Norse colonists imported timber from North America to Greenland

A microscopic analysis has revealed that Norse colonists imported timber from Northern Europe and North America to Greenland.

Greenland, or Grœnland in Old Norse, was settled by Norwegian and Icelandic explorers in AD 985 or 986. The settlers established two colonies on the southwest coast: The Eastern Settlement or Eystribyggð, in what is now Qaqortoq, and the Western Settlement or Vestribygð, close to present-day Nuuk.

In a study published in the journal Antiquity, archaeologists from the University of Iceland have conducted a wood taxa analysis on pieces of timber found in 11th to 14th century AD Norse farmsteads.

 

The purpose of the study is to differentiate between native wood, imported wood, and driftwood, revealing that 0.27% of the wood was unambiguous imports, including oak, beech, hemlock and Jack pine. Another 25% of the total wood was either imported or driftwood, including larch, spruce, Scots pine and fir

Read the rest of this article...

People were decapitated in Anglo-Saxon England crudely, study finds

If just being executed in Anglo-Saxon England was not bad enough, it seems that those unlucky victims of beheading would also have to deal with an executioner that was not very good at his job. These are some of the findings from a recent article that examined the archaeological evidence of executions in the early Middle Ages.

The study, led by Alyxandra Mattison with colleagues from the United Kingdom and South Africa, was published in Bioarchaeology of Injuries and Violence in Early Medieval Europe. It examines research on ten so-called ‘execution cemeteries’ from Anglo-Saxon England. By the seventh century there is evidence that special unconsecrated burial grounds are being used – these differ from traditional cemeteries in that the bodies are often buried in careless ways, with sometimes multiple people in a single grave or obvious signs of execution. Not all people buried there would have been executed, but these sites offer a chance to understand how executions were carried out.

Read the rest of this article...

The Medieval Agricultural Revolution: New Evidence

The Medieval Agricultural Revolution: New Evidence

Lecture by Helena Hamerow

Given at Gresham College on March 23, 2023

Abstract: During the medieval ‘agricultural revolution’, new forms of cereal farming fuelled the exceptionally rapid growth of towns, markets and populations across much of Europe. The use of the mouldboard plough and systematic crop rotation were key developments and led to open-field farming, one of the transformative changes of the Middle Ages. Using new evidence from plant and animal remains from archaeological excavations in England, this lecture links these to wider developments in medieval society, notably growing social and wealth inequalities.

Helena Hamerow is Professor of Early Medieval Archaeology at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford and an Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.

Watch the video...

Lavish ancient Roman winery found at ruins of Villa of the Quintilii near Rome

View of the excavated winery from the northern dining hall of the Villa of the Quintilii outside Rome. Photograph: Stefano Castellani

Excavation shows facility included luxurious dining rooms with views of fountains that gushed with wine

Of all the Roman ruins that populate what is now a pleasant landscape of pine trees and meadows, under the distant gaze of the Alban Hills, the Villa of the Quintilii is perhaps the most impressive – almost a city in miniature, covering up to 24 hectares.

Lying on the ancient Appian Way as it runs south-east from Rome, the villa had its own theatre, an arena for chariot races and a baths complex with walls and floors lined in sumptuous marble.

But the story of the villa, whose origins lie in the second century AD, has just become even more remarkable, with the discovery of an elaborate winery unparalleled in the Roman world for lavishness.

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeologists identify a Palaeolithic bone tool workshop in Spanish cave

Image Credit : Antiquity

A study of a partition made from rocks in the El Mirón Cave has led to archaeologists identifying it as a Palaeolithic bone tool workshop.

El Mirón Cave is a cave system in the upper Asón River valley, located in the Cantabria region of northern Spain.

The cave was first discovered in 1903, leading to a series of excavations over the century revealing evidence of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer activity, and the discovery of the “Red Lady of El Mirón”, a skeleton from the Upper Palaeolithic which was found coated with ochre, a red iron-based pigment.

In a paper published in the journal Antiquity, researchers from the University of New Mexico (UNM) have suggested that a partition made from rocks in the rear of the cave was actually used for bone tool manufacturing around 20,000-years-ago.

