I’ve actually pointed that out to a number of friends as well. Even the USA Today article that served as a source for internet excitement seems to have maintained the point that this is about percentage of each gender migrating to settlements in a specific part of England at a specific time rather than Norse raiding parties across the board. Its not even the first time Viking bodies buried with weapons have been identified as female. And the presence of weapons (especially swords) in a burial isn’t necessarily a direct indication that the interred is a warrior/soldier. As I understand it, it was often a marker of class or importance. Or even just related to the religious/ritual importance of swords. And then they only checked 14 bodies, which is a pretty small sample size.
But what this does point out rather nicely (as has been done before) is that you can’t assume gender based on grave goods, perceived importance, or burial circumstance etc. It seems pretty likely that some women at least fought with Viking groups, and in other non-Norse North European cultures. We just don’t really have a read on how common or pervasive that was, or what the circumstances actually were. So maybe some one takes the hint and actually bothers to check the gender of bodies at actual battle sites, or check female bodies for injuries consistent with fighting, and we can get the start of an answer there.
Also it rather nicely shows (as was apparently the actual intent) that Norse settlement in that part of England looked a lot more like regular settlement/colonization rather than just straight occupation/raiding.
I mentioned this on Twitter, but I’m commenting here in the hopes that it’s seen.
“…of the remains with an identifiable gender,…” BoingBoing, you mean /sex/ here. This is mega important. Especially given the subject.
Everyone, repeat after me: sex ≠ gender.
While there are a few issues with this study, I have yet see a media story that accurately represents the research and the author’s conclusions based their results. It’s all been sensational headline waffle.
The bimodality is natural, but the binary is socially constructed and enforced. Sex is a system of categorizing everyone as male and female. Gender is a system of categorizing everyone as men and women, and violently attacking trans womyn. Sex =/= gender has been taken up by transmisogynists, because it makes it easier to out trans people, to force trans people to out themselves, to deny trans people access to toilets, and so on.
Sexual differentiation =/= gender roles.
Full disclaimer: I’m a survivor. I was beaten up on a regular basis, starting at age six, I faced explicitly transmisogynistic bullying, and I was beaten unconscious at age sixteen. I can’t really say how much of the violence was for being autistic, disabled, intersex, trans, etc.
Sex and gender are synonyms except in technical jargon, and, as @MarjaE points out, the technical jargon that differentiates between the two is importing some incorrect assumptions about the relationship between a person’s pelvic bone and who they are. That distinction may not seem relevant to osteoarchaeology, but then the words “male,” “female,” “man,” and “woman” are likely also technical jargon in that field…
The alternative theory would have been “ninth century viking warriors left their wives and children behind in Scandanavia when they went on raiding voyages.” The presence of female skeletons implies somehing about how such raids were organized and possibly the permanance of viking settlement in England during this period. It’s not something to be taken for granted
It certainly does, but like I said there’s was lot of ritual, religious and status stuff bound up with swords. The Celts used to toss them in bodies of water as an offering of some sort. Also as I understand it swords weren’t necessarily too important on the battlefield. Spears, axes, etc were supposedly a lot better for doing most of the killing. So the swords value/importance came from the difficulty and expense of making/acquiring one. If only fairly wealthy/important people could carry and that made it a status symbol it makes a bit more sense. “Here’s this totally awesome, expensive thing I can offer up (but probably get by without anyway).”
