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Post by nerdthenord on Feb 25, 2019 0:06:50 GMT
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-reaffirm-famed-ancient-viking-warrior-was-biologically-female-180971541/I found this really interesting. Remember the Viking warrior found in the late 1800s that was revealed to be female back in 2017? Well, scientists have done even more extensive testing once again showing she was indeed female. She also appeared to have been a cavalry commander, which is really interesting because that is a traditionally extremely prestigious position. So not only was she a female warrior, she may have been a top tier commander. Now we have confirmed evidence that the Norse had female warriors, and probably even commanders.
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Post by RickDastardly on Feb 25, 2019 0:21:50 GMT
Interesting indeed!
My wife would have been a warrior. Earlier tonight we we started watching The Last Kingdom (not got around to it before) and she said at once point, "Those were the days, when you could cut your enemy's head off without worrying about the consequences." Even I was a little shocked (just a little).
Some time later she said something about never leaving a potential enemy alive, who could come after you seeking vengeance. Yep... woman after my own heart!
I can well imagine her on a horse (she likes horses), riding into battle with her hair blowing in the wind.
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Post by RufusScorpius on Feb 25, 2019 0:28:16 GMT
Not exactly. What we have is ONE female buried in warrior armor. That does not mean there were any others, and it doesn't necessarily mean she did any actual fighting, or maybe somebody put the armor on her just for the funeral, or she may have been a high ranking military commander. There is a lot we don't know. Clearly, more work needs to be done and more evidence needs to be uncovered before we can make a definitive statement on the topic.
Its a case where we have facts, but not necessarily truth. We have to be careful not to let our desires overrule science.
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Post by nerdthenord on Feb 25, 2019 0:47:45 GMT
Fair points, but based on what we already know about Norse funerary rites it seems much more likely that these were her prized possessions and not just grave props. The thing is, as always with grave archeology, we have a sample bias. Unless we excavated the majority of the graves out there we have too small of a sample to make averages. If she was a warrior or commander, which is more likely than not due to only being buried with martial items and dressed as a cavalry commander, then it’s unlikely she was the only female warrior or commander in Norse history. We just don’t have enough data yet. Probably because excavating graves even for science is generally seen as unethical. You are absolutely right that we can’t prove that she was a warrior from this data alone, but it seems more likely than not.
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Post by RufusScorpius on Feb 25, 2019 1:21:54 GMT
.....If she was a warrior or commander, which is more likely than not due to only being buried with martial items and dressed as a cavalry commander, then it’s unlikely she was the only female warrior or commander in Norse history. We just don’t have enough data yet. .......but it seems more likely than not. This is exactly the danger I was speaking of. No, it does not mean that if she was in fact a warrior, then it means there were more. It ONLY means that we have ONE female warrior. It could also mean that she was unique, and there were no others. We don't have enough data to determine this. And it's not a matter of ethics when it comes to Viking age graves- it's about not having very many Viking age graves. Most organic matter decays in the environment of Scandinavia and that general geographic area very quickly, so we simply don't have many surviving grave sites. It's not like finding a 17th century graveyard outside of a church and being able to excavate hundreds of graves, finding a Viking grave is extraordinarily rare, and finding any organic matter in said grave is even rarer. Maybe there were more female Viking warriors. Maybe not. But unless we find another one to corroborate the findings of the first, we are left with only conjecture and SWAG theories about what the singular find means.
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Post by theophilus736 on Feb 25, 2019 1:22:30 GMT
Although she may have been a warrior, I find it hilarious that even some of those who fancy themselves scholarly (Matt Easton anyone?) try everything in their power to establish that HEMA is for women, and try to cite historical examples to argue that point. There are far and few examples of warrior women (Joan D'Arc, a single saint depiction in a treatise, etc.). In reality the dynamics between men and women logically led to the conclusion that it was a role ideally left to men. The Medieval Catholic society would have been very different than the surrounding pagan societies of course, so one could expect more women warriors in the great Celtic or Norse peoples. The Medieval reality was very clearly that when survival was on the line, anyone could be a warrior. However, when a lord mustered or conscripted a fighting force, he wasn't recruiting women. Nor were there Brienne of Tarth's running around. That said, nerdthenord, I wasn't saying YOU are trying everything in your power to make an argument, just that this is often something I notice in the sword/HEMA communities. There isn't a historical parallel between the number of women learning HEMA now, and the much much lower number of women who had any understanding of it then. And that's totally fine.. we shouldn't feel the need to impose a standard on the past when we can just simply enjoy it now. Edit: Also cool link.. forgot to mention the topic in my response
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Feb 25, 2019 3:32:32 GMT
It would be interesting if the skeleton-bones have signs of a warrior's musculature. Are there clear signs that she's indeed the burried person and not only another burial good?