Read the rest of this article...

Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings

Tree rings are now considered to be one of the most revealing of all climatic indicators.
Getty Images

History is only as good as its sources. It is limited largely to what has survived of written records, and in prehistory to random fragments unearthed by archaeologists and paleontologists. Climate history is no different. As the effects of global warming accelerate, it becomes ever more urgent to reassemble what we can of the atmospheric conditions of the past to gather evidence from wherever it may be.

Glacial ice cores are one place, with their frozen snapshots of long-ago air and traces of ash and pollen and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide or methane. Other climate proxies include the annual accretion of stalagmites, the growth of corals and the incremental layers of bone in the ears of fish. But in recent decades, tree rings have emerged as one of the most precise and revealing of all paleoclimatic indicators. 

Read the rest of this article...

Viking Shieldmaidens & Berserkers: Fact vs. Fiction

Did Viking Shieldmaidens and Berserkers really exist? How accurately are they portrayed in popular media?

Viking berserkers and shieldmaidens are fascinating aspects of a conglomerated culture that gave way to myth and legend. Today, popular media have romanticized and dramatized these ancient warriors to suit the wants of modern audiences. While berserkers and shieldmaidens did assuredly exist in one form or another, it is hard to decipher the Viking sagas and poems and separate the facts from the fiction.

Berserkers: What Are the Facts?

The word ‘berserk’ is often associated with blind fury and rage. While the etymology of the anglicized term ‘berserk’ is often debated, most agree it was used to describe warriors that were more fearless and extreme than ‘regular’ Vikings. Adding confusion to the topic, the word ‘berserk’ may have variable representations. It may mean “bare-sark,” or “bare of shirt” referring to the habit of going unarmored or even unclothed into battle. The Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) recounts of this tradition in his Ynglinga Saga: 

Read the rest of this article...

Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers (Online)

Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers (Online)

Wed 03 May 2023 - Fri 14 Jul 2023

Online course offered by The University of Oxford

Using a specially-designed virtual learning environment (VLE), this online course guides students through weekly pathways of directed readings and learning activities. Students interact with their tutor through tutor-guided, text-based forum discussions. There are no 'live-time' video meetings, meaning you can study flexibly whenever it suits you under the direct tuition of an expert.

Further information...

Viking King – How Was He Elected And What Was Expected From Him?

Travis Fimmel as Ragnar Lothbrok in the TV series Vikings. Credit: History Channel 

Copyright, fair use.

Ragnar Lodbrok claimed to be a direct descendant of the god Odin, but most Viking leaders were "ordinary" people, and they were viewed as exceptionally commanding men.

A man must have certain qualities and attitudes to become a great Viking leader.

It brings us to questions such as – Who could become a Viking king? Who was considered a worthy leader in the Viking society?

Kings Appeared At The End Of The Viking Age

It's important to remember that there were no Viking kings during the early Viking Age. The Viking society was divided into three social classes -  the nobles or jarls, the middle class or karls, and the slaves or thralls.

Read the rest of this article...

Lost Bible Chapter Discovered Using UV Photography on 1,750-Year-Old Manuscript in Vatican Library

A 1,750-year-old translation of Matthew's Gospel has yielded a new Bible chapter thanks to medievalist Grigory Kessel's work. According to IFLScience, the mysterious chapter was discovered using ultraviolet photography on manuscripts housed in the Vatican Library.

The remarkable discovery was made as part of the Sinai Palimpsests Project, a research initiative dedicated to recovering erased and overwritten texts from the 4th to 12th centuries CE.

How Medievalists Are Restoring the Ancient Religious Text

Due to the scarcity of writing materials at the time, manuscripts were frequently repurposed, resulting in palimpsest manuscripts in which previous text was washed or scraped off before new content was added. 

Read the rest of this article...

Bone fragment reveals humans wore leather clothes 39,000 years ago

This piece of bone from 39,600 years ago has multiple puncture marks on it that seem to have been made by puncturing leather

An analysis of a 39,600-year-old bone containing strange indentations claims it was used as a punch board for making holes in leather, revealing how Homo sapiens in Europe made clothes to help them survive cold climates at that time.

