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§1. During the 2019 New Years' season, I found myself in lots of conversations about the struggle to find fond memories of 2018. At least within the realm of medieval archaeology, I can offer some candidates.

§2. 2018 was a good year for the Picts. Archaeologists and historians have long struggled to identify who the Picts were. In addition to the inherent challenges of interpreting their material culture, studying the Picts is complicated by mythologies from the wider culture (e.g. Pink Floyd's 1969 album Ummagumma) and other more scholarly efforts to cast Picts as the antithesis to Roman and Anglo-Saxon identities (see Alcock 2003). But, in 2018, efforts to gain some clarity about this population bore considerable fruit.

§3. The most visually striking discovery is a game-board possibly associated with the early medieval monastery of Deer. For the past decade, the Book of Deer Project has searched for remains of Deer Monastery, where the important tenth century manuscript known as the Book of Deer is thought to have been produced. In 2017 and 2018, project archaeologists located evidence of pre-Norman activity in a field near the ruins of Deer Abbey, a Cistercian monastery that succeeded the earlier foundation in the thirteenth century.

§4. The game-board was located in 2018. It is scratched onto a flat stone, found above charcoal dating between the 7th and 8th centuries. Mark Hall identified the board with the Hnefatafl family of gaming boards known from Scandinavia and Ireland. Project archaeologist Ali Cameron noted that a similar object from Birsay, Orkney, dated between the 5th and 9th centuries. More research is necessary to firmly associate the board and other finds with the lost early medieval foundation, but they certainly provide important glimpses into the period.

§5. Another excavation on Orkney revealed a stone with a sooty handprint and knee tracks in a structure dating between the 6th and 9th centuries. Like the Deer game-board, this handprint and the associated evidence for the organization of metalworking yield further evocative glimpses.

§6. The Picts are best known for the over two hundred symbol stones found in the east and north of Scotland. The symbols are generally thought part of a non-alphabetic communication system. Low water levels in on the River Don near Aberdeen led to the discovery of a new symbol stone last year.

§7. Dr. Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen was involved in the conservation of the new stone. He also leads a multi-faceted project on the archaeology of early medieval Scotland and Pictish identities. Noble et al. (2018) report the results of a project to define the chronology of symbol stones. From analysis of both direct and contextual dating evidence, the authors argue that the symbol system began in the third or fourth centuries AD.

§8. The implications of this chronology are two-fold: it strengthens arguments that the system is a response to Roman literacy and it pushes the development of Pictish identities to the Roman and post-Roman periods. The authors also proposed a refined chronology for different styles of symbols. These conclusions build from Mitchell and Noble (2017) which uses burial monuments to trace newly emerging elites in the post-Roman period via burial architecture.¹

§9. The University of Aberdeen is also excavating Burghead, a sea-side fort known to have been destroyed by a Viking raid in the tenth century. Earlier excavations identified pre-raid activity, including a longhouse and Anglo-Saxon coins. New work found that Viking-era burning of the fort sealed deposits of organic material. The team located interlocking timbers that formed part of the early medieval rampart, hair, dress pins, and other material, all of which promises to yield significant insights.

§10. Much like the Picts, Scotland's vitrified forts have been a source of speculation since the eighteenth century. They were burned at sufficiently high temperatures to melt stone surfaces of walls, but the process and intent remain matters of debate. Archaeologists working at Dun Deardail have located evidence that vitrification occurred as a timber framed rampart, and perhaps with an additional superstructure, burned circa 300 BCE.² An illustrated booklet on the excavations is available.

§11. Moving away from Scotland (but keeping with carved stones and romanticized early Britons), the Cornwall Archaeological Unit's excavations at Tintagel Castle uncovered an inscribed stone, with both formal script known from Gospels and more informal styles. The stone is a two-foot long piece of slate with Christian symbols, Latin words, and Greek letters. This combination of elements provide further testament to the long-distance connections the inhabitants maintained. In 2016, the project discovered Turkish tableware and Spanish glass among feasting remains. The Tintagel excavations are part of a five-year project with a final report planned for 2021.³

§12. 2018 was also a good year for Northern European archaeological enthusiasts under the age of 14. I am the parent of two boys who spent many afternoons rummaging for items they could bring an archaeologist father to study. I responded to their discoveries with parentally appropriate enthusiasm, but their imaginations typically outran their finds. I can only imagine what the parents of an eight-year-old thought when she exclaimed that she found a sword while wading in a Swedish lake. As it turns out, she had indeed located an ancient sword (initial estimates range across the second half of the first millennium). Officials from a local museum subsequently searched the area and found a brooch from the same period but no evidence of how the finds arrived in the lake.

