Bands of brothers: a re‐appraisal of the Viking Great Army and its implications for the Scandinavian colonization of England

Although the ninth‐century Viking Great Army has been subject to intensive historical and archaeological study, it remains an enigmatic entity. This article explores the evidence for the Great Army in England through the consideration of archaeological materials in addition to the organizational structures underpinning the formation of Viking ‘armies’. In light of this, I argue that the Great Army is better considered as a mobile society or polity rather than an armed force. Viewing the Great Army in this way influences not only the interpretation of evidence recovered in the field, but also our understanding of the Scandinavian settlement of northern and eastern England during the late ninth century.     

Anglo-Saxon Economy and Ecology by a Downland Stream: A Waterlogged Sequence from the Anglo-Saxon Royal Settlement at Lyminge,Kent

Palaeoecological and geoarchaeological investigations which cover the Anglo-Saxon period are rare, particularly in chalk downland landscapes which are considered to have limited palaeoenvironmental potential. The present study explores a sequence which can be directly related to the occupation history of the major Anglo-Saxon settlement at Lyminge, Kent. This work demonstrated a sequence of palaeochannels and organic deposits associated with the latter part of an archaeological sequence which spans the 5th to the 11th centuries AD. A range of evidence for the environment and economic activity is presented which suggests landscape continuity, possibly stretching back as far as the Romano-British period. The sequence revealed worked wood and evidence for livestock management and cereal cultivation, some of which is contemporary with the final phases of occupation of a 7th century ‘great hall complex’ and its subsequent transformation into a royal monastery. Agricultural activity following the abandonment of the pre-monastic settlement area caused this stream margin to become gradually buried by ploughwash which displaced the channel over time and sealed the organic deposits. It is incredibly rare to find such organic preservation in direct association with an Anglo-Saxon downland rural settlement and this is the first time that such a sequence has been analysed in association with the latter phases of a known Anglo-Saxon royal and monastic centre.     

Post-medieval archaeology in Portugal

Abstract

Portuguese post-medieval archaeology corresponds to the period between the early 16th century and the late 18th century, identified in the archaeological record through several distinct artefact categories, of which ceramics are the most abundant. New products such as thin-walled moulded coarsewares and faience are found together with imports from different European countries, China and other Eastern lands. Although sites and finds are mentioned in Portuguese archaeological and art-historical literature from the late 19th century, it only became a scientific discipline in the 1980s. This paper aims to provide a general view of investigations in post-medieval archaeology for more than a century, focusing on contexts and finds, but also looking towards the discipline’s future.     

The site of Al-Qurainiyah: Topography and phases of an early Islamic coastal settlement on Failaka Island

This paper presents the latest finds from the early Islamic site of Al-Qurainiyah on Failaka Island, Kuwait. Trenches opened to the west of the main late Islamic village led to the identification of residential buildings and a workshop located along the shoreline, while the pottery assemblage suggests a permanent occupation from at least the seventh century CE to the early ninth century CE. The last two years of excavations allowed us to uncover archaeological contexts that seem to indicate a previous occupation, dating to the late Hellenistic period (second century BC). The long-term occupation, strategic position of the settlement facing a wide and well-sheltered lagoon, as well as the installation of a stable settlement in the same period of Al-Qusur—the main early Islamic site of the island—seem to suggest the interpretation of Al-Qurainiyah as a landing place used both in the early Islamic period and beforehand.     

The Excavation of a Brick Clamp at Shotesham St. Mary,Norfolk, 1969

Abstract

Rescue excavations in the small village of Llanmaes investigated an area of earthworks indicating the presence of several buildings. Medieval evidence was largely confined to finds. Three late 17th-century properties were examined; it is possible that they represent a planned development on the east side of the village green in response to population expansion in the Vale of Glamorgan. The buildings are of simple two-roomed plan, and would appear to be tenements of low status. One of the buildings produced evidence of smithying. A large group of metal finds of agricultural and domestic use was found, as was a closely-dated assemblage of wine bottles; a large midden deposit on the north edge of the site contained a very large group of post-medieval pottery. The buildings were abandoned by the end of the 18th century, presumably following rationalization of the local settlement morphology and farming. Thus the site represents a short-lived expansion in low-status rural housing at the time of the ‘Great Rebuilding’.     

Palynology and natural environment in the Pannonian to Holocene sediments of the Early Medieval centre Pohansko near Břeclav (Czech Republic)

Pohansko (Czech Republic) is an important Early Medieval centre of the Great Moravian Empire (9th century AD). The locality has a settlement with archaeological findings from Mesolithic to the modern times.     

A Raman spectroscopic study of glass trade beads excavated at Mapungubwe hill and K2, two archaeological sites in southern Africa,raises questions about the last occupation date of the hill

Thousands of glass trade beads were excavated over a 75 year period on Mapungubwe Hill and at K2, two archaeological sites in the Limpopo valley, South Africa. An assemblage of 175 beads that appeared to be different in shape, size and colour (red, yellow, green, blue, white, black, pink, plum) was studied with Raman scattering. At least seven different chromophores or pigments (lazurite, lead tin yellow type II, Ca/Pb arsenate, chromate, calcium antimonate, Fe–S “amber” and a spinel) have been identified. Pigment identification allows the recognition of specific productions and indicated that many of the pigments colouring the beads excavated on Mapungubwe hill were manufactured after the 13th century, confirming the presence of modern beads in the archaeological record, some dating from the 19th century. This date is in agreement with the last occupation date for the hill suggested by the earlier excavators and raises questions about the revision of this date to 1290 AD by archaeologists in the 1970’s.     

The Viking Age settlement pattern of Langholt,North Iceland: Results of the Skagafjörður Archaeological Settlement Survey

An archaeological survey of the Viking Age settlement pattern in the Langholt region of North Iceland suggests that being early in this sequence conferred tremendous advantages to the settlers of this previously uninhabited landscape. Many of the farms established during the settlement of Iceland (which began about a.d. 870) are in use today. However, accessing the Viking Age landscape is difficult. In Langholt the earliest layers of most farmsteads are buried under a thousand years of occupational debris, while the abandoned sites have been covered by extensive soil deposition. Here we report on our coring and test excavation results that outline Viking Age farmstead location, establishment date, and maximum size by the end of the Viking Age. There is a strong correlation between farmstead size and establishment date. This correlation suggests that during the rapid settlement of Iceland, the farmsteads established by earlier settlers were wealthier and that wealth endured.     

Abstracts of Articles

STEPHEN M. LEWIS, ‘Vikings on the Ribble: Their Origin and Longphuirt’. Parts of north-west England were settled by groups of Scandinavians in the tenth century, certainly Cumbria and the Wirral. South-west and northern Lancashire also witnessed Scandinavian immigration. Some, but very likely not all, of these Scandinavians had come from Dublin after they were temporarily expelled by the Irish in 902. But where did these Irish Northmen establish their initial winter camps and their first ship-bases, what were called longphuirt (sing. longphort) in Ireland? There is little doubt that such bases existed before some of these Irish exiles stopped being a raiding force and started to settle down. Not one ship-base has ever been found in north-west England, unlike in Ireland or even in other parts of England. Based on an examination of geography and longphort site-types, this article proposes and evaluates the three most likely sites for such longphuirt along the Ribble estuary. The historical background and context for Scandinavian activity and settlement in south-west Lancashire is also discussed; as are related events in Ireland and Northumbria. The period covered is roughly 902 to 919.     

Cultivation History Beyond the Periphery: Early Agriculture in the North European Boreal Forest

We have investigated the environmental history of human occupation and the development of agriculture in the eastern interior Lake District of Finland. The material consists of archaeological data, which is reviewed in topographical and agrogeological context, and pollen analytical evidence of agricultural indices from eight precisely dated (varved) lake sediment sequences. Before the Viking Age, archaeological evidence, consisting of stray finds, dwelling sites, and graves, is very scarce. Iron Age finds are clearly confined to the lowland environs with silty and clayey soils. During the Viking Age, the number of stray finds multiplies and the first cemeteries are established. Comparison between Viking and Crusade Period finds reveals a topographic shift toward higher locations and morainic soils. Most of the cup-stones are located on upland sites—that is, not in connection with known Iron Age sites. These are interpreted as medieval indicators of slash-and-burn farming of the fertile but stony supraaquatic morainic soils. There is pollen analytical evidence of sporadic cultivation in the area from the Bronze Age onward. Afterca. AD 700, the occurrence of cereal pollen grains becomes regular but remains discontinuous at each site until after the turn of the millennium. There is then an exponential rise in the cereal pollen rain, indicating a fully agricultural population.     

Plant Based Subsistence Strategy of the Medieval Ishmaelite (12th–13th c.) Population in the Carpathian Basin (NE-Hungary)

During the excavation carried out at the outskirts of Hajdúböszörmény (NE-Hungary) in 2011, the remains of a 12–13th century settlement were brought to light. Linguistic and historical research has previously presumed that one of the main centres of medieval Hungary’s Muslim (Ishmaelites) population is located in the northern-eastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. At Hajdúböszörmény–Téglagyár ‘2’ archaeological site several household units were systematically sampled for archaeobotanical analysis. The recovered ceramics differ from the known ceramic production of the Árpád Age, whereas significant differences were detected in the zooarchaeological assemblage, too. The archaeobotanical record, representing 23 features, consists of 2679 items of charred macro-botanical remains that belong to 54 taxa. The record is predominated by the presence of cereals among which rye (Secale cereale L. subsp. cereale) and common barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) are the most frequent. Besides the dominance of cereals, pulses and vegetables, as well as gathered fruit remains were identified. By the comparison of results to other Árpád Age sites, we assume that the revealed ethno-archaeobotanical information identifies a population that used similar plant resources, but in a different way and strategy than the known Christian population of the Carpathian Basin.     

Social status in the Merovingian and Viking periods in Norway from archaeological and historical sources

Generally, the social structure (stratification of the society) in the Merovingian and Viking periods in Norway has been studied by historians using mainly historical and linguistic material. However, prehistoric burials are supposed to reflect the social status of the deceased, and in the present study social status in the Merovingian and Viking periods in western, central and eastern Norway has been examined through 4629 grave finds recorded in the museums’ list—3796 were defined as men's grave finds and 833 as women's. On the basis of the composition of the grave material both the men's and women's graves could be divided into three groups: a large lower group with plain grave material, a small upper group with the richest finds, and an intermediate group. This grouping was supported by studies of the professionally excavated graves from 1956–1978 and indicated three distinctive social groups of free men and women. The grouping of the men's graves on the basis of weapon composition showed only a fair association with the weapon requirements and the social status indicated by the provincial laws from the early Middle Ages. However, studies of 177 precisely dated weapon graves demonstrated a closer association between the requirements of the laws and the weapon composition of the 10th century graves than of those from the 8th and 9th centuries. Accordingly, the grave finds from the Merovingian and Viking periods as well as the historical sources from the early Middle Ages reflect a society with marked differences in social status, the grave finds from the 10th century showing the best correspondence to the provincial laws.     

The Peopling of Iceland

In recent years intensive archaeological research on the Viking Age in Iceland has produced much new evidence supporting a late 9th century colonization of the country. It can now be stated not only that people had arrived in Iceland before AD 870 but also that comprehensive occupation only took place after that date. The increased temporal resolution of the new archaeological data not only allows the characterization of different phases of the colonization but also supports assessments of the scale and rate of the immigration. In this paper we report the results of fieldwork in Mývatnssveit, NE-Iceland, where more than 30 sites have been investigated, ranging from small test trenches to large-scale open area excavations. We argue, based on the Mývatnssveit data, that a minimum of 24,000 people must have been transported to Iceland in less than 20 years to account for the dates and density of the Mývatn sites. In the absence, so far, of comparable data from other parts of the country these conclusions must remain hypothetical but if supported by further work they will have significant implications for our understanding of first peopling of Holocene farming populations in general and of Viking Age migrations in particular.     

Stable isotopes as indicators of change in the food procurement and food preference of Viking Age and Early Christian populations on Gotland (Sweden)

Archaeological samples of human and faunal remains dating from the Viking (9–11th century AD) and Early Christian (11–12th century AD) periods of Gotland, Sweden were assayed through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis in order to investigate whether changes in subsistence occurred between these periods, particularly regarding the importance of seafood. The study was concerned with how the dietary regime of the Baltic trading port and farming settlement at Ridanäs, Gotland was affected by the widespread environmental and sociocultural transformations that characterized the end of the Viking Age. More generally, the research considers how changes in both food procurement and preference may account for observed differences in the dietary regimes of individuals from the Viking Age and the Early Christian period.     

