A pair of archaeologists with Lund University in Sweden has found “a treasure trove” of plants aboard a sunken 15th-century Norse ship. Mikael Larsson and Brendan Foley describe their findings in PLOS ONE.
Black pepper from the Gribshunden shipwreck. Plant parts of black pepper: a–c) different views of peppercorns, d) stalk segments, some with unripe berries of pepper.
In 1495, Danish King Hans docked his ship Gribshunden off the coast of Sweden in preparation for a meeting with Swedish ruler, Sten Sture the Elder.
His plan was to broker a deal that would give him control over Sweden as he had done with Norway, creating a united Nordic kingdom.
Unfortunately for Hans and many of his crew, the ship caught fire and sank. To give himself the upper hand, the King had filled his ship with both warriors and goods worthy of a rich and powerful man.
The loss of the ship led to a change in plans—Hans attacked Sweden soon thereafter and conquered the country instead of negotiating for it.
But the sinking of the ship also created a motherlode of artifacts for modern historians to study.
The wreck of the ship was found in the 1960s and was studied by marine archaeologists in the years thereafter, but not very thoroughly.
The new study was launched in 2019 and continued through 2021.
The team found that most of the expected artifacts had already been found in earlier expeditions, but something important had been overlooked—containers holding well-preserved plant material—more than 3,000 specimens.
The researchers found spices such as nutmeg, cloves, mustard and dill. They also found samples of other plant material, such as saffron and ginger, peppercorns and almonds.
Saffron from the Gribshunden shipwreck site. Plant parts of saffron: a–c) stigmas, d) petri dish showing a portion of the recovered saffron stigmas.
Some of the spices would have come from as far away as Indonesia, suggesting that King Hans had developed an advanced trade network.
The researchers also found snack items, such as dried blackberries, raspberries, grapes and flax, each find showing just how rich and powerful Hans had become.
The researchers also found one non-edible plant, henbane, which, in the past, was used for medicinal purposes.
The researchers note that the plant specimens were in excellent condition due to the unique conditions of the site where the ship was found, a part of the Baltic Sea that is cold and low in salinity.
An ancient human skeleton dating to 3,000 years ago was discovered in Romania
A 3,000-year-old human skeleton was recently discovered at an archaeological excavation site in the village of Drăguşeni, Botoşani county.
The skeleton dates back to the beginning of the Bronze Age and to the Yamnaya culture, and was identified after exploring a large tumulus in Drăguşeni, according to Adela Kovacs, the head of the archaeology section of the Botoşani County Museum.
3,000-year-old human skeleton found in Romanian archaeological site
“The research in Drăguşeni focused on several periods and multiple sites. We carried out surface research in the area starting in 2018.
During a field visit with colleagues from the Institute of Archaeology in Iași, we identified the remains of two large, flattened tumuli, burial monuments, that were becoming increasingly damaged due to agriculture, and we recently decided to study them.
We primarily focused on recovering scientific information and documenting the remains, and so far we have identified only one skeleton.
The skeleton dates back to the beginning of the Bronze Age and the Yamnaya culture, which is not well known in Botoșani county,” Adela Kovacs told Agerpres.
The digging in Drăguşeni was carried out by a team composed of archaeologists from the Botoșani County Museum, in partnership with archaeologists and anthropologists from the Archaeological Institute of Iași, as well the University of Opava and the Silesian Museum in the Czech Republic.
Specialists say that the skeleton “provides very valuable information with regards to the funerary rituals practiced at that time,” and note that “the skeleton bears traces of red ochre, a substance that was placed on the deceased, in the head and in the leg areas, to emphasize a ritual related to rebirth, blood, and the afterlife.
“The body’s position is curled. Initially, it was placed on its back, with the knees brought to the chest,suggesting a fetal position.
This baby position represents the return to earth through a future birth,” said the head of the archaeology section of the Botoșani County Museum.
According to Kovacs, the entire Botoșani county has numerous tumuli. “The Drăgușeni area in particular was preferred by certain prehistoric communities when it came to burying those who were their leaders, probably, because these tumuli are funerary prestige elements.
The fact that a certain community dug the grave and built these tombs and covered them with actual artificial hills probably signaled to other populations the fact that those buried were top leaders or important people of the community,” she explained.
The skeleton was dug out, lifted, and transferred to Iași, where, following an analysis, anthropologists will determine its exact age, sex, diet, or other anthropological elements.