§13. In northern Germany, a thirteen-year-old working with an avocational archaeologist located a silver coin. After reporting the find, a team excavated the area and located a hoard with 600 coins, a Thor's hammer, and other jewelry. The most recent coin dates to 983 and nearly 20% of the coins were minted in Harald Bluetooth's realm in Denmark.

§14. In other Bluetooth news, archaeologists have published results from survey and initial excavation at Borgring, the first new Trelleborg-type fortification found in six decades (Goodchild et al. 2017). Excavation continued through 2018.⁴

§15. The Swedish site of Sandby Borg has been in the news for a few years. The site is a fifth century enclosed settlement on an island in Sweden. In 2010, archaeologists identified several cashes of jewelry placed inside the doorways to houses. Early reports suggested that inhabitants died in a massacre. People appeared to have been left where they had been murdered. Then, the site was abandoned largely intact. Descriptions of a "Swedish Pompeii" seemed too good to be true.

§16. A report in Antiquity now formally presents the argument that Sandby Borg provides evidence of a massacre associated with turmoil following the decline of Roman-era trade patterns in Western Europe (Alfsdotter et al. 2018; see also the article in the New York Times). The viciousness of the attack is reflected in the sheep teeth inserted into the mouth of an adult male. All victims identified to date are males. Since artifacts do suggest the presence of females, women may have been abducted or are located in an unexcavated portion of the site. Faunal evidence suggests that the massacre occurred between the late spring and the fall. Excavators also argue that the large number of complete skeletons of horses, lambs, and pigs indicate the site was left largely undisturbed after the attack.

§17. In addition to being an interesting forensic case study in the bioarchaeology of massacres, the site has also yielded considerable information about daily life that is usually lost to plunder, destruction, and other subsequent activity. Near the victims in one house, excavators found half a herring skeleton and other mundane reminders of life before the attack. For example, excavators located a burned onion in a fireplace. Since onions were not known to have been grown in Scandinavia at the time, the onion attests to a degree of long-distance contact beyond those demonstrated with the gold jewelry and Roman coins commonly found at such Migration Period sites.

§18. Norwegian archaeologists have located a new Viking-era boat burial using sub-surface survey technology. One news report contains links to 3D reconstructions that will be very useful for those teaching related topics.⁵ The ship is approximately 20 meters long, with keel and floor-timbers intact. The ship is part of a "cemetery" including seven other burial mounds. Longhouses are located nearby.

§19. Archaeologists in Iceland have published results of an ancient DNA study on the sex of horses buried in Viking-era graves (Nistelberger et al. 2019). Of the 19 horses sampled, only one was a female. The human sex ratio in the burials is equally skewed toward (adult) males. The three horses from non-burial sites were all female and are likely to have been consumed. The matching skew in the gender distribution of both animals and humans speaks to the assertion of male identities in burial practices.

§20. In other news about North European burial performances, Tuija Kirkinen (2017) reviews evidence for the inclusion of brown-bear skins in Iron Age and Medieval Fennoscandia and finds over a millennia-long association of warriors with these large predators.

§21. The last year or so were also good for Birka. In the 1880s, archaeologists found a well-furnished warrior burial at Birka (Bj 581). For most of the next century, the individual buried was assumed to be a male. But, starting in the 1970s, some archaeologists began arguing that the skeleton was female, including a recent osteological re-analysis (Kjellström 2016). An ancient DNA study published in 2017 now provides definitive evidence that the skeleton from Bj 581 was indeed female (Hedenstierna‐Jonson et al., 2017).

§22. Terri Barnes was spurred by the Birka warrior to write a thought-provoking reflection on the challenges of working toward ancient concepts of gender amidst the tangles modern assumptions, both among scholars and her students.⁶ The debate also provides an opportunity to reflect on the confrontations between scientific and humanistic ways of knowing. As empirically driven research from disciplines outside those traditionally most prevalent in medieval studies continue gaining a footing, medieval studies can become common ground for intellectual perspectives too often walled from each other.