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Post by MOK on Feb 25, 2019 5:50:43 GMT
You know, the only reason this is "news" and "controversial" at all is that until very recently, it was simply assumed on general principles that anyone buried with weapons was 1) a warrior, and 2) male. Which is AMAZINGLY, SHAMEFULLY sloppy archaeology, of course, but there you go. When we started doing DNA testing on remains, there was a wave of these "surprises" - not exactly many, but far more than just this one case - and they all faced the same "skepticism". It's kinda incredible how fanatically contrite some people get when it's suggested that icky cootie-ridden girls might have been buried with a sword, now and then... Even the famous Suontaka find took a whole lot of convincing for the sole occupant of the grave to be accepted as 1) female and 2) as the actual "buried person and not only another burial good" (and may I say, with mixed admiration and horror, there's a bit of a stomach turning phrase to read first thing in the morning). Not so much in the actual archaeological community, happily enough, but among "interested" lay populace. (Also, sorry for the profusion of "scare quotes". )
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Post by Adventurer'sBlade on Feb 25, 2019 5:53:48 GMT
Right, I was going to say I do believe this is a genuine female warrior grave that may set a precedent, but doesn't show female warriors to be normal any more than Joan of Arc is a case for a feminine caste of knights.
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Post by MOK on Feb 25, 2019 6:00:07 GMT
I mean, I believe this is a genuine woman buried with weapons; the rest I don't know about, yet (although the assumption doesn't seem unreasonable). A whole lot of men have also gone to the earth armed who never made a career of violence in life.
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Feb 25, 2019 6:21:25 GMT
I should have written: " "goods" ". Most likely it was the buried person, whatever that means, but there are also 2 horses and no one speaks of viking equine warriors.
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Post by MOK on Feb 25, 2019 7:53:20 GMT
I should have written: " "goods" ". Most likely it was the buried person, whatever that means, but there are also 2 horses and no one speaks of viking equine warriors. Well, yeah, 'cos horses aren't generally thought of as people.
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Feb 25, 2019 8:01:47 GMT
For a long time this wasn't thought of women too!
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Post by MOK on Feb 25, 2019 12:28:28 GMT
For a long time this wasn't thought of women too! Sure. Way too many people are something I cannot post on these boards. This was NOT, however, a view commonly held by pre-Christian Norse and related cultures, as a rule. Heroic suicides described in later stories notwithstanding, they buried their women with grave goods, not AS grave goods, same as their men. (Slaves, on the other hand... yeah. But judging by the description of this particular grave and its contents, there doesn't seem to be any actual reason to think that's the case, here.)
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Feb 25, 2019 12:41:59 GMT
I thought of the Oseberg Ship younger women and the Ibn Fadlan ship burial story etc., and of course of the horses. But no other human in the grave. On the other side, I recently watched a documentary about late pagan graves in Denmark where the burried warriors were exhumed by their christian descendants and got a new christian burial.
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Post by Gunnar Wolfgard on Feb 25, 2019 15:08:38 GMT
I have to wonder if a thousand years from now men will say, there were no female fighter pilots or fighting and dying on the ground in the middle east. If the Romans trained woman as gladiators to fight in the arena why wouldn't they let them fight in battle ? There was also one woman who became very successful as a chariot racer. There are reports of women even fighting in the American Revolution. None of these in large numbers but still there. When you're fighting for your life and the survival of your country you would be a fool to turn down a capable warrior just because she a woman. Like these days if a woman becomes successful in business men will say she slept her way to the top. You won't hear a lot about women warriors until men start deflating their egos a little.
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Feb 25, 2019 15:51:13 GMT
I have no problem with the Scythian female warriors and I'd like to see a female viking skeleton with muscle attachment spots of a trained warrior. I'm just a little hesitant to jump on the shieldmaiden bandwagon.
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Post by Gunnar Wolfgard on Feb 25, 2019 16:13:28 GMT
Yeah I think TV and Hollywood are starting to over do it but I still have no problem with believing there were some. Not all women are made for house keeping and putting diapers on the baby.
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Feb 25, 2019 16:20:17 GMT
I imagine a viking drakkar with separate toilets... (btw. "Dahomey Amazons" in wikipedia)
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Post by Gunnar Wolfgard on Feb 25, 2019 16:36:13 GMT
Starboard gunnel men, port gunnel shieldmaidens. Hang it over and let it rip.
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