German archaeologists unearthed 1,900-year-old Roman village.
The remains of a 1,900-year-old Roman fort that once quartered 500 troops in what is today Germany were discovered by archeologists.
The public watches as students dig for artifacts within the remains of a 1,900-year-old Roman fort that once quartered 500 troops in what is today Gernsheim in Germany.
The fort was found in the town of Gernsheim, which sits along the Rhine River in the German state of Hesse.
Researchers knew the area was the site of a village during the first to third centuries, but otherwise, the region’s history during the Roman occupation is largely unknown, dig leader Thomas Maurer, an archaeologist at the University of Frankfurt said in a statement.
“It was assumed that this settlement had to have been based on a fort since it was customary for the families of the soldiers to live outside the fort in a village-like settlement,” Maurer said. Until now, however, no one had found that fort.
Military rediscovery
During an educational dig in the area, Maurer and his colleagues uncovered postholes that once held the foundations of a wooden tower, as well as two V-shaped ditches, which were a common feature of Roman forts of the era.
A unit of 500 soldiers, known as a “cohort,” was stationed at the fort between about A.D. 70 and A.D.120.Fortunately for modern-day archaeologists, the last Romans to leave the fort destroyed the place on the way out, filling in the ditches with rubbish.
This rubbish included “box after box” of ceramic shards, which can be dated to pinpoint the time of the abandonment of the fort, said Hans-Markus von Kaenel, a professor at the Goethe University Institute of Archaeology.”We really hit the jackpot with this excavation campaign,” von Kaenel said in the statement.
Roman history
Researchers have been able to piece together a broad history of the Gernsheim region from a scattering of archaeological finds there.
A brick fragment stamped with the sign of the 22nd Roman Legion, an elite unite from the late first century.
The Romans built the newly discovered fort around A.D. 70 as a jumping-off point for control of areas east of the Rhine, according to von Kaenel and his colleagues.
The area was an important transportation hub, with roads branching off to access the borders of the Roman Empire. There may have also been a harbor on the Rhine at the time, though that has yet to be verified, Maurer said.
The modern expansion of the town paved over many suspected Roman sites, but Maurer, von Kaenel, and their colleagues managed to secure permission for a dig on a vacant double lot near where Roman-era finds were discovered in the 1970s and 1980s. This lot turned out to hold the remains of the long-lost fort.
A brick fragment found at the site identifies the troops quartered at the fort as members of the 22nd Legion, an elite unit from the late first century.
Researchers also found real treasures such as rare garment clasps, several pearls, parts of a board game (dice, playing pieces) and a hairpin made from bone and crowned with a female bust,” Maurer said in the press release
Archaeologist Professor Thomas Maurer and his team of students found some interesting artifacts, including gaming pieces.
In a rather wonderful tale of not giving up on your dreams, two amateur metal detectorists struck gold – literally – in a rural field in Staffordshire, stumbling across a hoard of gold jewelry that could well be the oldest ever found in the UK.
The “Leekfrith Iron Age Torcs”, as the find is being referred to, comprises of three highly decorative gold neck torcs and a bracelet, which possibly came from the continent, either Germany or France.
“This unique find is of international importance,” said Dr Julia Farley, curator of British & European Iron Age Collections for the British Museum, in a statement. “It dates to around 400-250 BC, and is probably the earliest Iron Age gold work ever discovered in Britain.
“The torcs were probably worn by wealthy and powerful women, perhaps people from the continent who had married into the local community.
Piecing together how these objects came to be carefully buried in a Staffordshire field will give us an invaluable insight into life in Iron Age Britain.
The treasure was found by two local men, Mark Hambleton and Joe Kania, just before Christmas.
One of the gold torcs which was discovered on Staffordshire farmland by Joe Kania and Mark Hambleton.
Having previously scanned the field two decades earlier and finding nothing, they gave up and turned to fishing for the next 20 years.
They were encouraged to get back into the hunt by Mr Hambleton’s father, who sadly passed away not long after their find, though he did live to see his son’s discovery.
“I used to go metal detecting with my dad when I was young and he said to me ‘why are you bothering fishing? You should be back in those fields,’” Mr Hambleton told the Daily Mail.
“I am so glad we took his advice and pleased of course that he got the chance to see these amazing pieces and prove he was right all along.”
Hambleton and Kania found the jewelry scattered about a meter (3.3 feet) apart, and just below the surface of the soil on farmland about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the famous Anglo-Saxon “Staffordshire hoard” found in 2009, which included nearly 4,000 items of precious metal valued at around £3.2 million ($3.9 million).
