Female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics

[Imperial Dave]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.23308/full

The science is thorough and detailed......its groundbreaking really

[Patrick Waterson]

Looks like another win for original source material over academic dismissal ...

[Anton]

"No pathological or traumatic injuries were observed."

Would that not be unusual for a skeleton of an active warrior over the age of 30?

[Erpingham]

Looks like another win for original source material over academic dismissal ...

Yes and no.  I think there is probably a lack of solid historical record of female Vikings.  Lots of pre-Viking ones, some evidence that women could defend hearth and home in sagas so some scepticism is not surprising (coupled with a healthy dose of sexism).  But here we have a high status individual with a full warrior burial set.  What part did this woman play in society?  How common were women like her?  Its not the only burial with weapons with an ambiguous or female determination from skeletal remains.  Interesting stuff.

[Anton]

It appears there is a bit more to this than we knew.  This lady seems well qualified to comment being a professor of Viking stuff.  Do read the comments too.

https://norseandviking.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/lets-debate-female-viking-warriors-yet.html

[Erpingham]

Very interesting.  Here is the Guardian's take, with another set of academics providing an opinion.

The danger I think Judith Jesch blog addresses quite well is that we make the leap from female buried in high-status weapon grave to hordes of shieldmaidens in the style of popular TV shows.  Was the occupant of the grave "socially male"?  Or is that another construct?  I'm not convinced by ideas that if you have a gaming set you are good at strategy.  I'm also dubious of the "she can't have been a real warrior because she doesn't have any wounds" idea.  We'd need a better analysis of what proportion of warrior graves have an occupant showing osteological evidence of wounds to even suggest that. 

[Anton]

From memory it's quite common for the bones in warrior graves to show trauma though I don't know if anyone has done any analysis, anywhere, to show how typical it is.

That apart it seems we don't know where these bones were in relation to the weapons in the grave which I think might be quite important.

Being, or becoming socially male is an interesting concept but what are the mechanisms to enable this?

Alternatively maybe aristocratic women who showed interest and aptitude were allowed to fight?

[Andreas Johansson]

I'm also dubious of the "she can't have been a real warrior because she doesn't have any wounds" idea.  We'd need a better analysis of what proportion of warrior graves have an occupant showing osteological evidence of wounds to even suggest that.

"She can't have been a real warrior because she doesn't show osteological traces of a highly active livestyle" seems a much better argument, if it's indeed true the bones do not indicate a high activity lifestyle.

I'm not really surprised by the comment to the effect we unquestioningly interpret male graves with weapons as those of warriors, but I don't think it's entirely fair. It's been argued, frex, that in early Anglo-Saxon England, being buried with weapons was a mark of being a free man, and while they might all have been warriors in terms of social status, it's hardly plausible all had actually fought (think of, if not exactly the children, then the teenagers).

Which, I guess, is a long-winded way of saying it'd be nice if people were a little more precise about what they mean by "warrior".


The supplementary information mentions two Norwegian weapon burials where the deceased have been osteologically identified as female. In these cases there seems to be no question but that the skeletons and the grave goods belong together, tho I guess it's conceivable teenage boys have been misidentified as women (cf our Kazakh "Golden Boy"). Interestingly, the archaeologist of one of them concluded the sword was two large to actually have been wielded by the (petite) occupant in life: our authors are skeptical but as I general thing don't think grave goods being impractical is much grounds for surprise. The important thing was surely that she was buried with a sword, with whatever social signaling or afterlife utility may have been intended, not whether she could have wielded it effectively if she hadn't been in need of burial.

[Imperial Dave]

It appears there is a bit more to this than we knew.  This lady seems well qualified to comment being a professor of Viking stuff.  Do read the comments too.

https://norseandviking.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/lets-debate-female-viking-warriors-yet.html

interesting indeed....thanks for the link

[Erpingham]

This story continues to reverberate :

https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/14/viking-warrior-women-an-archaeodeath-response-part-1/

http://norseandviking.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/some-further-discussion-of-article-on.html

These are more about how the story has resonated, how it has been reported and the academic responses.  There is some good stuff in Judith Jesch's piece on how academic debate works in an era of open-access publishing and the limits of peer review which have wider implications than just this article.

[Imperial Dave]

agreed....one man's meat etc.....

[Mark G]

I am Curious as to how a mother of famous warriors would have been honoured in death.

[Jim Webster]

I am Curious as to how a mother of famous warriors would have been honoured in death.

To be a mother of multiple famous warriors she'd have to be a fair age for her era.
assuming you're recognised as a famous warrior in your thirties, your oldest brother is probably about 40, your mother is probably a minimum of 55.
How old was the dead woman in this case?

[Mark G]

Not sure that holds true, Jim.

Think of the famous sportsmen in their early 20s. 
A young mother could easily be in her 40s, and even late 30s if her first born did something spectacular on his first time out.

[Jim Webster]

Not sure that holds true, Jim.

Think of the famous sportsmen in their early 20s. 
A young mother could easily be in her 40s, and even late 30s if her first born did something spectacular on his first time out.

The thing about warriors is that within their society we're still in a place where age and experience are valued. Yes, in his twenties he might be a bonny fighter, but I'd say that it would be into his thirties before he got major command on his own