Half the remains of slain Vikings in England are female

One famous example is the apostle Junia, who was referred to as such in early Christian church history but then at some point was turned into Junias (the male version of the name).

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Exactly. I think maybe Priscilla and Aquila, also. Itā€™s been a lot of years since I studied the subject.

Itā€™s generally in the letters of Paul - the boring bits that sort of say ā€œHi to all the gang, Bobby Cubby and Annette!ā€ Most of the changes were introduced when the original Greek was translated into Latin.

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The article seems to be using ā€œNorseā€ and ā€œVikingā€ pretty much interchangeably. Norse was an ethnicity/nationality, Viking was a job description.

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There are some markers of sex in skeletons that a trained forensic anthropologist should be able to determine quickly, at least in post-adolescent humans.

This speaks more to the bias/incompetence of the Archaeologists (although anthropology of this nature isnā€™t really what archaeologists do).

Eh, if you met a Norseman in England, heā€™d be bound to be a Viking. After all, ā€œVikingā€ is the term for a seafaring Norseman. Some were traders, some pirates, some warriors - all Vikings. :smile:

Hey @OtherMichael

Unlike the Valkyries (who are folklore, and refer to women who carried chosen warriors to Valhalla), there are plenty of written records of human Norse women who did act as warriors and pirates. Women were taught to fight for defense, and could take up arms if needed.

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Surely viking is the job, viker is the job description?

Viking; noun - raping and pillaging

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This actually speaks to the challenges of archaeology.

Because you can look up anthropometric data for modern populations, but you canā€™t really look up similar data for many pre-modern populations, and things like nutrition, average height, average weight, etc. can really throw things off for different populations or for different classes with different nutrition within a single population.

The thing is, with the risk of spurious results [as in one early study on Macchu Pichu] from badly-chosen baseline anthropometric data from other populations, itā€™s something that creates confusion if it is done badly, and can take too much time and resources if it is to be done well.

Ditto the request for more info!

Remind me of an old menā€™s magazine cartoon of two fishermen looking at two mermaids on a rock. One mermaid has the lower body of a fish, and the other mermaid has the upper body of a fish but with a human lower half. And the one fisherman is saying ā€œThatā€™s a good question, Frank. Which one would you want?ā€

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Equal opportunity pillaging! :slight_smile:

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Iā€™m sure you meant ā€œwomenā€ or ā€œfemaleā€, unless they wielded a battleaxe with raised pinky and always said please and thank you when pillaging!

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And for the gentleman raider, Jeff de Boerā€™s got you covered.

The Missed in History folks disagree: http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/raining-on-your-parade-about-those-women-viking-warriors/

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Am I the only one thinking about putting a secret time capsule in my coffin with me? I figure at some point Iā€™ll get dug up. Iā€™d like to be educational in death.

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Night Gallery ā€œLindemannā€™s Catchā€ Season 2, Episode 16 is a story about trying to make the ā€œother halfā€ of a mermaid into a woman. Itā€™s available on Hulu.

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Itā€™s a good idea.

A mate of mine was thinking a spring-loaded casket full of thin gold leaf chaff. Cheap and a sign of a high-status burial.
Although as Iā€™ll probably be cremated, I should probably leave instructions that my ashes should be placed inside one of those joke cans of nuts with the spring-loaded snakes inside. Itā€™s much more me.

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you forgot romping and burning!

Holy crap. I spent way too many quarters on that back in '86

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That the abstract refers to ā€œmigrantsā€ rather than ā€œwarriorsā€ (or whatever) is a bit of a tell.

The research is on those who settled, not those that were (just) piratingā€¦

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