Medieval History
Recent excavations by archaeologists from the National Museum Wales at the Viking age settlement of Llanbedrgoch on the east side of Anglesey have shed important new light on the impact of Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age worlds operating around the Irish Sea.
The new discovery of a skeleton in a shallow grave and the unusual (during this period in Wales) non-Christian orientation of the body, and its treatment, point to distinctions being made in the burial practices for Christians and other communities during the tenth century.
The burial is an unexpected addition to a group of five (two adolescents, two adult males and one woman) discovered in 1998-99. Originally thought to be victims of Viking raiding, which began in the 850s, this interpretation is now being revised. Stable isotope analysis by Dr Katie Hemer of Sheffield University indicates that the males were not local to Anglesey, but may have spent their early years (at least up to the age of seven) in North West Scotland or Scandinavia. The new burial will provide important additional evidence to shed light on the context of their unceremonious burial in shallow graves outside the elite fortified settlement in the later tenth century.
Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net
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Medieval History
Archaeological research reveals new insights about the Vikings in Wales
Recent excavations by archaeologists from the National Museum Wales at the Viking age settlement of Llanbedrgoch on the east side of Anglesey have shed important new light on the impact of Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age worlds operating around the Irish Sea.
The new discovery of a skeleton in a shallow grave and the unusual (during this period in Wales) non-Christian orientation of the body, and its treatment, point to distinctions being made in the burial practices for Christians and other communities during the tenth century.
The burial is an unexpected addition to a group of five (two adolescents, two adult males and one woman) discovered in 1998-99. Originally thought to be victims of Viking raiding, which began in the 850s, this interpretation is now being revised. Stable isotope analysis by Dr Katie Hemer of Sheffield University indicates that the males were not local to Anglesey, but may have spent their early years (at least up to the age of seven) in North West Scotland or Scandinavia. The new burial will provide important additional evidence to shed light on the context of their unceremonious burial in shallow graves outside the elite fortified settlement in the later tenth century.
Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net
- Don?t Underestimate Viking Women
?To assume that Viking men were ranked above women is to impose modern values on the past, which would be misleading,? cautions Marianne Moen. She has been studying how women?s status and power is expressed through Viking burial findings. Her master?s...
- Viking Boat Burial Site Discovered In Scotland
Great Britain?s first fully intact Viking boat burial site has been discovered by archaeologists working in northwest Scotland. The 5 meter-long grave contained the remains of a high status Viking, who was buried with an axe, a sword with a beautifully...
- Did The Scots Visit Iceland? New Research Reveals Island Inhabited 70 Years Before Vikings
New archaeological discoveries show that Iceland was inhabited around AD 800 ? nearly 70 years before the traditional dating of its Viking settlement. One possibility is that these early inhabitants may have been related to Irish monastic communities...
- Vikings And Death
In the Viking Age people were buried in many different sort of places. Did the ancient Scandinavians chose a particular place for burial or were the burial sites randomly selected? Had the choice anything to do with ideas of the afterlife? Archaeologist...
- Archaeological Project Reveals Sweden's Oldest Church, Evidence Of Early Christianity
An archaeological project in Sweden has turned up evidence of Christianity in the area going as far back as the ninth century as well as the remains of the oldest known church in that country. Results of the project have been published in the latest...