In a couple of past days I was extremely lucky to attend a conference held at University in Oslo, dealing with the Viking influence outside the area perceived at their traditional homelands. I am very glad that I could participate in such a well organised event that brought together many top names in the “Viking” studies.
I am finally feeling that the way in which the “Vikings” are studied is changing in the directions that I find congruent with the ethical and theoretical approaches I try to keep in my research. I am quite sure that these ideas had been present in the academia for much longer period that I have probably initially expected and they are now taking the stage after a generational change. Here I would like to humbly present my opinions about the change I can see taking place in the research agenda
I agree to some extent with views expressed by Dagfinn Skre in his presentation when he urged for more abandonment of the ideas of uniqueness of the “Vikings” and called for placing them in wider reference frames. I can observe that quite often research about the “Vikings” exist in a certain form of “bubble” in which only few processes are compared to similar developments taking place on a global sphere. I agree also that “Vikings” form now a part of a wider pop culture. The consequence is profound as this popular image that is formed on a base of research influenced by the idea of uniqueness and certain essentialistic qualities through mass media, makes its way to the mind of the people, from which some become later archaeologist and further strengthen “the mental boundaries” of the Viking age. This can be only challenged by certain self-awareness of the historical conditions in which the subject emerged and the present conditions in which it is currently analysed.
On a more general level I can see that there is a visible rise in the subjects connected to archaeology of identities. This is extremely pleasing as in my opinion social archaeology forms one of the most fascinating branches of research. Interesting concept was introduced by Neil Price, as he somewhat separated the pirates from the farmers, maybe placing the term “Viking” finally in its proper context. However, I must say it is very hard to evaluate his observations, due to the fact that detailed perspective is hard to present in short 20 minutes presentation, and large part of his concepts is based on interpretations of several sites which might be more problematic than could be presented. Another positive development is the turn towards observing the importance of the process of the burial rituals in the construction of the society and recognition of the “artificial” nature of genealogies. I am sure that this points to the necessity of new studies of the concepts of the old Norse idea of Kinship, possibly looking for its more “social” than “biological” aspects and its role in establishing social networks. A view that places family “blood” relations in a larger reference framework of other social bonds, not necessarily drawing a sharp distinction between those two categories seem now to be a paper we all need.
Clearly an interesting development is integrating the phenomena happening in the East with those happening in the West, since it was rather problematic in the past. Now the situation is more balanced and allows for more global observation and for tracing connections between the process taking place on both of the areas, that are just divided probably only by our contemporary mental boundaries. The only concerning observation is the small amount of papers about the Western side of the Southern Baltic, but this is probably due to the difficult research situation in the region, facing the language barrier and research tradition boundaries (also mental in their essence). However, as Hauke Jöns and Anna Kowalska presented they can be overcome, resulting with extremely interesting research.
To sum up, the whole event has left a very positive impression on me. Only two problems that I would like to see addressed did not appear: the class restricted nature of the most of the evidence from the Viking age period that results in certain predominance of descriptions small elite was not mentioned, as well as the applicability of the term “Viking” as a taxon that seems not to correspond with the situation in the past societies. However this subjects might not be regarded as falling into the scope of the conference, and as so, their omission cannot really be considered as problematic.
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