“We do not have much information about clothes because they’re perishable,” says Luc Doyon at the University of Bordeaux, France, who led the study. “They are an early technology we’re in the dark about.”

The bone, from the hip of a large mammal such as a horse or bison, was discovered at a site called Terrasses de la Riera dels Canyars near Barcelona, Spain. It has 28 puncture marks on its flat surface, including a linear sequence of 10 holes about 5 millimetres apart from each other, as well as other holes in more random positions.

Read the rest of this article...

People were using psychedelic drugs in Bronze Age Europe, study finds

Es Càrritx is a grotto on Minorca, an island off the coast of eastern Spain, that's home to a Bronze Age burial site. (Research Group in Mediterranean Social Archaeoecology/Autonomous University of Barcelona)

3,000-year-old human hair — possibly from a shaman — contains traces of mind-altering substances

People have been using mind-altering substances for a long, long time.

While archaeologists and historians have long suspected that people in Bronze Age Europe consumed psychoactive drugs, they now have hard scientific evidence to back it up.

And it's all thanks to several tiny strands of human hair found impeccably preserved in a 3,000-year-old burial site in Spain.

Those hairs, researchers have found, contain traces of three different alkaloid substances that are known to cause altered states of consciousness.

"It was amazing," Rafael Mico, a professor of archeological pre-history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "It is the first direct evidence in Europe of the consumption [of psychedelic drugs]."

Read the rest of this article...

Who Was Ötzi the Iceman?

(Credit:Zigres/Shutterstock)

Ötzi the Iceman is the oldest mummy ever found. Learn what scientists now know about the famous ancient human.

In 1991, two German tourists were hiking in the Ötztal Alps — a mountain range shared by Austria and Italy — when they stumbled upon the frozen remains of a dead man. The ice preserved the man so well that his body, clothes and tools never decomposed.

Scientists dubbed him Ötzi the Iceman and began studying the naturally-preserved mummy. They’ve determined he lived more than 5,000 years ago, which makes Ötzi the Iceman the oldest mummy ever found.

Researchers are still studying the mountain mummy, and Ötzi the Iceman continues to unlock answers about what daily life was like thousands of years ago. 

Read the rest of this article...

The Antikythera Mechanism: the mysterious ancient machine that should not exist?

 The Antikythera mechanism is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic artifacts from ancient Greece.

This ancient machine, discovered in the wreckage of a Greek shipwreck, has puzzled historians, archaeologists, and scientists for over a century.

It's a device that is so advanced that it seems to belong in a much later period of human history, and its discovery has raised many questions about the sophistication of ancient Greek technology.

Here, we will explore the mysteries of the Antikythera mechanism, including its purpose, its creators, and the ways in which it has challenged our understanding of ancient technology. 

Read the rest of this article...

The Carolingian Dynasty and the Holy Roman Empire

Charlemagne receives Alcuin 780, by Jean Victor Schnetz, 19th century, via Meisterdrucke.uk; with Photograph of Aachen Cathedral, via worldheritagegermany.com

The Holy Roman Empire existed in medieval and modern Western and Central Europe, founded by Charlemagne, of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty.

After the Migration Period that destroyed the Western Roman Empire, most of the newly formed Germanic states collapsed very fast. But not in France, which would become the most powerful new state of the early middle ages. The Franks, a Germanic tribe of skilled and courageous warriors led by Clovis of the Merovingian dynasty, established a state in the Roman province of Gaul and extended Frankish rule to the surrounding Germanic tribes. By accepting Christianity, Clovis became friendly with the clergy and thus laid the foundations for an alliance between Church and State. This alliance was strengthened in the second half of the 8th Century, during the reign of Pepin the Short of the Carolingian Dynasty. The alliance between the church and the Carolingians was eventually sealed in 800, when Charlemagne was proclaimed the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Read the rest of this article...

The Battle of Teutoburg Forest: Give Me Back My Legions!

During the reign of Emperor Augustus, in the deep, dark forests across the Rhine, three Roman legions marched in order, seeking to resolve the issue of pacifying the disparate but problematic Germanic tribes resisting Roman rule.

