How many Vikings did you dig up in the last year? Zero? Well, archaeologists working with Denmark’s Museum Odense found more than 50 viking graves in just six months. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good going—and the Vikings had goodies, too.
Vikings were seafarers, traders, and raiders that settled northwestern Europe in the 8th through 11th centuries. The recently discovered graves date to the 9th and 10th centuries and were found in Åsum, just east of Odense, Denmark, on a roughly half-acre site (2,000 square meters).
The graves were found during excavations done in advance of plans to update the local electric grid. The burials contained artifacts that originate well beyond Denmark, affirming that Vikings were well-traveled and traders. One of the graves belonged to a woman buried in a wagon—a wagon “she likely traveled in,” according to Michael Borre Lundø, an archaeologist and curator of the Museum Odense, in a museum release.
“She was given a beautiful glass bead necklace, an iron key, a knife with a silver-threaded handle, and, most notably, a small shard of glass that may have served as an amulet,” Lundø added. “At the foot of the wagon, there was a finely decorated wooden chest, the contents of which we still do not know.” A mystery chest! The allure! A key and a wooden chest found in the same grave…I know what I would do next, though the release did not state the researchers’ next steps.
That’s not all, though. An adjacent grave to the woman in the wagon contained a bronze brooch, a red glass bead, an iron knife, and a piece of crystal. The crystal, Lundø noted, was probably imported from Norway; if the crystal was not traded for, one of the Vikings in the burial ground may have brought it to Denmark themselves.
Beyond the material goods, there’s a real possibility of genomic revelations to come. “The graves in Åsum are so well-preserved that it may be possible, for the first time, to conduct special aDNA analyses on most of the skeletons—meaning DNA analyses on ancient material,” said Sarah Croix, an archaeologist at Aarhus University, in the same release. “It will be incredibly exciting to learn where these people came from and whether the same families were buried here across multiple generations.”
“It is truly unusual to find so many well-preserved skeletons at once,” Lundø added.
If ancient DNA analysis can be performed, the work would add to an increasing body of work describing the genetic background of vikings. Last year, a team of paleogeneticists studied nearly 300 ancient genomes from Scandinavia and compared them with the genetics of modern Scandinavians to understand gene flow across northern Europe. The Åsum population could add more data to use in future comparative genetic analyses.
The 50-odd graves date to when Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra ruled Northern Denmark. Thyra is known for being the mother of Harald Bluetooth, the ruler who gave the wireless technology its name.
Bluetooth reportedly had a bluish-gray dead tooth, hence his name. “Bluetooth” was a temporary code name for the short-range tech to start, but it stuck, and the Younger Futhark runes that make up the Viking leader’s initials ᚼ and ᛒ were combined to make the Bluetooth logo. The more you know!
Last year, a team of archaeologists studying two groups of runestones in the region concluded that Queen Thyra may have been of even more importance in the society than previously known, given the number of times the queen appeared to be mentioned in the runes. But as Gizmodo pointed out at the time, the stones were raised by Bluetooth himself, so perhaps the new king just really loved his mom.
More analysis to come will hopefully yield information about the genetic background of the Åsum population. And we obviously still need to know what’s in that old wooden chest!
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Publish date : 2024-10-01 09:22:00
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The post Dead Viking in a Wagon Found in ‘Unusual’ Danish Burial Ground first appeared on Love Europe.
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Author : love-europe
Publish date : 2024-10-01 18:40:07
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