Viking study

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.science.org/content/article/viking-was-job-description-not-matter-heredity-massive-ancient-dna-study-shows?utm_medium=ownedSocial&utm_campaign=NewsfromScience&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR352vSsy6m9qHEpILBllI2aknjTDzyNDlaxV-Cj5vEVY51JBTanmXKOhpU

let's all go a-viking!

[Erpingham]

Viking is a complicated term, because it means different things to the people who coined it than it does now.  A viking was a person who went a-viking.  When this person was doing something else, he wasn't a viking.  He might be a farmer, or a craftsman.  We, however, adopt as a historical convenience a Viking Age, in which a culture originating in Scandinavia spread and had all sorts of impacts in northern Europe and beyond.  A viking comes to mean a person from that culture.  I would suggest this study doesn't affirm viking as a job description but that that viking culture assimilated people of different ethnicities it interacted with.

[Imperial Dave]

its a bit like 'Saxon' covers multitude of sins...literally

[Anton]

Black Danes was an Irish description, hair colour of course.

I think Saxon caught on as an insular description because they were the first incoming people encountered by the insular Celts.  I'm quite sure the latter could differentiate between Angles, Jutes and Saxons.

[Imperial Dave]

true but I believe rightly or wrongly that Saxon meant 'freebooter' or 'pirate'

[Anton]

Yeah, saw that.  I'm not minded in that direction.  Ethnic/tribal designation for me.  I think you are right about Gildas btw.  That's off topic for Vikings.

[Imperial Dave]