They were about to give up for the day when Kania called out to Hambleton that he thought he’d found something.
“We have found the odd Victorian coin but mostly it has just been junk,” Kania told the Guardian, “so I couldn’t believe it when I picked out this mud-covered item and, on cleaning it off, I thought this might actually be gold.”
The haul has officially been declared as “treasure” and so under The Treasure Act is now the property of the Crown, with any proceeds to be split between the friends and the landowner of the fateful field.
A 300,000-Year-Old “Killing Stick” Provides New Information on Hunting Evolution
The wooden throwing stick, used by the extinct human subspecies Homo Heidelbergensis, was capable of killing waterbirds and horses during the Ice Age.
Experiments show the 25-inch-long throwing sticks, carved from spruce wood, could reach maximum speeds of 98 feet (30 meters) per second. German researchers have said the weapon was thrown like a boomerang, with one sharp side and one flat side, and spun powerfully around a center of gravity.
But when in flight, the team says the throwing stick, also referred to as ‘rabbit sticks’ or ‘killing sticks’, did not return to the thrower.
Picture of throwing stick from Schöningen, Lower Saxony, Germany, with four views and engravings.
Instead the rotation helped to maintain a straight, accurate trajectory which helped to increase the likeliness of striking prey animals.
‘They are effective weapons over different distances, among other things when hunting water birds,’ said Dr. Jordi Serangeli, professor at the Institute for Prehistory, Early History and Medieval Archaeology at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
‘Bones of swans and ducks are well documented from the find layer.
‘In addition, it is likely that larger mammals, such as horses that were often hunted on the shores of Lake Schöningen, were startled and driven in a certain direction with the throwing stick.’
Hunters on the Schöningen lakeshore likely used the throwing stick to hunt waterbirds.
Researchers uncovered the weapon during an archaeological excavation at the Schöningen mine in Lower Saxony, northern Germany.
‘Schöningen has yielded by far the largest and most important record of wooden tools and hunting equipment from the Paleolithic,’ said Professor Nicholas Conard, founding director of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Tübingen.
Detailed analysis by the researchers showed how the maker of this type of throwing stick used stone tools to cut the branches flush and then to smooth the surface.
The new throwing stick in situ at the time of discovery. The maker of the throwing stick used stone tools to cut the branches flush and then to smooth the surface of the artifact
The stick, carved from spruce wood, is around 25 inches (64.5cm) long, just over 1 inch (2.9cm) in diameter, and weighs 264 grams. The sticks also had fractures and damage consistent with that found on similar experimental examples.
For the first time researchers say the study provides clear evidence of the function of such a weapon. Late Lower Palaeolithic hominins in Northern Europe were ‘highly effective hunters’ with a wide array of wooden weapons that are rarely preserved, they say.
‘300,000 years ago, hunters had used different high-quality weapons such as throwing sticks, javelins and thrust lances in combination,’ said Professor Conard.
Overview of the excavation at Schöningen. Researchers attribute the discovery to the ‘outstanding’ preservation of wooden artifacts in the water-saturated lakeside sediments in Schöningen
‘The chances of finding Paleolithic artifacts made of wood are normally zero.
‘Only thanks to the fabulously good conservation conditions in water-saturated lakeside sediments in Schöningen can we document the evolution of hunting and the varied use of wooden tools.’
The discovery has been detailed further in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
When Did Human Ancestors First Emerge?
The timeline of human evolution can be traced back millions of years. Experts estimate that the family tree goes as such:
• 55 million years ago – First primitive primates evolve
• 15 million years ago – Hominidae (great apes) evolve from the ancestors of the gibbon.
• 7 million years ago – First gorillas evolve. Later, chimp and human lineages diverge.
• 5.5 million years ago – Ardipithecus, early ‘proto-human’ shares traits with chimps and gorillas.
• 4 million years ago – Ape like early humans, the Australopithecines appeared. They had brains no larger than a chimpanzee’s but other more human-like features.
• 3.9-2.9 million years ago – Australopithecus afarensis lived in Africa.
• 2.7 million years ago – Paranthropus, lived in woods and had massive jaws for chewing.
• 2.6 million years ago – Hand axes become the first major technological innovation.
• 2.3 million years ago – Homo habilis first thought to have appeared in Africa.
