The trauma of popular science continues

Couple of weeks ago news story was published on popular scientific website:

http://sciencenordic.com/vikings-abused-and-beheaded-their-slaves

An interesting study of an interesting subject where bioarchaeology had proven not to show the expected results.  The research question probably was: does the individual interpreted as slaves present evidence of non local origin and mistreatment and/or peri mortem trauma? The answer is mostly not. :) Does it challenge the interpretation of burials as funerary sacrifice of a slave? Not really since according to the researchers slaves might be local and just shoved a little bit :). The problem of funerary sacrifices is more complex as it is connected to pretty much most of the controversial subjects in Viking age research. Here are some of the subjects that are not so obvious as presented in the article:

1.        We don’t know if we should treat Rus’ as phenomenon purely “Viking” and as such use ibn Fadalan and others as text to which we later find archaeological illustrations in Scandinavian material. The idea that the group consisted of people of different background is thought provoking and has been presented many times (among others: Hedenstierna – Jonson 2006; Urbańczyk 2014) and perhaps this should be mentioned in the short press release as…

1.       Accounts of Arab travellers form the majority of the written sources we have for the phenomena human funerary sacrifice (also mentioning wives and lovers as people who die during the funeral) and there a problem of translation of term Jaria arises, which can mean a young girl or a slave girl and it is both used in Ibn Fadalan’s account to describe the position of the sacrificed girl as well as the women who was performing the sacrifice (Petrukhin 2007). This creates a bit of a problem for interpreting their social position, even more since…

1.       We should not expect burials to mirror the social standing of the buried individual. Some people had this idea before, it didn’t worked out well, possibly we should start thinking in this way in Viking studies – we will have less witches, warriors and sacrificed slaves, possibly as well as blacksmiths but maybe we will have some  more interesting theoretical perspectives and present some thoughts that are more valid. To remind everyone once again, burial context is a result of a group effort of establishing and fixing the social identities of both the deceased and the participants (Oestigaard 2000; Ekengren & Nilsson Stutz 2009; Williams 2006; Graham 2009) – the identities are changed because of the event. And what complicates thing even more…

1.        According to some researchers we should not trust the narrative in Rigsthula (Simek 2006) – it is a late description and possibly not entirely applicable. The Viking age societies should be viewed as more complex with many other forms of dependency other than slavery.

1.        There are no criteria of how to recognize a slave in the grave presented in the text – this is just sad – since the text is about the burials with a slave. No clear definition makes the reasoning hard to understand. For my research minimal conditions for considering burial context as a result of funerary sacrifice is presence of remains of more than one individual, deposited as a result of primary rite in which one of them bears the traces of intentional violence that might have lead to his or hers demise. This is still not enough to make a solid claim but at least it is starting point.

1.             And the whole Scandinavia is treated as a homogenic area in which – if the sacrifices occur – they are all of the people of the same social standing and in similar context as in the ibn Fadalan narrative from the steeps by the Volga river. With the highly diversified burial customs across the peninsula, and with the recognition of the more local character of the pagan “religions” this seem highly unlikely.

Sadly this study seems to write itself in to the new narrative that claims that Viking age was presented as too gentle time period, a narrative that is in my opinion a reactionary approach to the critical studies that recognized the roots of the Viking age related scholarship in national romanticism and took adequate approach to modernise the subject and tried in some aspect to bring it up to date. In this research  stand a substantial effort is taken to prove the mistreatment of slaves and it is based at speculations at best. An example can be found here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/151228-vikings-slaves-thralls-norse-scandinavia-archaeology/  or  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140926-vikings-norse-raiding-berserkers-scandinavia-winroth/ . This work is unfortunately plagued with source critical errors which were I hope the result of journalist writing something hip and short and not archaeologist looking for hype subject. I would never claim that people in medieval Scandinavia did not beaten their slaves or not mistreated them as they were not considered as persons in understanding of possessing an identity of a group member, but I at this date there is no evidence for any of the situations described in the popular scientific texts. Good research would rather look for the root of the problem – why the double burials discovered in Scandinavia so often are presented as the result of human sacrifice? What is the relation between the archaeologist, material sources and ancient text? When compared to other parts of Iron Age can we claim that Viking age was specially brutal?

In conclusion someone was beheaded and abused but we don't know if it was a slave or not, further we can't really tell with the currently aviable sources.

