![]() Yet most people who died in the Viking Age were buried with nothing that will sex them. When we hear the word “Viking,” we imagine a well-armed man. The result? Historians and novelists write confidently of ships carrying only “huge and brawny men.” Museum designers and filmmakers and Viking reenactors re-create in exquisite detail a male-dominated Viking world. ![]() The thirty-some Vi king graves in which slender, female-looking bones were unearthed beside weapons are ignored as “noise in the data.” Graves with weapons-even cremation graves in which the bones have been crushed after burning-are catalogued as male those with jewelry are female. Instead, “sexing by metal” has been standard procedure since 1837, before archaeology as a science even existed. DNA sexing is difficult and expensive and, so, rarely done. There’s no internationally agreed-upon definition of “robust” there’s no absolute scientific scale for pelvic structure. Sexing them by their robustness or by the shape of the skull or pelvis is often not possible-and is always open to interpretation. How does an archaeologist know a buried Viking is male? The bones found beside the buried swords, if any, are degraded. ![]() Let’s set aside, for a moment, the idea that mercilessness is a masculine trait. They would pillage at will, mercilessly cutting down all opposition.” Assuming all sword-bearers are male, writers limn the Viking Age as hypermasculine: a time when “shiploads of these huge and brawny men would suddenly appear out of the sea mists. Three thousand Viking swords are known from Nor way alone. I have no fear the Viking hordes Will sail the seas on such a night.Īrchaeology backs up the Vikings’ violent image: Across Northern Europe, from Russia in the east to Iceland in the west, Vikings are found buried with swords. Bitter is the wind tonight, White the tresses of the sea
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |