The invading Viking Hordes were all guys, right?

[sleigh]

For those who believe that in all medieval cultures the women stayed home... Not with the Vikings, evidently. Archeologists examining the structure of Viking warrior skeletons rather than simply assuming that because they're buried with armor and weapons they must be male, are finding that approximately half of them are woman...

Take that, patriarchal society!

(with thanks to supergee for the point!)

Comments

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Steve - Dunno if you saw my post on this.

http://www.thismess.net/2014/09/viking-women-warriors-and-diversity-in.html

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

David -- I missed that one (strangely; I habitually read your posts, since you're one of those Damned Fine Writers, IMO). And I'll be honest, I was questioning the accuracy of the Tor article as I read it, along the lines of your statement that "using grave goods to determine biological sex is bad methodology" -- assuming that because a female was buried with weapons she was also a warrior didn't necessarily hold up. Still, I thought the idea that half the Viking warriors might have been female was interesting: that changes the whole perception of how that culture might have operated.

In addition, I've been researching Boudica and first century British tribal culture, so this was somewhat serendipitous. My intention is to check into the source material for the article to see what it actually says...

Boudica

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, there was something in the news about her ...



Aha! http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29055933

Jewelry box found from around her time. I'm always skeptical though about linking it to her. That's the sexy newsworthy story, of course.

Re: Boudica

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Anything found that dates to around 60 C.E. gets attributed to Boudica in the headlines.