A matter of some controversy this week. You may have seen in the news lately that an ancient Viking burial with all the trappings of an experienced warrior was shown to be that of a female. I first became aware of this story about a week ago when scientists in my Twitter feed started highlighting how difficult it was for entrenched misogynist types to accept that a woman could be a warrior even when presented with incontrovertible proof thereof.
The scientists in question were all people I like and admire and whom I trust. On the other side was a faceless band of brigands that I made no attempt to learn about as I just assumed they were in the wrong. A few days later I finally got around to reading a little about the story and it was at this point that I began to feel it was a little more complicated than a simple tweet could convey. Let’s then, start at the beginning.
Birka is a small island not far from Stockholm. For about three hundred years until the end of the first millennium it was an important trading centre in the region and, over the centuries, more than 3000 graves were filled in the vicinity. So far so uncontroversial.
In the late 19th century a portion of the graves were dug up by the archaeologists of the time. One grave in particular, designated Bj 581, seemed significant. As well as containing a skeleton there were high quality swords, an axe, armour piercing arrows, a battle knife, two shields and two whole horses. This was clearly a bad ass. Further, there was a set of gaming pieces thought to indicate that this was an individual famed for their strategic know how, so concluded a study from 1934. Clearly a person of some import had been Buried here and it was reasonable to assume that they were an accomplished warrior.
Unfortunately, the 19th century archaeologists were not nearly as thorough as might be hoped. Bones from some graves were bagged up with those from others and so we cannot be completely confident that the skeleton in question pairs up with the grave. I don’t know what level of confidence we can have; maybe we’re 99% sure, maybe only 50%, I can’t find any detail on that. Whilst keeping this in the back of our mind, let’s assume that the bones are from the grave in question.
In 2012, one of the co-authors of the new study announced that she had looked at the bones very closely and, from measurements taken, deduced that they were those of a woman. In the new paper, published open source in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, scientists have extracted DNA from those bones and confirmed that they are, indeed, those of a female.
Now, everything I know about viking culture comes from TV and movies and so it’s reasonable to assume that I know nothing at all about viking culture. DNA is something I am relatively expert in, though. Looking through their methods for sexing the bones using DNA it all looks above board. I’ve used many of the same techniques myself over the years. The paper goes on to do an analysis of strontium isotopes which provides a bit of context to the life of the individual but it is not relevant to our discussion of sex and so I will omit it.
What we have, then, is a female that has been buried as you would expect a warrior to be buried. For many, this appears to be enough. This is to be taken at face value and we now have an example of a woman that must have been every bit the fighter and leader as her male peers. There are plenty, though, that do not think the findings can be interpreted so simply. I’m not talking about all the awful people on the internet with an axe to grind, they don’t matter; I’m just talking about the academics who actually know about this stuff.
In modern times, viking stories remain as popular as ever and, as no one is going to make a film with literally no women in it, it is popular to include a shield maiden. There’s nothing wrong with this, maybe it should even be encouraged, so long as she has something worthwhile to do and isn’t just there to look hot. The recent Wonder Woman film was a triumph and showed that women can both kick ass and maintain their kindness and decency.
That, however, is entertainment; and it need not bear any resemblance to reality. If it is simply not the case that you got women warriors 1000 years ago then no amount of modern day female empowerment can change that fact. Several prominent experts in the field, male and female alike, do not think this new discovery is sufficient to overturn the prevailing theory.
Judith Jesch, of the University of Nottingham, wrote a thoughtful analysis of the new paper on her blog and has written extensively on the role of women in viking culture over her decades long career. She characterises the debate as moving, “…rather quickly from evidence to speculation which is presented as fact.” She goes on to point out that the skeleton bears no marks of ever having received a serious wound, which is quite unlikely for a life spent in battle. Further, not all men buried with weapons were necessarily fighters when they were alive; the practice was sometimes carried out merely to make them well equipped for the afterlife.
Let’s allow all the arguments of the researchers. Of the many thousands of viking graves that have been studied only a handful have contained women buried along with weapons, and only one has had what you might call a full warrior’s burial. Perhaps this person was an exception to the rule and she really did go to battle; but even if she did she would have been very unusual and there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that a woman’s duties were seen to be other than homemaking and child bearing.
It is likely that we will never know the true nature of the person buried in plot Bj 581. It could be that she was a fearsome fighter able to hold her own on the battlefield, that’d be pretty cool. Right now, however, there just isn’t enough evidence to say that this would have been anything other than a very rare exception to the rule of the male combatant.
