OF VIKINGS AND THEIR CONTEMPORARIES: MOBILITY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL NORTHERN EUROPE

The late Iron Age / Early Medieval period is a dynamic time in northern Europe. The area is entangled in a web of religion, trade, urbanization, and other types of processes, and central Scandinavia is on the fringe of it. During the Viking period there is always one urban environment in the Lake Mälaren Valley, but while it is Birka in the beginning of the period it is Sigtuna in the end. I will introduce you to some of the people we have been working with from these population clusters. Among them will be the female Viking warrior from Birka, who was excavated more than 130 years ago, and who was a male elite-warrior for most of that time. I will also present the mobility we detect through isotopes and DNA in Sigtuna. This urban environment most likely presented a window to the international world for the people in the region, an entrance for people from outside the region who wanted to find a way into it. And it is an ideal material for exhibiting the power in combining archaeology, genetics, and stable isotopes.

Anders Götherström is active at the Archaeological Research Laboratory and Professor of Molecular Archaeology at Stockholm University. Within the Atlas and Northern Atlas Projects, his team is employing Genomics to analyse a large number of human remains, dating from the Mesolithic Stone Age to the late Iron Age/Early Medieval period, to make demographic inferences. A multidisciplinary approach is used by combining Archaeology, Bioarchaeology, Population Genomics and Computational Biology tools in order to bridge the gap between Natural Sciences and Humanities (for more information see the ancient DNA blog: https://ancientdnablog.wordpress.com/)

Host: [Catarina Ginja, Archaeogenetics]

Image credits: Tancredi Valeri © Viking Phenomenon