WORLD

For more than a century, historians assumed one of the most spectacular Viking graves ever discovered belonged to a man. Turns out they were wrong. (The Local.se)

What other ancient woman tricked archaeologists?

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas

• The spectacular gravesite of a Viking warrior in Birka, Sweden, was recently revealed to belong to a woman. Who were the Vikings? How do archaeologists know the warrior in grave Bj 581 was a Viking? Read through this fun Nat Geo article for some help.
  • Vikings describe “a militarized society … in which men and women alike celebrated the virtues of warfare—fearlessness, aggression, cunning, strength under fire.”
  • The Viking Age, stretching from the 8th to the 11th century in Europe and western Asia, was very cosmopolitan and particularly associated with widespread nautical exploration.
    • Vikings explored the ocean, from the British Isles to Iceland, Greenland, and even North America.
    • Vikings also explored the dizzying routes of European rivers, contributing enormously, for instance, to the communities of Rus who helped define the largest country on Earth—Russia.
  • Situated on an island on the east coast of Sweden, the town of Birka was a key Viking trading center during the 8th-10th centuries. Birka was “linked to a social, cultural and economic network that reached beyond the Ural Mountains into the Caliphate in the east and south to the Byzantine Empire.”
    • Today, Birka and nearby Hovgården are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

• Vikings were farmers, traders, and artisans in addition to being legendary explorers and warriors. How do archaeologists know the Viking in Bj 581 was a warrior and not a farmer or trader?
  • The geographic position of the grave and the grave goods indicate the grave belonged to a high-status military leader.
    • According to the new research, the grave is “[p]rominently placed on an elevated terrace between the town and a hillfort, the grave was in direct contact with Birka’s garrison.”
    • “The grave goods include a sword, an axe, a spear, armour-piercing arrows, a battle knife, two shields, and two horses, one mare and one stallion; thus, the complete equipment of a professional warrior. Furthermore, a full set of gaming pieces indicates knowledge of tactics and strategy, stressing the buried individual’s role as a high-ranking officer.”
    • Researchers remind us, however, that geography and weapons do not make a warrior and “interpretation of grave goods is not straight forward.”

• How did archaeologists figure out the remains of the “Birka warrior” belonged to a woman?
  • Archaeologists used two methods.
    • First, they extracted and studied the warrior’s DNA from her left canine tooth and left humerus (upper arm). The genomic sequencing confirmed the biological sex of the warrior as female—the DNA did not contain Y chromosomes.
      • The DNA testing also allowed geneticists to compare the warrior’s relationship to other Vikings and modern-day groups. They found she was genetically related to modern-day Scandinavians, British Islanders, and Swedes from the southern and south-central region of the country.
      • Finally, genetic testing also confirmed she was more than 30 years old at the time of her death.
    • Second, archaeologists tested the strontium in the warrior’s molars to see how much she traveled. According to Nat Geo, “strontium [is] an element that is widely distributed in Earth’s bedrock and accumulates in plant and animal tissues. The variations differ from place to place, creating telltale local signatures that act … ‘like a geological GPS.’” Because the strontium levels in local bedrock are not conclusively known, the strontium tests proved largely inconclusive—researchers were unable to determine if she was local or not.

• The Birka warrior’s grave was one of thousands (!) discovered in Birka in 1888, and has been studied ever since. Why has it taken 130 years for archaeologists to figure out the bones belonged to a woman?
  • Archaeologists actually suspected the bones were female upon discovery, and a test in the 1970s confirmed this—but historians dismissed the idea on purely social evidence: A woman could not have held such a powerful, high-status place in Viking society.
    • Longstanding stories about fierce Viking “shield maidens” were “dismissed as mythological phenomena.”
    • “Though some Viking women buried with weapons are known, a female warrior of this importance has never been determined and Viking scholars have been reluctant to acknowledge the agency of women with weapons.”

• What? How could actual scientific evidence of the Birka warrior’s identity be dismissed for more than a century?
  • The Birka warrior’s grave was scrutinized (rationalized?) to an extent that male warrior graves are not. The scrutiny is not without merit (these are absolutely plausible ideas); but, as the authors point out, “it must be stressed that the interpretation should be made in a similar manner regardless of the biological sex of the interred individual.”
    • The grave goods were categorized as “heirlooms, carriers of symbolic meaning or grave goods reflecting the status and role of the family rather than the individual.”
    • Some scientists assumed that the military and high-status goods belonged to another (missing, male) person in the grave.

TEACHERS TOOLKIT

The Local: Viking warrior found in Sweden was a woman, researchers confirm

Nat Geo: What You Don’t Know about the Vikings

UNESCO World Heritage: Birka and Hovgården

Nat Geo: The Modern Life of a Bronze-Age Woman

(extra credit! this is a great read!) American Journal of Physical Anthropology: A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics