Digging Up the Rich Viking History of Britain

A massive 1,100-year-old graveyard leads to a surprising new view of the Nordic legacy in Britain

St. Wystan’s church in Repton. In 873-874, a Viking army is believed to have entrenched in the garden. Right, Viking burial mounds in Heath Wood

Cat Jarman led me through a dense tangle of forest called Heath Wood. We were in Derbyshire, close to the very heart of England. There was no path, and the forest floor was overgrown with bracken and bush. It was easy to lose your footing and even easier to lose your way. Jarman, a fit, cheery woman in her late 30s, plunged jauntily on as I tried to keep up. “See all these lumps and bumps?” she asked as we broke into a small clearing. She pointed to an array of 59 small, rounded hillocks, many two or so feet high and four or five feet in diameter. Humans, not nature, had clearly put these things here, and they gave off a spooky, supernatural energy.

“We are literally walking across a Viking cemetery—the only known Scandinavian cremation cemetery in the whole country,” says Jarman, an archaeologist, whose new book, River Kings, takes a fresh look at who the Vikings really were and what exactly they were up to here. She flashes me a broad smile. “It’s very good, isn’t it?”

Yes, it is good—simple, powerful and mysterious. For a ceremonial burial place, the Vikings picked a surprisingly unceremonial spot. The overgrown forest shrouds these tombs in anonymity. There is no visible sign of a Viking settlement nearby, just an expanse of open fields and beyond that, a hamlet with a church, school and a few houses. The Vikings used rivers to get around, but it’s an awfully long hike from here to where the River Trent flows today. Which raises a big question, says Jarman. “Why have you got these Scandinavian cremation mounds here in the middle of nowhere?”

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Drought helped push the Vikings out of Greenland, new study finds

Newly analyzed lake sediments provided more information about the climate in the East Settlement where Vikings lived in Greenland. (Image credit: Tobias Schneider)

Scientists may have found an important factor behind why the Norse mysteriously abandoned their largest settlement on Greenland. And it wasn't cold weather, as some had long thought. 

Rather, drought might have played a major role in the abandonment of the Eastern Settlement of Vikings around 1450, new research suggests.

"We conclude that increasingly dry conditions played a more important role in undermining the viability of the Eastern Settlement than minor temperature changes," a team of scientists – many of whom are based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst – wrote in an article published online March 23 in the journal Science Advances. 

"Drier climate would have notably reduced grass production, which was essential for livestock overwintering, and this drying trend is concurrent with a Norse diet shift" toward seafood, the team wrote. 

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A Viking Settlement Mysteriously Vanished. Now, We Have an Answer

About 1,000 years ago, Vikings settled on the southern tip of Greenland, where they thrived for centuries despite sunless winters and punishing conditions. But these Norse peoples of Greenland eventually vanished in the 15th century, leaving behind bones, ruins, and a tantalizing unsolved mystery about the events that led up to the collapse of their remote society.  

Scientists have often pointed to the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that coincides with the disappearance of the far-flung Greenlandic Norse, as a likely explanation for the abandonment of the so-called Eastern Settlement that supported some 2,000 Vikings at its peak. 

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Ancient remains from reindeer hunting and a forgotten trail in the Norwegian mountains found by glacial archaeologists

If you want to kill a reindeer with a bow and arrow you have to get as close to the animal as you possibly can. You probably can’t be further away than 10-20 metres. Which is difficult, with an animal that will flee at the smallest sound or movement.

The mountains and ice patches in Sandgrovskaret didn’t provide hiding places for the hunters, so they had to construct some.

40 such so-called hunting blinds – a rock wall shaped as a half circle that hunters would hide behind – were found when glacial archaeologists visited the site four years ago.

“This was a big hunting location”, archaeologist Espen Finstad says to sciencenorway.no.

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Ground-breaking DNA study finds Vikings weren’t all Scandinavian

Researchers have shown that not all Vikings were from Scandinavia. 

(CREDIT: Lorado/Getty via VCG)

Invaders, pirates, warriors – the history books taught us Vikings were brutal predators who travelled by sea from Scandinavia to pillage and raid their way across Europe and beyond.

Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than 400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books as it has shown:

Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were actually local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.

Many Vikings actually had brown hair not blonde hair.

Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. The study shows the genetic history of Scandinavia was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe before the Viking Age.

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Child’s tooth ‘earliest known evidence of modern humans in western Europe’

The fossil of a child’s tooth is the earliest known evidence of modern humans in western Europe researchers say.

The discovery of the molar was made in a cave – known as Grotte Mandrin – in France’s Rhone Valley.

Researchers say the area also documents the first clear alternating occupation of a site by Neanderthals and early modern humans (Homo sapiens).

Apart from a possible indication in Greece during the Middle Pleistocene – approximately 760,000 to 126,000 years ago – the first settlements of modern humans in Europe have been constrained to around 45,000-43,000 years ago.

But the new evidence – the fossil of an upper molar from a modern human baby – pushes this date back by about 10,000 years, scientists say.

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Roman fort damaged by suspected illegal metal detecting

Experts are investigating suspected illegal metal detecting at a Roman fort.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) said it is working with police after reports that a large number of holes have been dug at Bar Hill Fort, which forms part of the Antonine Wall Unesco world heritage site.