With their expertise and superior military, the Romans were confident they would achieve an easy victory, expand the Roman sphere of influence, and put an end to the rebelliousness of the Germanic tribes in the area. But the trees of the forest hid a power much greater than they had anticipated. What happened that Autumn day in 9 CE would send shockwaves all the way back to Rome. This was the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

Read the rest of this article...

Viking Age ceremonial burial shields found to be combat ready

Shield 'reconstruction' cobbled together in the late 19th–early 20th century. 

Rolf Fabricius Warming from the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University in Sweden and founding director of the Society for Combat Archaeology is challenging previous interpretations of ceremonial shields found in a Viking Age longship burial mound. His research is published in the journal Arms & Armour. 

About 1,100 years ago, at Gokstad in Vestfold, Norway, an important man was laid to rest in a 78-foot-long longship. The Gokstad ship was buried along with a few luxury possessions, including gold-embroidered tapestries, a sleigh, a saddle, 12 horses, eight dogs, two peacocks, six beds and 64 round shields as well as three smaller boats on the deck. The ship and the grave goods remained undisturbed under a mound of earth until it was discovered in 1880. Warming notes that while the longship and many artifacts now rest in a museum in Norway, some of the grave goods had not been subjected to any substantial examination since their initial discovery. 

Read the rest of this article...

Evidence of drug use during Bronze Age ritual ceremonies has been discovered in Europe for the first time

View of the entrance of Es Càrritx (upper left); the deposit of Chamber 5 with the tubes containing the human hair placed at the center (upper right, courtesy of Consell Insular de Menorca); plan of the cave and section of the deposit found in chamber 5 (P. Arnau, J. L. Florit, J. Márquez & M. Márquez).

The researchers believe that these substances were likely used as part of ritual ceremonies, and that they may have been ingested orally or smoked. They also suggest that the use of these drugs may have been associated with shamanism or other forms of religious or spiritual practice.

This is the first direct evidence of drug use in Europe during the Bronze Age, and it provides new insights into the beliefs and practices of people during this time period. The study also suggests that the use of psychoactive drugs may have been more widespread in Europe than previously thought.

The researchers hope that their findings will lead to further research into the use of drugs in Bronze Age Europe, and that it will help to shed light on the cultural and religious beliefs of this time period.

Read the rest of this article...

The ‘Barbarians’ Who Saved & Destroyed the Late Roman Empire

A look at how the traditional enemies of the Roman Empire came to save and, ultimately, destroy it.

When one pictures the Roman Empire, it can be quite easy to conjure up images of its glorious and all-conquering heydays. Visions of Caesar’s conquests, the civil war, Augustus, or the golden age of the Antonines. Throughout these portrayals, the primary enemy of the civilized Roman was the ‘barbarian,’ usually a Gaul, Scythian, or German.

However, while these periods make for good cinema or television, there exists an era infinitely more dramatic and turbulent, just under the radar of modern media’s glare. Between the late 4th and 5th centuries, the Roman emperors were often weak and incompetent puppets. Instead, the empire’s lifespan was extended and ultimately extinguished by a succession of ‘barbarian’ generals from beyond the imperial frontiers. This article tells the tale of how these ‘barbarians’ came to rule the fate of the Late Roman Empire.

Read the rest of this article...

Vikings may have made Morston fake gold Arabic dinar, says expert

A "spectacular" 9th Century fake Arabic dinar discovered by a metal detectorist could have been made by a Viking, a university professor said.

The gold coin was discovered near Morston, Norfolk, in April 2021 and has been declared treasure by a coroner.

Rory Naismith said "the Vikings had a lot of contact with the Muslim world" so it was "plausible" they could have struck imitation dinars.

"It's very unusual to find such a thing and it's completely unique," he added.

The imitation coin has a hole punched into it suggesting it was designed to be worn.

Prof Naismith, from Cambridge University, said some gold dinars from the Anglo-Saxon period have been found in England, probably arriving via Italy.

"While there are few other imitations that we know of, this one is a bit ropey," he said.

"It looks like it's made by someone who knows the generalities of what a dinar looks like, but is not handling them enough to get the Arabic right."

Read the rest of this article...