A short note on recent boat burial discovery at Ardnamurchan, Scotland.

British archaeologists have discovered an undisturbed boat burial:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-15333852

Some comments must be made:

1. Interpreting this burial as a one of a warriors seem to be an oversimplification rooted in eurocentric views of modern scholars. This attribution has been made on a basis of excavated items, but weapons in grave are not necessarily a mark of occupation but rather of social position. We must really consider the question of boundaries between being a farmer or a viking or a trader – people probably undertook different roles in their life without a firm distinctions. It would be awesome if journalists and people responsible for presenting finds to the broad public would also try to rise the general awareness about questions and developments made in mortuary archaeology.
2. The second thing worth mentioning are surprising similarities of the find to the boat graves known as Westness, Orkney, excavated between 1963 and 1984. Two graves that were inhumation in boats of similar sizes (5,5 m and 4,5 m long) has been found. Both of them contained remains of men, and both boats had their prow and stern filled with stones to create a form of a chamber. If we can trust the drawing reconstruction from the BBC article, the Ardnamurchan burial is in its pure form almost an exact copy of the two graves found on Orkney. The items found in Westness graves are also similar to the finds from the newly discovered burial. The men were buried with swords, shields and arrows. Also in one of the graves an axe head and a spear have been found. The difference is, that the example burials from Orkney also contained tools – a fishing weight, a sickle and a ploughshare – clearly following the pattern of equipping burials known from Norway. The analysis of skeletons has proved that one of the buried persons was shot by four arrows, and the shield boss of the second had slash marks on it (Graham-Campbell, Batey 1998, 137). The only difference noticeable  without more information about the newer discovery is that in Ardnamurchan burial the shield was placed on the chest of the deceased while in Orkney it was placed behind the head of the deceased. It seems that there was a regional tradition of boat graves with stone made chambers in Scotland, as in a famous burial found in Scar – containing remains of three people in one big boat – construction of this kind was also present.

Literature:

Graham-Campbell J., Batey C.

1998 Vikings in Scotland