Many significant Roman artefacts have been discovered at the fort, which is more than 2,000 years old and formed part of the north-western frontier of the Roman Empire.

It is protected as a scheduled monument, meaning metal detecting and the removal of items from the site is illegal without prior consent and is subject to prosecution.

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Climate change threatens Hadrian's Wall treasures in England

Archaeologists at Hadrian's Wall in northern England say global warming could soon ruin undiscovered Roman artefacts.

Nineteen hundred years after it was built to keep out barbarian hordes, archaeologists at Hadrian's Wall are facing a new enemy -- climate change. It is threatening a vast treasure trove of ancient items.

The 118-kilometre stone wall is one of Britain's best-known historic tourist attractions. It crosses England from west coast to east coast, marking the limit of the Roman Empire and forming Britain's largest Roman archaeological feature. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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Viking Age boat burials: a history of research

Oseberg Viking ship

Viking Age boat burials: a history of research

Paper by Luna Polinelli

Given online by the Iceland Society of Archaeologists on February 3, 2022

Abstract: Boats form a subset of grave goods increasingly found in Viking Age burials, which have been the subject of much scholarly debate, especially from the 19th century onwards. Since the Middle Ages, it was generally known that Scandinavian people used to be buried in boats before the Christianisation, since mentions of this custom are found in the Icelandic sagas and in ibn Fadlan’s account.

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Six-year-old Anglo-Saxon boy who lived in Cambridgeshire 1,400 years ago was infected with plague, meningitis and septic arthritis when he died.

Analysis of the remains of a six-year-old Anglo-Saxon unearthed in Cambridgeshire revealed that the poor boy had plague , meningitis and septic arthritis when he died. Pictured: the knee cap of the child, which was found to contain lesions caused by septic arthritis

Analysis of the remains of a six-year-old Anglo-Saxon unearthed in Cambridgeshire revealed that the poor boy had plague, meningitis and septic arthritis when he died.

The child — who was buried at Edix Hill sometime around 540–550 AD — was studied by a team of researchers led from the University of Tartu, Estonia.

Genetic analysis of a tooth sample revealed he had been infected with the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which causes plague, and Haemophilus influenza serotype b.

This is the earliest known case of H. influenza, which causes septic arthritis and was a major cause of infant death before a vaccine against it was created in 1977.

Today, this once-common childhood disease has been all but eradicated.

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Ancient humans may have started hunting 2 million years ago

Notches on a bone left by human butchering activity

Jennifer A. Parkinson, Thomas W. Plummer, James S. Oliver, Laura C. Bishop

Ancient humans were regularly butchering animals for meat 2 million years ago. This has long been suspected, but the idea has been bolstered by a systematic study of cut marks on animal bones.

The find cements the view that ancient humans had become active hunters by this time, contrasting with earlier hominins that ate mostly plants.

The new evidence comes from Kanjera South, an archaeological site near Lake Victoria in Kenya. Kanjera South has been excavated on and off since 1995. 

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When the Vikings Crossed the Atlantic

Remains of Viking settlement (Wolfgang Kaehler/Alamy Stock Photo)

When a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, at the northern tip of Newfoundland, was first excavated in the 1960s, the style of its buildings made clear they were constructed by Vikings who had arrived from Greenland in the tenth or eleventh century. But exactly when they made their voyage, becoming the first Europeans to cross the Atlantic Ocean, was a matter of debate. Now, a team of researchers led by Margot Kuitems of the University of Groningen has used a new method of dating wood associated with the settlement to determine precisely when the Vikings were there. The researchers took advantage of a rare solar storm that occurred in A.D. 992, significantly increasing the amount of radioactive carbon-14 absorbed by trees the next year. By identifying the tree ring containing elevated levels of radiocarbon in each of three wood samples and then counting the number of rings to the bark edge of the wood, they found that the wood all came from trees that had been felled in A.D. 1021.

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Neolithic cattle site could change understanding of what beef meant to people of Ireland

Credit: University College Dublin

An archaeological site in Dublin with an unusually large collection of cattle remains could potentially change the understanding of beef and cattle herding in Middle Neolithic Ireland and Europe. 

Data collected from the N2 Kilshane excavation in north county Dublin near Finglas by researchers from the UCD School of Archaeology and Queen's University Belfast suggests that the multipurpose use of cattle for milk, meat and as draft animals was far more complex in later 4th millennium BC Atlantic Europe than previously thought.

The remains of at least 58 individual cattle were recovered from the ditches of an enclosure excavated at Kilshane dating back some 5,500 years, and the site is one of the few with large faunal assemblages to be unearthed in Ireland.

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Archaeologists stunned by lost Anglo-Saxon church unearthed along HS2 route

The Norman Conquest of 1066 saw the invasion and occupation of England by an army of thousands of Normans, Bretons, Flemish and French troops under the leadership of the Duke of Normandy, later titled William the Conqueror. After winning the Battle of Hastings, his army captured the south east and seized Dover and Winchester, before advancing to London. Though many English people were not happy about the change in leadership, William was crowned king on Christmas Day of the same year.

Under Norman rule, England changed enormously, with long lasting effects including land ownership, the building of castles and the introduction of Norman laws.

The parish of Stoke Mandeville stood in the way of William’s rolling conquest, and it was here that an isolated church, surrounded by fields and riddled in mystery, stood.

Built around 1080, the Church of St Mary’s was located in a damp, isolated spot around half a mile from the village.

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Roman town’s remains found below Northamptonshire field on HS2 route

A 10-metre-wide Roman road was uncovered during the excavation of a wealthy trading settlement, known as Blackgrounds, in Northamptonshire. Photograph: HS2/PA

A wealthy Roman trading town, whose inhabitants adorned themselves with jewellery and ate from fine pottery, has been discovered half a metre below the surface of a remote field in Northamptonshire.

A 10-metre-wide Roman road, domestic and industrial buildings, more than 300 coins and at least four wells have been unearthed at the site, where 80 archaeologists have been working for the past 12 months.

The field, on the Northamptonshire-Oxfordshire border, lies on the route of the HS2 rail network under construction between London and Birmingham. It is one of more than 100 archaeological sites that have been examined along the route since 2018, and among the most significant findings to date.

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Viking sites in Scotland: These are 13 areas with Nordic history you should visit in Scotland

1. Shetland

It's hard to imagine Viking plunderers rampaging up that serene beach. But The Shetland Isles were the first part of Scotland to be discovered by the Norsemen, being as close to there as it is to Aberdeen. Vikings arrived in the early 8th century, searching for land. They ruled over the islands for the next 600 years, many settling down to become farmers. The Norse spirit has been kept alive in Shetland to the present day.

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3,000-Year-Old Remains Of Badass Women Warriors Found In Armenian Cemetery

More than three millennia ago, across the Mediterranean and Near East, society collapsed. Previously stable dominant empires and civilizations were brought to their knees, entire languages disappeared, and what had been pastoral and nomadic communities were replaced with imposing and fortified citadels run by a paranoid elite.

Life was violent and cruel. People were forced to take up arms to defend themselves and their kin. But while we’re used to the idea of men saddling up and waging war, a new paper, published recently in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, has found the remains of two female warriors – horse-riding women who fought for their people with bows and arrows.

“Previously, it was common knowledge that the injuries on males' skeletons testify to military clashes, whereas on females' – to … raids or domestic violence,” lead author Anahit Khudaverdyan told IFLScience.

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Archeologists long believed that ancient graves were robbed all over Europe, but here’s why they’re wrong

Grave from France where the individual was moved around before he fully decomposed. Éveha-Études et valorisations archéologiques/G Grange, Author provided

From the collapse of Roman power to the spread of Christianity, most of what we know about the lives of people across Europe comes from traces of their deaths. This is because written sources are limited, and in many areas archaeologists have only found a few farmsteads and villages. But thousands of grave fields have been excavated, adding up to tens of thousands of burials.

Buried along with the human remains, archaeologists find traces of costumes and often possessions, including knives, swords, shields, spears and ornate brooches of bronze and silver. There are glass beads strung as necklaces, as well as glass and ceramic vessels. From time to time they even find wooden boxes, buckets, chairs and beds.

Yet since the investigations of these cemeteries began in the 19th century, archaeologists have recognised that they have not always been the first to re-enter the tombs. At least a few graves in most cemeteries are found in a disturbed state, their contents jumbled and valuables missing. Sometimes this happened before the buried bodies were fully decomposed. In some areas, whole cemeteries are found in this state.

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North European Funeral and Burial Rites in the Early Middle Ages

Anglo-Saxons were often buried with everything they would need after death. In this case the dead woman’s family thought she would need her cow in the afterlife.

The customs and rituals for the people of Britain in the early Middle Ages were a mixture of the practices of a number of cultures.

Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons shared similar ritual beliefs as is reflected in their burial grounds, which archaeologists are still discovering today. Many of the traditions have their origins in the similar religion of the northern European tribes, Germanic or Scandinavian.

Anglo-Saxon burials and barrows

The dead of Anglo-Saxon tribes were either cremated or buried. A great deal of the evidence available for the Anglo-Saxons’ way of life comes from their burial sites. Particularly amongst the wealthy, these burial sites are often filled with artefacts which have been vital to understanding the people and the times in which they lived.

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The Sun & the Moon in Norse Myth

In Norse mythology, the Sun and the Moon appear as personified siblings pulling the heavenly bodies and chased by wolves, or as plain objects. Written sources, such as the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, have surprisingly little to say about them, but clues from before the Viking Age put together with the written works speak of their greater role in ancient Scandinavia.

The Sun & Moon in Norse Writings

Unlike in the Roman tradition and much like in modern German, the sun (sól in Old Norse) is a feminine noun, and the moon (máni) is masculine. In the Völuspá, a poem where a prophetess reveals information about the beginning and end of the world, we can read about their kinship:

    The sun, sister of the moon,

    Shone from the south,

    With her hand

    Over the rim of heaven;

    The sun did not know yet

    Where her home should be,

    The moon did not know yet

    What power he had

    (stanza 5)

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