A study reveals that the Vikings brought horses and dogs to England
Vikings took dogs and horses with them when they travelled from Scandinavia to Britain 1,157 years ago, a study has found. This suggests that they didn’t just steal animals from the settlements they raided, as accounts describe, but brought some with them.
Scientists from Durham University found animal remains alongside the remains of a human at Britain’s only known Viking cremation cemetery at Heath Wood, Derbyshire.
Scientists from Durham University found animal remains alongside human remains (pictured) at Britain’s only known Viking cremation cemetery at Heath Wood, Derbyshire
Analysis showed that the individual was from the Baltic Shield area and crossed the North Sea with their horse and dog, but died shortly after arriving. The researchers believe that they were of high status, as they were allowed to be cremated with their pets.
The remains at the Heath Wood site are associated with the Viking Great Army; a coalition of Norse warriors originating from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They came together under a unified command to invade the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that constituted England in 865 AD.
Lead author Tessi Löffelmann said: ‘This is the first solid scientific evidence that Scandinavians almost certainly crossed the North Sea with horses, dogs and possibly other animals as early as the ninth century AD and could deepen our knowledge of the Viking Great Army.
The remains at the Heath Wood site are associated with the Viking Great Army; a coalition of Norse warriors originating from Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
‘Our most important primary source, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, states that the Vikings were taking horses from the locals in East Anglia when they first arrived, but this was clearly not the whole story, and they most likely transported animals alongside people on ships.
‘This also raises questions about the importance of specific animals to the Vikings.’ Previous studies have found that burial ceremonies for Vikings in Iceland included the slaughter of a male horse, which would then be buried alongside the dead.
In 2019, two Viking burial ships were found in Sweden that contained the remains of a man buried with his dog and horse in the stern. It was common to bury the dead on these ships rather than cremating them to show high status and respect.
For the new study, published in PLOS ONE, scientists were looking for new information about those buried at the Heath Wood cemetery. The site is associated with the Vikings who wintered in nearby Repton in 873 AD.
Repton was a significant royal and ecclesiastical centre in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom Mercia, but became a Viking stronghold for the army after they seized it.
The researchers analysed the strontium in the remains of two adults, one child and three animals – a horse, a dog and possibly a pig.
Strontium is a naturally occurring element that appears in rocks, water and soil, and makes its way into the plants that grow from them. The ratio of different forms, or isotopes, of strontium that appear in a landscape is specific to its geographical location.
Humans and animals eat the plants, and the strontium inside them replaces the calcium in their bones and teeth, remaining there even after their death.
Therefore, the ratio of the different strontium isotopes in their remains can be matched to a specific location, revealing where they came from or settled.
Strontium ratios in the remains of one of the adults and the child match to multiple locations in Europe, including Denmark, south-west Sweden and the area local to the Heath Wood cremation site in England.
Fragment of a sampled cremated horse radius/ulna from burial mound 50 at Heath Wood
But those in the other adult and the three animals are normally found in the Baltic Shield area of Scandinavia, covering Norway and central and northern Sweden.
The pig remnant is not thought to be from a live animal, but instead an amulet brought over to Britain from the individual’s home, or a preserved food source.
All the remains were buried under a mound after cremation, suggesting they were a part of a Scandinavian burial rite and providing ‘a direct link, a proxy, to the ‘homelands’ of those buried’.
Co-author Dr Janet Montgomery said: ‘Our study suggests that there are people and animals with different mobility histories buried at Heath Wood, and that, if they belonged to the Viking Great Army, it was made up of people from different parts of Scandinavia or the British Isles.’
Dr Julian Richards from the University of York co-directed the excavations at the Heath Wood Viking cemetery between 1998 and 2000.
He added: ‘The Bayeux Tapestry depicts Norman cavalry disembarking horses from their fleet before the Battle of Hastings, but this is the first scientific demonstration that Viking warriors were transporting horses to England two hundred years earlier.
‘It shows how much Viking leaders valued their personal horses and hounds that they brought them from Scandinavia, and that the animals were sacrificed to be buried with their owners.’
125,000 years ago Massive elephants were hunted and killed by Neanderthals
A new analysis of 125,000-year-old bones from around 70 elephants has led to some intriguing new revelations about the Neanderthals of the time: that they could work together to deliberately bring down large prey, and that they gathered in larger groups than previously thought.
The bones belonged to straight-tusked elephants, a now extinct species that stood nearly 4 meters (just over 13 feet) tall at the shoulder.
Archaeologist Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser examines the femur of a large adult male straight-tusked elephant
The findings suggest Neanderthals made deep cut marks on the foot bones of straight-tusked elephants to access the rich deposits of fat in the animals’ foot pads.
That’s nearly twice the size of the African elephants that are alive today, and around 4 tons of meat would have been taken from each carcass.
The researchers estimate it would’ve taken a team of 25 people between 3–5 days to skin and then dry or smoke the elephant meat. It points to either a large group of Neanderthals being nearby, or that they had ways of preserving the colossal volume of meat.
In either case, these early humans start to seem more sophisticated than we’d imagined.
“This is really hard and time-consuming work,” Lutz Kindler, an archaeozoologist from the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Center in Germany, told Science.
“Why would you slaughter the whole elephant if you’re going to waste half the portions?”
Evidence of charcoal fires around the archaeological site suggest that the meat would have been dried, which is one way of making it last for longer.
The haul would have been enough to feed 350 people for a week, or 100 people for a month, according to the researchers – that counters the conventional narrative of Neanderthals living in smaller groups of around 20.
The ages of the animals are telling too. These were almost all adult males – if the hominins were scavenging meat from dead elephants, children and females would be expected.
Here, it looks as though they deliberately targeted the larger males for the extra meat, perhaps by driving them into mud or trapping them in pits.
Almost every bone that was examined showed evidence of careful butchery. Marks left by other animals were few and far between, which hints that there wasn’t much meat or fat left on these bones by the time the Neanderthals had finished with them.
Archaeologist Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser examines the femur of a large adult male straight-tusked elephant
“It constitutes the earliest unambiguous evidence for the systematic targeting and processing of straight-tusked elephants, the largest Pleistocene terrestrial mammals that ever lived,” write the researchers in their published paper.
“This has important implications for our views of Neanderthal local group sizes, mobility, and cooperation.”
Around 3,400 elephant bones were studied in total, with researchers finding clear traces of cutting and scraping marks left by flint tools. It’s unusual to find direct evidence of cut marks like this, making it an important find.
The site that these bones were taken from sits near the town of Neumark-Nord in Germany, and was discovered by coal miners in the 1980s. It’s one of the richest sites we have for studying Neanderthal activities of the Last Interglacial (LIG) period, some 130,000–115,000 years ago.
Our hominin cousins are often portrayed as less intelligent or cultured than the human beings that eventually replaced them, but this study is the latest in a growing pile of evidence that there was more to Neanderthals than we might have thought.
“Neanderthals were not simple slaves of nature, original hippies living off the land,” archaeologist Wil Roebroeks, from Leiden University in the Netherlands, told the Associated Press.
“They were actually shaping their environment, by fire… and also by having a big impact on the biggest animals that were around in the world at that time.”
Long stretch of underground aqueduct found in Naples
Once played in by local children, a vast tunnel that goes through a hill in Naples, Italy, is actually a Roman aqueduct, archaeologists say.
Speleologists explore the Aqua Augusta, a Roman aqueduct that was previously the least-documented aqueduct in the Roman world.
Forty years ago, when children in Naples were playing in caves and tunnels under the hill of Posillipo in Italy, they didn’t know their playground was actually a Roman aqueduct.
When they shared their memories with archaeological authorities recently, it kicked off an exploration of one of the longest, most mysterious examples of ancient water infrastructure in the Roman world.
Rome’s famous aqueducts supplied water for baths, drinking, public fountains and more. Built during a period of about half a millennium (roughly 300 B.C. to A.D. 200), aqueducts around the former Roman Empire are highly recognizable thanks to their multitiered arched structure.
But this marvel of ancient architecture represents only a small fraction of the actual water system; the vast majority of the infrastructure is still underground.
Outside of Rome, subterranean aqueducts and their paths are much less understood. This knowledge gap included the newly investigated Aqua Augusta, also called the Serino aqueduct, which was built between 30 B.C. and 20 B.C. to connect luxury villas and suburban outposts in the Bay of Naples.
Circling Naples and running down to the ancient vacation destination of Pompeii, the Aqua Augusta is known to have covered at least 87 miles (140 kilometers), bringing water to people all along the coast as well as inland.
But the complex Aqua Augusta has barely been explored by researchers, making it the least-documented aqueduct in the Roman world.
New discoveries earlier this month by the Cocceius Association, a non-profit group that engages in speleo-archaeological work, are bringing this fascinating aqueduct to light.