Literature

Ekengren, F. & Nilsson Stutz, L. 2009. I tillvarons gränsland. In: Ekengren, F. & NilssonStutz, L. (eds.). I tillvarons gränsland: perspektiv på kroppen mellan liv och död. Lund

Oestigaard, T. 2000. Sacrifices of raw, cooked and burnt humans. Norwegian Archaeological Review vol. 33 (1), 41–58

Graham, E-J..2009. Becoming person, becoming ancestors. Personhood, memory and the corpse in Roman rituals of social remembrance, Archaeological Dialogues vol 16(1), 51-74

Hedenstierna – Jonson Ch.  2006 Birka Warrior, Stockholm

Petrukhin, V. 2007 Viking Woman in Rus’: Wives, Slaves or ‘Valkyries’? In: Fransson, U., Svedin, M., Bergerbrant, S. Androshchuk, F. (eds.) Cultural interaction between east and west. Archaeology, artefacts and human contacts in northern Europe, Stockholm, 66 - 69

Urbańczyk, P. 2014 Bliskie spotkania wikingów, Wodzisław śląski

Williams, H. 2006. Death and memory in early medieval Britain. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Vikings Beyond Boundaries - Conference in Oslo – an overview from subjective perspective

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.

Repeat and Reheat - discussing the origins of the Viking age — once again from the British perspective.

It seems that year 2015 is the year in which British early medieval archaeologists decided to finally adres ideas put forward by Barnett (2008). I have to say, it is about time to wave good bye to the based on circumstantial evidence ideas of shortage of wives as a cause of Viking age rides. However I am concerned still concerned about how does the other British researchers question that concept.

A newest example is What really caused the Viking Age? The social content of raiding and exploration by the co-author of previously discussed article - S.P Ashby (2015). He discusses the powers of forgein objects in the process of creation of elite social identity and a mean of gaining status as a proof of bravery related to raiding and traveling activities. Utilizing a fashionable turn towards object agency (which is a very problematic issue in archaeology since it is very rarely defined in anyway in articles that utilize it) and object biographies in my view he recycle the concept that the Viking age was mainly caused by the need of young generation of warriors to prove themselves and gain status. It is not a new idea by any means but what had to be said, it is nicely repacked in some theoretical concepts. A lack of theory (except the topics of urbanization and emergence of states) is what plagues the Viking age research and introducing concepts well known in prehistory seems to be a good way forward.

What I find very much necessary to point out is that forgein exotic objects (but also transformed practices) made their way to Scandinavia before the Viking age, often ending up in burials. They attest that elites were well connected to their insular and continental counterparts. Inhabitants of the peninsula were not a band of savages that waited until 793 to pop up and introduced themselves to the civilized world. The key question is the scale of those contacts before the final decades of the 8th c. In my opinion the answer to that question does not lie in the Births Isles, but it is buried in archaeological store houses in Scandinavia, were results of many years of excavation awaits a careful examination. A key issue is identification of the fragmented glass material from so-called Central Places of south Scandinavia. Another important area in which origins of the Viking age, inexplicably defined as time of riding and extensive traveling could be sought are the southern and eastern coast of Baltic that seem to be witnesses to earliest example of different expeditions, both peaceful or warlike.

Ashby seems to finally recognize the elitaristic focus of viking age research, writing about warrior elite and their means of producing their social status. In my opinion the whole research that is connected to the viking age is biased towards the members of social elite. The definition of Viking Age as period of rides and trade expedition further places the focus on the prominent members of the population, that were able to afford an expense of going abroad and on the members of the costal urban communities that usually were the target of those travels. With this developments taking place the Viking age studies will further exclude the majority of the population. In my studies of rural burial grounds of South Western Scania - one of the most populated regions in early medieval Denmark, I have found out that there is no change in the burial customs during the transition from Late Vendel to the Viking age. What is even more puzzling - there aren’t much finds that might have derived from riding activities in western Europe. This would suggest a limited impact of the social changes brought by the Viking expeditions. This stands in strong contrast to areas of western Norway, most often discussed in research. The true changes starts to take place in South Western Scania in the 10th c. due to the creation of the Danish state by the Jelling dynasty - and then the Insular connections become more prominent, however still not on the cemeteries. Also the older central places, with a pre-Viking age continuity are abandoned and new centers rise to power. Viking age, defined as a time of raids and travels, with a strict chronological boundaries, have a very limited applicability in archaeology.

A source critical concern of mine is also the fact that author utilized mainly english or written in english literature. Also worrying is the time depth of the article, operating around the well established as the beginning of the Viking age, final decades of 8th that in my opinion seriously limits the potential for new discoveries.

literature: 

Ashby S.P 2015. What really caused the Viking Age? The social content of raiding and exploration, Archaeological dialogues 22 (1)

Barnett J. 2008. What caused the Viking Age?, Antiquity 82

Moving the non-existing brackets – comments on the reception of “Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands”

I have stated in the introduction to my master thesis that appeal to public is a very strong trait of the Viking age research. This can be an advantage but it sometimes contributes to clouding of judgement and over emphasizing the unimportant over the truly interesting in the eye of experienced researcher. I personally believe that it is the case with the public reception of STEVEN P. ASHBY’s, ASHLEY N. COUTU’s and SØREN M. SINDBÆK’s  article.

