Scientists Find Evidence of Skulls Crushed by Viking Violence

Viking life may have been as violent away from the battlefield as it was on it, according to a new study examining Scandinavian human remains.

Most evidence of life and death during the Viking era comes from burial mounds and mass graves. But researchers have also identified nearly 200 bodies discovered in locations far removed from conventional burial sites.

Some were placed inside wells, others were buried beneath the foundations of feasting halls, while several were concealed under the floorboards of houses.

The unusual discoveries point to shocking levels of violence. The remains include smashed skulls, fractured arms and a woman whose shin had been cut completely through.

Archaeologists working with the BODY-POLITICS Project identified 12 bodies bearing traumatic injuries dating from across 1,500 years of Scandinavian history, from the Iron Age to the Viking Age, between 500BC and 1050AD.

Eight of those individuals appear to have been subjected to deliberate, and in some cases fatal, violence. Several had suffered more than one injury over the course of their lives.

The precise circumstances behind the wounds remain uncertain. Researchers say they may have resulted from domestic abuse, conflicts within local communities or armed warfare.

However, some of the remains also raise darker possibilities, including ritual violence and even human sacrifice.

The first millennium AD in Scandinavia saw the consolidation of chiefdoms and kingdoms, the development of a warrior ideology and, eventually, the emergence of Viking raids.

Despite this turbulent history, however, evidence of violent death from the period is surprisingly limited.

A recent study of Viking Age cemeteries in Sweden found signs of physical trauma in between 0.7 and 6 per cent of individuals.

But research of this kind focuses on people who received formal burials in accordance with the religious practices of their time.

Archaeologists are now paying greater attention to bodies that appear to have been deliberately excluded from traditional burial grounds.

Some of these remains, detailed in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, reveal lives marked by extraordinary levels of violence.

Lead author Professor Marianne Hem Eriksen of the National Museum of Denmark told the Daily Mail: ‘We know that, today, societies that celebrate outward violence and aggression also tend to experience high rates of volatility within the home and everyday communities.

‘We may be getting glimpses of how violence saturated the Iron Age and Viking worlds, as well as how people made sense of, coped with, or more darkly, perhaps, celebrated that.’

One man, who was in his early 30s when he died, was discovered beneath a royal feasting hall at Gammel Lejre. The building may have been the inspiration for the hall described in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.

Remarkably, he had sustained three serious injuries to his skull before his death. The latest was a large, radiating fracture that he appears to have survived for several weeks.

The man also shows so-called ‘parry fractures’ on the forearms, normally caused when someone attempts to shield their head from blows using their arms.

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But what makes these bodies truly odd is that they are often dismembered, cut to pieces, left out to the elements, and eventually buried within homes or public spaces.

‘Not only were some bodies treated differently in life, but they were also treated differently in death,’ says Professor Eriksen.

In one Iron Age village in Jutland, Denmark, archaeologists found part of a skull belonging to a two-to-four-year-old male child.

The skull shows evidence of trauma on the right side of the head, possibly caused by a sword or other heavy-bladed weapon.

The residents didn’t cremate the child as the normal practice at the time demanded, but rather placed part of the skull beneath the floor of their house.

This means that the residents would have routinely walked over the floor with the child’s skull beneath their feet.

At another settlement in Lindved, Denmark, archaeologists found the remains of a woman between 17 and 25 who had been buried in a cooking pit.

Alongside many other cut marks, her left shin was completely chopped in half by a sharp weapon.

Scientists think this could have been the blow that killed her, or part of an extensive treatment of her body that left multiple cut and burn marks.

Archaeologists still don’t truly understand who these people were, or why they were singled out for such violent treatment.

However, the researchers believe that their treatment may have had a ritualistic element.

Professor Eriksen says: ‘We can never fully understand their thinking, but we can reasonably argue that they may have wanted the bones of specific dead individuals at close hand; or that the bones themselves or the spectacle of violence may have produced some power or essence.’

In fact, some of the bodies uncovered by archaeologists even display evidence that could point to their being victims of human sacrifice.

Co-author Dr Kevin Kay, of the University of Leicester, told the Daily Mail: ‘In some cases, that seems possible, even likely.’

One individual from around 400 AD was found with the marks of two fatal stab wounds between the ribs, likely from a long, thin, bladed weapon like a spear or dagger.

After death, the body was placed in a shallow pit, which was left exposed for a while before a house was built over the top.

However, excavators noted that their wrists were placed together under the ribcage, indicating they may have been bound for ritual killing.

Likewise, it’s hard to imagine why a toddler would have received wounds more commonly seen on the battlefield outside of some ritual purpose.

‘But every case is also highly distinctive, so if you think of ritual as something repeated or choreographed, then this seems more improvised,’ says Dr Kay.

‘We argue that what holds them together is using the act of burial in houses to make sense of violence, whether that violence itself was done for ritual purposes or not.’