This This Roman aqueduct found in Naples supplied water to ancient luxury villas.
Thanks to reports from locals who used to explore the tunnels as kids, association members found a branch of the aqueduct that carried drinking water to the hill of Posillipo and to the crescent-shaped island of Nisida.
So far, around 2,100 feet (650 meters) of the excellently preserved aqueduct has been found, making it the longest known segment of the Aqua Augusta.
Graziano Ferrari, president of the Cocceius Association, told Live Science in an email that “the Augusta channel runs quite near to the surface, so the inner air is good, and strong breezes often run in the passages.”
Exploring the aqueduct requires considerable caving experience, though. Speleologists’ most difficult challenge in exploring the tunnel was to circumvent the tangle of thorns at one entrance.
“Luckily, the caving suits are quite thornproof,” he said. “After succeeding in entering the channel, we met normal caving challenges — some sections where you have to crawl on all fours or squeeze through.”
In a new report, Ferrari and Cocceius Association Vice President Raffaella Lamagna list several scientific studies that can be done now that this stretch of aqueduct has been found.
Specifically, they will be able to calculate the ancient water flow with high precision, to learn more about the eruptive sequences that formed the hill of Posillipo, and to study the mineral deposits on the walls of the aqueduct.
Rabun Taylor, a professor of classics at the University of Texas at Austin who was not involved in the report, told Live Science in an email that the newly discovered aqueduct section is interesting because it is “actually a byway that served elite Roman villas, not a city.
Multiple demands on this single water source stretched it very thin, requiring careful maintenance and strict rationing.”
Taylor, an expert on Roman aqueducts, also said the new find “may be able to tell us a lot about the local climate over hundreds of years when the water was flowing.”
This insight is possible thanks to a thick deposit of lime, a calcium-rich mineral that “accumulates annually like tree rings and can be analyzed isotopically as a proxy for temperature and rainfall,” he explained.
Ferrari, Lamagna and other members of the Cocceius Association plan to analyze the construction of the aqueduct as well, to determine the methods used and the presence of water control structures.
“We believe that there are ample prospects for defining a research and exploration plan for this important discovery, which adds a significant element to the knowledge of the ancient population” living in the Bay of Naples, they wrote in the report.
Viking Raids Revealed by the Extraction of an Anglo-Saxon Monastery
Anglo-Saxon monasteries were more resilient to Viking attacks than previously thought, archaeologists have concluded. Lyminge, a monastery in Kent, was on the front line of long-running Viking hostility which ended in the victories of Alfred the Great.
The monastery endured repeated attacks, but resisted collapse for almost a century, through effective defensive strategies put in place by ecclesiastical and secular rulers of Kent, University of Reading archaeologists say.
The new evidence is presented after a detailed examination of archaeological and historical evidence by Dr Gabor Thomas, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading.
The excavation at Lyminge in Kent revealed hereto information about monastic resilience in the face of raids by the Vikings.
“The image of ruthless Viking raiders slaughtering helpless monks and nuns is based on written records, but a re-examination of the evidence show the monasteries had more resilience than we might expect,” Dr Thomas said.
Despite being located in a region of Kent which bore the full brunt of Viking raids in the later 8th and early 9th centuries, the evidence suggests that the monastic community at Lyminge not only survived these attacks but recovered more completely than historians previously thought, Dr Thomas concludes in research, published today (30 January 2023) in the journal Archaeologia.
During archaeological excavations between 2007-15 and 2019, archaeologists uncovered the main elements of the monastery, including the stone chapel at its heart surrounded by a wide swathe of wooden buildings and other structures where the monastic brethren and their dependents lived out their daily lives. Radiocarbon dating of butchered animal bones discarded as rubbish indicates that this occupation persisted for nearly two centuries following the monastery’s establishment in the second half of the 7th century.
Historical records held at nearby Canterbury Cathedral show that after a raid in 804 CE, the monastic community at Lyminge was granted asylum within the relative safety of the walled refuge of Canterbury, a former Roman town and the administrative and ecclesiastical capital of Anglo-Saxon Kent.
But evidence from Dr Thomas’s dig shows the monks not only returned to re-establish their settlement at Lyminge, but continued living and building for several decades over the course of the 9th century. Dateable artefacts such as silver coins discovered at the site provided Dr Thomas with an insight into the re-establishment of the monastic community.
