ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Late Iron Age

scholarly journals The Odal and its Manifestation in the Landscape

1994 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-238
Author(s):  
Torun Zachrisson
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Wide Sense ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Individual

The concept odal can be regarded in a narrow sense, i.e. as the inherited landed property of a family. But here it is argued that odal should be viewed in a wide sense - as a mentality that is of great importance to the understanding of Late Iron Age society in Sweden. The article focuses on the material expressions which belonging to a family and possessing a farm could take in the individual farmstead in the Mälar Valley. The Viking Age is interpreted as a time period in which there was a need to make the odal visible. The acts of burying dead relatives on top of the graves of early ancestors, erecting runestones, and possibly also erecting mounds are regarded as ways of guarding, marking, and confirming the possession of the odal in the odal man's own eyes and in his neighbours' and consequently also the odal man's position in society.

Identity, Gender, Religion and Economy: New Isotope and Radiocarbon Evidence for Marine Resource Intensification in Early Historic Orkney, Scotland, UK

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Barrett ◽  
Michael P. Richards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Protein Consumption ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Cultural Contingencies ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Fish Trade ◽  
Marine Protein

Stable isotope measurements and radiocarbon dates on 54 burials from northern Scotland document trends in marine protein consumption from the late Iron Age to the end of the Middle Ages. They illuminate how local environmental and cultural contingencies interrelated with a pan-European trend towards more intensive fishing around the end of the first millennium AD. Little use was made of marine foods in late Iron Age Orkney despite its maritime setting. Significant fish consumption appeared in the Viking Age (ninth to eleventh centuries AD), first in the case of some men buried with grave-goods of Scandinavian style but soon among both sexes in ‘Christian’ burials. There was then a peak in marine protein consumption from approximately the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries AD, particularly among men, after which the importance of fish-eating returned to Viking Age levels. The causes of these developments probably entailed a complex relationship between ethnicity, gender, Christian fasting practices, population growth, long-range fish trade and environmental change.

scholarly journals The Ambiguous Boeslunde Figure

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Trine Louise Borake
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Symbolic Meaning ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Female Figure ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Shape And Size

This article presents a unique female figure found in Boeslunde, Zealand, Denmark. It stands at just 1.5 cm and is made of gilded silver with remarkably refined details. The date of the figure is discussed based on details of her garments, accessories, and hairstyle and she is compared to other archaeological representations and finds. Based on these criteria, a dating to the Late Iron Age/Early Viking Age is proposed. Her function is likewise discussed. By means of an examination of parallel finds, the figure’s function as a gaming piece or garment accessory has been ruled out. It is argued that she functioned as an amulet and her features are evaluated and discussed. Contemplating the figure from a ritual perspective, her necklace appears to be a significant attribute, an observation which has great implications for other representations such as the Odin-from-Lejre figure. It is, further considered whether her necklace is a representation of Freyja´s Brisingamen, and the little figure thus a depiction of Freyja, herself. Lastly, the intentionally differentiated shape and size of her eyes and their symbolic meaning is evaluated, and parallels are examined and discussed.

The knowable, the doable and the undiscussed: tradition, submission, and the ‘becoming’ of rural landscapes in Denmark's Iron Age

Antiquity ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 73 (281) ◽  
pp. 661-671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina L. Thurston
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Landscape Change ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Settlement Movement ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
New Settlements

Farmers in Late Iron Age Denmark lived in centuries-old villages, within territories inhabited for milfennia. Long-held patterns of settlement, movement, economic interaction and socio-political structure characterized the cultural landscapes of these loosely integrated, heterarchical societies. During the transition to a state in the late Viking Age, many new settlements were established and rapid landscape change transformed older communities into highly controlled, newly regulated places.

scholarly journals What Makes a Mound? Earth-Sourced Materials in Late Iron Age Burial Mounds

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Rebecca J.S. Cannell
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Southern Norway

The interpretation of Late Iron Age burial mounds often focuses exclusively on the discovered contents, the social identity or role of the interred and the economic and political implications that can be extracted. This article considers the mound itself as a basis for archaeological interpretation, and attempts to place substantial late Iron Age burial mounds within the landscape they are made of. Within these burial mounds internal references to time, place and the transformations and imbued associations within the earth-sourced materials are purposeful and significant. This is illustrated via comparable examples from southern Norway, and to add contrast, cases from the Viking Age Isle of Man will be explored. This article will outline why the selected mounds should be seen as closely related to each other in the references they contain, and how the materials used can be seen as a purposeful link to the land itself.