The paper presents the results of analysis of horn and bone material from three Danish sites of Ribe, Aarhus and Aggersborg. I cannot comment on the scientific part of the paper and discuss the issues of using the mass spectronomy, since I simply lack of knowledge to do so. I can however comment on how results are presented to the public and what seems to be over emphasised in the interpretation. Further I can question the sense of discussing certain issues.

The results of mass spectronomy had revealed that among other raw materials, the reindeer antler, non-local to the area of Southern Jutland was used in comb production in the early phases of the settlement at Ribe. This points towards the fact that the material had to be imported probably from Norway. The authors rightfully stress the importance of the discovery towards a shift of looking at the Viking age urban sites and their relation with the hinterland, pointing that it might have been less important than the longer connections (although I have to say that the reindeer related material seems not to form the majority of the materials used). It is also important that Ribe’s importance as a trading site is attested not only on the local but also non-local level. This discovery could point towards the discussion about the organisation of the supply chain and collection of the raw material in the comb production (partially touched upon in the conclusion), the status of the craftsmen (attached or independent?) or the level of the specialisation (although a lot of other data would be needed). Instead what we get is a discussion about the beginning of the Viking age and what was the impulse for it. Immediately the attention is shifted towards maritime travel and gathering the experience and expertise in it before the famous Viking expedition known from the historical sources. The pop cultural image takes over a relevant subject leading towards web headlines like here:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uoy-st050715.php (“TRADE STARTED THE VIKING AGE!”)

http://sciencenordic.com/viking-age-began-denmark (My personal favourite: “VIKING AGE BEGAN IN DENMARK!”)

The big news suddenly is that now the Viking Age begins around 725. It is very problematic to present this kind of statement as a relevant discovery. First problem is that Viking Age is not an event – it is a modern category, quite frankly, it will begin whenever we decide to put it and will be triggered by whatever factor a person will chose. There are no objectively defined traits of the period, it all depends on how far into the past tracking origins of certain process we wish to go.  Here, authors point towards establishment of long over regional networks as probably decisive factor. I don’t see any reason why to focus on these particular craft remains as the proof that people were able to make long distance voyages by sea – Authors themselves point toward earlier Iron Age context, such as bog weapon offerings of non-local origin as a prove that people were able to move around. Researchers dealing with older parts of Iron Age point to the fact that Scandinavia was not isolated from the developments taking place in the continent, as people served as mercenaries within Roman legions and came into contact with the Huns. Ulf Näsman had argued for a regional and long term perspective on studying the Viking age already 15 years ago (2000). Sadly, most of his reservations still holds. Mhyre had argued (among other more controversial things) that petty kingdoms, existing before the Viking age were well integrated into continental political and trade system, pointing out that trade was conducted not only with luxury items, but also commodities (2000). Placing the historical narrations in opposition to archaeological remains to prove the earlier start of the Viking age seems to be unnecessary, as anyone interested in the subject probably already is aware of the discovery of the boat grave of Scandinavian origin at Salme in Estonia, that was dated to the beginning of 8^th c. (Allmäe 2011). Additional, there is early evidence of establishing of trading places in the eastern Europe with a substantial influence people of Scandinavian origin (Lind 2011; Lind 2012). The whole debate centres in the west, ignoring evidence from the other side of the Baltic.

This is a result of kind of Anglo-centric view which Scandinavian researchers must shed away, in which Viking age begins when the raids on the British Isle become possible or important. It is puzzling how easy we forget about the imports that pre-date the Viking age from that area, such as  claw beakers (Ljungkvist 2009) or ignore possible Scandinavian connections visible for example in Sutton Hoo burial (Woolf 2014). Additionally bigger control should be exercised over what do the journalists publish. There is a lot of evidence for mobility of people before the end of the 8^th century and probably it is necessary to place Ribe in a larger network of so called Wics (Näsman 2000) and also acknowledge that Franks, Anglo Saxons and Frisians were able to sail in good enough way to maintain connections between those sites already in the earlier period of the iron Age.