Dr Thomas said: “This research paints a more complex picture of the experience of monasteries during these troubled times, they were more resilient than the ‘sitting duck’ image portrayed in popular accounts of Viking raiding based on recorded historical events such as the iconic Viking raid on the island monastery of Lindisfarne in AD 793.
“However, the resilience of the monastery was subsequently stretched beyond breaking point.
“By the end of the 9th century, at a time when Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great was engaged in a widescale conflict with invading Viking armies, the site of the monastery appears to have been completely abandoned.
“This was most likely due to sustained long-term pressure from Viking armies who are known to have been active in south-eastern Kent in the 880s and 890s.
“Settled life was only eventually restored in Lyminge during the 10th century, but under the authority of the Archbishops of Canterbury who had acquired the lands formerly belonging to the monastery.”
The latest research article is based on the results of over a decade of archaeological research at Lyminge, directed by Dr Thomas. The village was first established by Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century.
“Vikings: Beyond the Legend” display sails into Cincinnati with four ships, and around 500 artifacts
On November 11th Viking Ships will sail into the Cincinnati Museum Center.Vikings are invading once again, but not in their usual violent way. The ships will enter the Union Terminal on November 11th to celebrate the opening of the newest special exhibit, featuring the Scandinavian seafarers.
People most likely picture burly, bearded barbarians with horned helmets whenever Vikings are mentioned, yet experts now state this to be inaccurate. The “Vikings: Beyond the Legend” exhibit aims to combat the stereotype by showcasing four ships and around 500 artifacts that highlight the skilled craftsmanship the Vikings possessed.
Viking Ship Museum
The exhibit will feature four large ships on an interactive, hands-on display. There will also be more than 500 artifacts on loan from the Swedish History Museum.
These original artifacts display the craftsmanship of the people, who used bone, silver, iron, bronze, wood, textiles, leather, and ceramics to create everyday items and ceremonial objects.
Guests will be able to virtually excavate the Viking ships layer by layer, uncovering rich finds like animals, tools, and weapons just like the archaeologists did. You can also test your own strength using a model Viking sword, and compete in unique Viking games.
On Wednesday, around a dozen people had to maneuver two replica ships into a warehouse which will hold them before their transfer to the Museum Center later this month.
The Krampmacken is a replica of a 26-foot Viking trading boat that was discovered on Gotland Island, Sweden, in the 1920s. The Karls is a reconstruction of a 21-foot sailing vessel.
The exhibit will feature two more ships that have not yet been moved to Cincinnati. One is a unique “Ghost Ship”, made with original iron rivets supporting the spots they would have been placed before the oak hull deteriorated over the course of 1,000 years.
Possibly the most astonishing ship is the 122-foot Roskilde 6, a partly intact Viking long ship that was uncovered from the Roskilde Fjord, Denmark in 1997. This is the only artifact on loan from the National Museum of Denmark.
This Viking warship was one of their fastest due to its long, narrow shape. Several rowers and a shallow draft helped it navigate Scandinavian and Northern European ports, as well as sail up the rivers and deep inland. The ship has never been on display in America, for the reason that not many museums have the capacity to house such a large artifact.
A news release from the museum states the exhibit burst the myth of a culture that was devoted to war and destruction. Vikings actually were explorers, traders, and artisans who contributed to literature, navigation, and religion.
Silhouette of an original Viking ship
The Vikings were originally from Scandinavia, the area that today encompasses the countries of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Yet they also inhabited land throughout northern and eastern Europe. Between 750 and 1100 CE they also went through North America, Iceland, and the British Isles.
While they were definitely warriors, and some did raid and plunder towns, even as far as the Mediterranean and northern Africa, they were also storytellers, merchants, and farmers.
Their source of status was land ownership instead of brute strength. With the plundering aside, they engaged in trade through a large part of Europe. They favored their knowledge of sea current and the winds as alternative navigational tools for travelling between their trading centers.
The Vikings also worshiped Norse gods like Thor, Freya, and Odin, but accepted several aspects of Christianity. Unlike their European counterparts, women were the heads of their households and had great influence in Viking society.
Discounted tickets for museum members went on sale October 3rd. General admissions tickets are on sale November 1st. Tickets will cost $19.50 for adults, $12.50 for children, and $17.50 for seniors.
“Viking: Beyond the Legend” is a combined venture between The Swedish history Museum and the Museum’s Partner located in Austria. The Rokilde 6 is a display of a joint venture between the National Museum of Denmark and it’s Partners.