§23. In my own searches for inspiration on how to articulate "scientific" data with the aims of humanistic scholarship, I often think back to Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire (1992) which both demands empirical precision and is unconstrained by its limits.

§24. 2018 also gave fresh insight to another famous Birka find. The "Birka dragon" is a soapstone casting mold found in 1887. The similarity of the dragon head to descriptions of figureheads on longship prows have made the mold one of the most famous objects from the Viking world. Kalmring and Holmquist (2018) report on the find of a dress-pin head matching the style of Birka dragon mold. The object was located during new excavations on the harbor facilities adjacent to the settlement area where the soapstone mold was found.

§25. In addition to the general iconographic similarity of the Birka depictions with descriptions of wooden longship figureheads, the authors also cite the Ladby shipburial. Its figurehead had decayed, but iron "curls" reminiscent of the curls on the Birka dragons were found in the region of the prow. Dragon-head pins are a type found around the Baltic Sea in the Viking period.

§26. The spread of such styles required considerable maritime technology. Hennius (2018) presents ninth century evidence for intensive production of tar used to water-proof ships (see also The Secret of Viking Success? A Good Coat of Tar…). Excavations in eastern Sweden revealed evidence for intensive tar production in large pits could have yeilded 300 liters of tar each. Unlike smaller pits from earlier centuries, Hennius believes the Viking-era's larger pits reflect expansion of maritime activity and its impact on local economies during the Viking period.

§27. Turkish archaeologists found evidence of the contacts facilitated by tar-production and other technologies with the discovery of a ninth or tenth century Viking sword during the excavation of a Mediterranean port.

§28. A comb from circa 800 excavated at Ribe provides additional information about transformations at the beginning of the Viking period. Words for "comb and "to comb" were inscribed on opposing sides of the comb plates. Søren Sindbæk views the inscription as a pedagogical tool associated with a new standardized alphabet appearing that facilitated the growing trade across regions.

§29. While whale-bone does occasionally appear in Viking era sites, little is known about how the bones were obtained. Two studies from 2018 investigate the possibility that active whale hunting occurred in the Viking period and earlier. Hennius et al. (2018) examined whale-bone gaming pieces from Sweden. The researchers believe that the artifacts were produced in Norway and reflect the intensification of right whale hunting from the mid-6th century. The study suggests that patterns of trade and expansion associated with the Viking period have their origins several centuries earlier. Changing North Atlantic trade patterns also fostered a shift to walrus ivory for making game pieces circa 1000.

§30. Another study suggest an even deeper history for European whaling. A team of archaeologists and ecologists extracted DNA from ten possible whale-bones from five Roman-era sites in Gibralter and Spain in an effort to define the nature of whale exploitation during the Roman period. Their results are significant on two points. First, they verify that the most of the bones were actually from whales (two were from elephant and dolphin). Second, Roman whaling has been thought unlikely because the species present today cannot be hunted and processed effectively with Roman-era technology. But, the bones identified that types of whales that could be hunted (right and grey) were present in earlier times, supporting arguments that references to early whaling in the Mediterranean reflect common practices.

§31. Several new studies explore the consequences the Vikings had on Britain. Thomas Williams (2017) published a survey of Viking Britain aimed at confronting stereotypes, both traditional and revisionist. Catrine Jarman from Bristol University led a team creating a new series of radio-carbon dates for the mass grave of over 250 people at Repton. Since their discovery, the remains have been though associated with the Viking Great Army, which established Scandinavian rule over Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the ninth century (e.g. Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle 1992). The army is record as wintering in Repton in 873–74, but, earlier radio-carbon dating produced conflicting results, creating difficulties for arguments that the remains are the result of a single event. Jarman's study argues that the wide spread of earlier dates resulted from a skew in the radio-carbon process created by a diet heavy in marine foods. Their re-analysis accounted for that factor and determined that the bodies are all deposited in the late ninth century (Jarman et al. 2018).

§32. The Viking Great Army also camped at Torksey, Lincolnshire, in 872–873. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle emphasizes the Army's martial depredations here and elsewhere. The Torksey Project is exploring evidence for a more complex set of interactions between the army and Anglo-Saxon populations. Via analysis of metal detectorists finds (and collaboration with detectorists to improve the precision of find records), Richards and Haldenby (2018) argue that the army was larger than has often been assumed, included a substantial number of women, and engaged in trade with Anglo-Saxon communities.