Literature:

Most important of all:

Ashby, S., Coutu, A., Sindbӕk, S. 2015 Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands: Craft Specialists and Reindeer Antler in Viking Towns, European Journal of Archaeology (online early access)

And:

Allmäe,  R. 2011. Human bones in Salme boat-grave I, the Island of Saaremaa: Estonia, Papers on Antrophology XX

Lind, J. 2012. “Vikinger”, vikingetid og  vikingeromantik, Kuml 2012

Lind, J. 2011. «Vikings» and the Viking Age, In: Gvozdetskaja, N., Konovalova, I., Melnikova, E., Podossinov, A. (eds) Stanzas of friendship: Studies in Honour of Tatjana N. Jackson

Ljungkvist, J. 2009. Continetal imports to Scandinavia: Patterns and changes between 400-800 AD, In: Quast, D. (eds) Foreigners in Early Medieval Europe: Thirteen International Studies on Early Medieval Mobility

Mhyre, B. 2000. The early Viking age in Norway, Acta Archaeologica 71

Näsman, U. 2000. Rides, Migrations and Kingdoms - The Danish Case, Acta Archaeologica 71

Woolf, A. 2014. Sutton Hoo and Sweden revisited. In: Gnasso, A., Intagliata, E., MacMaster, T., Morris, B. The Long Seventh century: continuity and discontinuity in the age of transition.

Full version of the thesis on Academia.edu - let the job hunt begin

Here is the link to my profile at Academia.edu, with full version of my master thesis and my cv. The thesis will be published soon online through official university pages as well. Enjoy.

https://independent.academia.edu/FranciszekSatalecki

Master Thesis abstract

Today I uploaded my master thesis for review. I have followed the usual a pattern. Step 1: use a pretentious titlle unrelated to the content: Death as an architect of societies. Step 2: add informative subtitle: Burial and Social identity during Viking Age in South-western Scania. Step 3: Profit.

Here is the abstract:

In this thesis I explore the subject on how burial was used by Viking Age population of South-western Scania to express their social identity. As opposed to most earlier research concerning Viking Age burials I utilise regional, mourner-centred and practice-based approach. I am following observations conducted for burials in Denmark by J. Ulriksen (2011), focused on traces of deposition of burned and unburned human remains in the grave fills, the practice of opening the burial and tracing the intersection and overlays of the graves. I have selected the graves from a catalogue of burials in South-eastern Scandinavia compiled by F. Svanberg (2003b) on a basis of displaying possible signs of those practices. In effect, burial grounds at Önsvala, Ljungbacka, Stävie, Norrvidinge, Trelleborg and Råga Hörstad were selected.

As I perceive social dimension as the most important in this thesis, introduction chapter starts with the definition of social identity as processual in nature, fluent and contextual. Identities are perceived as displayed through performance, following development in gender studies. I understand rituals as a privileged practice, following the theories of ritualisation. Graves are seen as a result of action, and as such, are analysed with

stratigraphic observations and observations derived from field anthropology. In the analysis of burial context, the written sources possess only limited significance. They are, however, employed to create a model of social relations in the Viking Age emphasising the importance of social connections for the perception of an individual as a person and his social significance. In the first chapter, I present the analysis of selected sites, their settlement context and highlight their importance as places, in which society is constructed during funeral

ceremonies. In the second chapter of the analysis, I explore the subject of deposition of cremated human remains in inhumation burials. Differences in practice are observed and its intentionality is attested. In the third chapter, I examine the intersections of graves and re-use of burial pits. The practice is viewed as intentional and its possible explanation – as related to the importance of certain areas of the burial grounds, or as the way of displaying social connection, is proposed. In the following fourth chapter, I analyse the deposits of unburned human remains in the fills of inhumation burials. I review critically the evidence for possible human sacrifice and present problems related to reliance on narrations provided by written

sources. In the last chapter, I describe the evidence for post-funeral interaction with burial context.

The conclusion, reached in the closing chapter of the thesis, is that the dead were, in fact, in an ongoing relation with the population of the living and through that interaction identities for both were created. The living benefited from possessing a genealogy and the dead were perceived as existing in altered state, as long as social memory of them prevailed. The graves should not be perceived as passive reflections of identities of the deceased and rather viewed in relation to living identities they supported, as they are phenomenons that

were subjected to change during the on-going process of identification. Final parts of the conclusion are devoted towards considerations about the practice-based theoretical approach for the excavation methodology and towards highlighting limitations of the thesis and problems that need further research

The thesis it self is far to long, and this can lead to it being a possible failure. I went at least three times over conventional page limit, but the problem was quite complex and I enjoy writting. Link to full thesis will appear when I will get my grade. Thruth be told, at this stage I don't even mind possible failing.

Stuff that I praticipated in when I was not writting about burials

A link to universitie's blog about digital archaeology, every student had to do something, this is our's group project:

http://nico-digitalarchaeology.blogspot.se/2013/07/amanda-sjobeck-franciszek-satalecki.html