Viking Shield Maidens Revisited…

Figure 1: Sample of Weapons Found in the Birka Warrior's Burial

Antiquity Publications Ltd./Neil Price, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, Torun Zachrisso, Anna Kjellström

In 2016 I wrote a piece about the roles of women in Pre-Christian Viking culture.  This post was inspired by recent interests in Viking culture, largely promoted by fictionalized television series and other popular culture interests.  At that time archaeological evidence suggested that women in Viking cultures occupied a variety of social roles, including but not limited to the role of warrior.  A year later this conclusion was further supported by new evidence, but there were critics within the archaeological community who were unconvinced.  Today’s blog post will address this latest evidence and how modern cultural views can and do affect archaeological interpretations.

In 1878 the Birka Viking burial was uncovered in Sweden.  This 10^th century (900s AD) Viking burial was considered a remarkable find as it contained a high-status warrior’s burial.  This individual was interred with a wealth of grave goods, including several different types of weapons (Figure 1), two horses, a game board associated with military strategies, as well as clothing reminiscent of a high status warrior.  At the time scholars immediately believed that the deceased individual was that of a man because in the 1800s women were believed to have only occupied domestic roles, and therefore it was unfathomable to the scholars that a woman could be a Viking warrior.  As previously reported Viking lore contains several stories of women occupying just that role, but scholars quickly dismissed these as myths, not facts.

In 2017 an article was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology that caused quite the stir in the archaeological community.  This article claimed that recent paleogenetic evidence demonstrated that the Birka warrior was not a man as originally believed, but it was biologically a female.  This definitively demonstrated that shield maidens or warrior women did exist in Viking culture and they were not simply a myth.  Unfortunately, there were several members of the archaeological community who did not believe this evidence.  They claimed that the remains that were tested were not of the originally interred individual (a valid concern since the remains had been disinterred over a century previous), and there were also claims that the remains were that of a transgendered individual. 

The two scholars who wrote the original paper reviewed the criticisms and reanalyzed the entire burial, individual’s remains and grave goods included, and they returned in 2019 with a response to their critics in another paper published in the journal Antiquity.  In their latest piece they addressed how the grave goods in the burial demonstrate a high-status warrior, particularly the clothing, which is unique compared to other warrior’s burials.  They also point out that the burials location and the presence of a large stone above the burial made it viewable by land and sea, further supporting the high status of the deceased.  They also retested all of the remains present in the burial and further concluded again that they belonged to one individual and this individual was biologically a female. 

Most importantly, however, was the scholars’ conclusion that it is difficult to assess gender within archaeological contexts.  This is largely due to the effects of modern cultural views being impressed upon interpretations of the past, as well as a gap in knowledge of how the people of the past viewed themselves and what they culturally believed and valued.  They note that while the deceased individual could have been a transgendered individual it is impossible to know.  It is also impossible at this time to know if the Vikings had more fluid gender constructions as compared to our modern gender constructions or if they had multiple gender categories as seen in various cultures around the globe in the past and today. 

Ultimately, the original and follow up studies on the Birka Viking burial underscore a larger problem within the discipline of archaeology and anthropology generally: a lack of objectivity and representation.  It is widely known and acknowledged within the discipline that people are cultural creatures and they follow the cultural values that they are most familiar and comfortable with.  This is not a fault until it affects others, which is the case here with the original conclusion of the Birka warrior in that the original scholars assumed the warrior was a male without considering the possibility of a woman warrior.  The subsequent criticisms to the reanalysis of the Birka warrior also demonstrate how modern cultural ideas can affect archaeological interpretation, further demonstrating a need for greater cultural diversity (or at least more culturally relativistic viewpoints) among archaeological scholars.   Fortunately, the discipline of anthropology is in the midst of a paradigm shift that is encouraging more diverse viewpoints by the inclusion of different individuals into the field, as well as educating and promoting the inclusion of diverse viewpoints in anthropological interpretation.  This situation demonstrates the continued need for this paradigm shift, as well as the positive effects of this shift as it allowed for such conclusions to actually be published in the first place.  As this shift continues I suspect there will be more situations, such as this one, coming up, ultimately enriching our knowledge of the past and present and what exactly it means to be human (in all aspects).

Works Cited

Greshko, M. (2017, September 12). Famous Viking Warrior Was a Woman, DNA Reveals. Retrieved from National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/09/viking-warrior-woman-archaeology-spd/

Little, B. (2019, March 5). High-Ranking Viking Warrior Long Assumed to Be Male Was Actually Female. Retrieved from History.com: https://www.history.com/news/viking-warrior-female-gender-identity

Solly, M. (2019, February 19). Researchers Reaffirm Remains in Viking Warrior Tomb Belonged to a Woman. Retrieved from Smithsonian.com: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-reaffirm-famed-ancient-viking-warrior-was-biologically-female-180971541/