scholarly journals Identification of Bird Species Used to Make a Viking Age Feather Pillow

ARCTIC ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla J. Dove ◽  
Stephen Wickler
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Microscopic Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Great Cormorant ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Phalacrocorax Carbo ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Wool Textile ◽  
Level Identification

A grave containing the remains of a wooden boat was discovered in 1934 under a low mound in a bog at Øksnes in the Vesterålen islands of northern Norway. The boat grave dates to the 10th century in the Viking Age, and grave goods placed in the boat include an iron axe, a cowhide in which the body was wrapped, and pillow remains consisting of feather stuffing and a wool textile cover. A microscopic analysis of the feathers from a subsample of the pillow fill identified three avian orders: Anseriformes (eider); Suliformes (cormorant), and Charadriiformes (unspecified gull). It was possible to make one species-level identification of Great Cormorant (<em>Phalacrocorax carbo</em>) and to narrow the gull types to the “white-headed” gull group. The sample was composed of a nearly equal mix of downy and pennaceous feather types. Downy feathers from gulls (Laridae) composed the majority of the material in this sample. While it is reported that feathers and down (assumed to be eider) were used in the Late Iron Age, this is the first successful attempt to identify bird species used in these materials and suggests that avian species identifications should be explored in other such burial items to enhance our understanding of human-wildlife interactions throughout Norse history.

Commemorating Dwelling: The Death and Burial of Houses in Iron and Viking Age Scandinavia

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Hem Eriksen
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Social Markers ◽  
Deceased Individual

Current debates on the ontology of objects and matter have reinvigorated archaeological theoretical discourse and opened a multitude of perspectives on understanding the past, perspectives which have only just begun to be explored in scholarship on Late Iron Age Scandinavia. This article is a critical discussion of the sporadic tradition of covering longhouses and halls with burial mounds in the Iron and Viking ages. After having stood as social markers in the landscape for decades or even centuries, some dwellings were transformed into mortuary monuments — material and mnemonic spaces of the dead. Yet, was it the house or a deceased individual that was being interred and memorialized? Through an exploration of buildings that have been overlain by burial mounds, and by drawing on theoretical debates about social biographies and the material turn, this article illuminates mortuary citations between houses and bodies in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Ultimately, I question the assumed anthropocentricity of the practice of burying houses. Rather, I suggest that the house was interwoven with the essence of the household and that the transformation of the building was a mortuary citation not necessarily of an individual, but of the entire, entangled social meshwork of the house.

scholarly journals Mitochondrial DNA variation in the Viking age population of Norway

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1660) ◽  
pp. 20130384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Krzewińska ◽  
Gro Bjørnstad ◽  
Pontus Skoglund ◽  
Pall Isolfur Olason ◽  
Jan Bill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mitochondrial Dna ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Dna Markers ◽  
Lower Proportion ◽  
Dna Polymorphisms ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Dna Variation ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Generation Sequencing

The medieval Norsemen or Vikings had an important biological and cultural impact on many parts of Europe through raids, colonization and trade, from about AD 793 to 1066. To help understand the genetic affinities of the ancient Norsemen, and their genetic contribution to the gene pool of other Europeans, we analysed DNA markers in Late Iron Age skeletal remains from Norway. DNA was extracted from 80 individuals, and mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms were detected by next-generation sequencing. The sequences of 45 ancient Norwegians were verified as genuine through the identification of damage patterns characteristic of ancient DNA. The ancient Norwegians were genetically similar to previously analysed ancient Icelanders, and to present-day Shetland and Orkney Islanders, Norwegians, Swedes, Scots, English, German and French. The Viking Age population had higher frequencies of K*, U*, V* and I* haplogroups than their modern counterparts, but a lower proportion of T* and H* haplogroups. Three individuals carried haplotypes that are rare in Norway today (U5b1b1, Hg A* and an uncommon variant of H*). Our combined analyses indicate that Norse women were important agents in the overseas expansion and settlement of the Vikings, and that women from the Orkneys and Western Isles contributed to the colonization of Iceland.

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