The Classical Tradition Strikes Back. Reply to Comments on The Rise of Bronze Age Society from Gullög Nordquist and Helène Whittaker.

This paper discusses the recent excavation of a 10th century shieling in the highlands of eastern Iceland and places it in the context of other sites and research into Viking age shielings in the North Atlantic. Although the basic economic role of shielings in relation to livestock and summer transhumance is not contested, it is argued that a more complex interpretation needs to be developed around such sites, to consider their ideological and political status. The presence of ‘subsidiary activities’ is often a prominent element in the archaeological record of such sites; the site of Pálstóftir provides indications of small scale craftwork, hunting and magico‐religious practices which need to be made a more central part of interpretation.     

Unpicking the web: the divorce of Ecgfrith and Æthelthryth

The concept of a woman who is a ‘peace-weaver’ is known chiefly from Anglo-Saxon literature, yet is also a role that must have been reflected in the actual marriage alliances among the Anglo-Saxon dynasties. This article considers how networks of marriage and kinship may have functioned among the Anglo-Saxons of the late seventh century, and to what extent a woman could have real value in the role. It takes as starting point the historian Bede's account of how the marriage of Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria, and his wife, known to history as St Æthelthryth, was dissolved on grounds of non-consummation. Bede's claims that Ecgfrith was reluctant to let his wife go, sometimes dismissed as hagiographic convention, are here taken seriously and used to explore what reasons Ecgfrith might have had to want to maintain the marriage by looking at the politics of peace and war in the English kingdoms of the period, the role played by seventh-century marriage ties in relations between kingdoms, and what the value of such a marriage and the consequences of dissolving it may have been.     

Mass Migration and the Polynesian Settlement of New Zealand

This paper reintroduces the concept of mass migration into debates concerning the timing and nature of New Zealand’s settlement by Polynesians. Upward revisions of New Zealand’s chronology show that the appearance of humans on the landscape occurred extremely rapidly, and that within decades settlements had been established across the full range of climatic zones. We show that the rapid appearance of a strong archaeological signature in the early 14th century AD is the result of a mass migration event, not the consequence of gradual demographic growth out of a currently unidentified earlier phase of settlement. Mass migration is not only consistent with the archaeological record but is supported by recent findings in molecular biology and genetics. It also opens the door to a new phase of engagement between archaeological method and indigenous Maori and Polynesian oral history and tradition.     

An 18th-Century Mansion,a Fishpond,and Post-Medieval Finds from St. Neots,Huntingdonshire

Abstract

The remains of Hall Place, St. Neots, a late 17th- or early 18th-century house facing Church Street, were encountered during the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon settlement in 1961. Hall place had been built over the site of a large timber-lined cutting, perhaps a fishpond, which had been filled up with domestic rubbish and demolition debris during the course of the 16th century. The fishpond contained a large group of finds including both local and imported pottery, metalwork and leather objects. Pits, wells and other late and post-medieval structures and features were also found in the garden areas behind Hall Place and other Church Street houses.     

The Subtle Knife: Using Domestic Objects to Access the Middle Anglo-Saxon Worldview

The seventh to ninth centuries AD are understood as a period of changing worldviews with the introduction and embedding of Christianity across the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In contrast to the attention afforded to the ‘ritual’ or sacred transformations of this period, relatively little has been made of the changing archaeological record of ‘ordinary’ or secular spaces and material cultures in order to understand this historical change in worldview. The use and significance of the domestic Anglo-Saxon knife spans both settlement and cemetery contexts. It is argued that the study of knife use and deposition reveals beliefs and worldviews expressed in everyday activities as well as in those deposits that appear ‘special’.     

Fowler's Type G Penannular Brooches Reconsidered

Abstract

Analysis of coin finds in an area of NE. England employs and modifies methods developed for Iron-age and Romano-British assemblages alongside quantitative analysis developed specifically for Anglo-Saxon coinages. The results illustrate that observed patterns of coin loss do represent the overall coin loss for the study area, and sites can be confidently compared to each other and the region as a whole. The role and function of coinage apparently changes dramatically over the period from a medium of long-distance trade in the early period to a cash currency by the Viking takeover of York. A review of 'productive sites' suggests that these sites can only be adequately interpreted through analysis of their assemblages against the background of the regional circulation of coinage and artefacts.