§33. Several of the studies referenced in this column are connected to the work of avocational metal detectorists. The relationship between their work and professional archaeological research remains contentious (see Temiño et al. 2019 and Deckers et al. 2018).

§34. The settlement of Iceland has long been a matter of debate. Some argue that colonization occurred from Norway after the deposition of "the settlement layer" (a layer of volcanic tephra in 869–73). Others argue colonization occurred earlier. Excavations in East Iceland have identified a large longhouse below the settlement layer. Reports suggest that the site reflects a distinct early phase of colonization: seasonal camps associated with collecting ivory and other raw materials.

§35. Ancient DNA research continues illuminating the population dymanics of early Iceland. Ebenesersdóttir et al. (2018) extracted material from 27 ancient skulls and found that that the early Icelandic population was almost evenly balanced between those of Gaelic and Norse ancestry, but that over the following centuries, genes from Norse ancestry became significantly more prominent, rising to 70% among modern Icelanders. While modern in-migration from Denmark is one factor, the researchers also identify genetic drift and differential reproductive success as long-term factors.

§36. Several new studies examine Norse settlement in Greenland. Jackson et al. (2018) synthesize existing knowledge about settlement with new survey work and then examine the results in terms of niche construction theory, yielding greater sensitivity to the flexibility of Norse adaptations. Star et al. (2018) report on results of research on the DNA of walrus remains found at medieval trade centers around Europe. Since Greenland walrus are genetically distinct from European walrus, the researchers were able to identify that Greenland colonies had a near monopoly on the ivory trade for several centuries and that walrus ivory is rare after 1400. The switch is implicated in the decline of the Greenland Norse settlements.

§37. While Greenland is often associated with Norse settlement, its glaciers are a crucial resource for world climate studies. One new study tracks environmental pollution from lead production between 1100 BCE and 800 CE. A study from the 1990s established the presence of lead particles in Greenland glaciers from Roman production. This new study has far greater (sub-annual) resolution that allows for much more fine grained analysis. For example, the study found a steep decline in 165 CE coinciding with the Antonine Plague. A research team from Northumbria University extends evidence for ancient environmental pollution back even further: to 3600 BCE in the Balkans.

§38. Geologists usually place the start of the Anthropocene—the geological epoch characterized by human driven changes—at some point in the last few centuries. The new pollution studies make me wonder if its beginnings are considerably earlier.

§39. For a general review paleo-climate studies consult The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History (White et al. 2018), which includes chapters on general climate science and histories of specific localities/times, such as "The climate downturn of 536–50" and "European Middle Ages."

§40. Ancient DNA research continues to make important contributions. Neolithic-era skeletons excavated in Russia and Sweden demonstrate that plague bacteria (Yersinia pestis) infected humans thousands of years before the Black Plague in the fourteenth century. Another study suggests that the Justinian Plague (541 CE) came from the east with people known to Romans as Huns, not from Egypt.

§41. 2018 also produced an impressive array of multi-disciplinary projects connecting DNA researchers with experts from other parts of medieval studies. Research teams explored manuscript production via ancient DNA from vellum (Teasdale et al. 2017). Several new studies engage DNA studies with questions about the negotiation of individual and ethnic identities. One study of thirteen male skeletons buried with fairly uniform material culture in an Alemannic cemetery found that those buried were of diverse geographic origins.

§42. A study of Longobard graves in Italy and Hungary also found a mix of genetic backgrounds, but, in contrast to the Alemannic case, genetic differences were consistently marked by material culture differences. Richly furnished graves had genetic affiliations with northern and central Europe. More modestly furnished graves were closer to southern European populations.

§43. Archaeologists have long puzzled over a set of female skulls from early medieval Bavaria that show cranial deformation, a practice otherwise known from Eastern Europe and the steppes. Genetic analysis has shown that the women are likely to have migrated from eastern Europe. The study also identified two female skulls without modifications that were also non-local. The evidence of female mobility is all the more fascinating because their accompanying grave goods are quite similar to that of the rest of the population.

§44. A study of DNA and strontium isotopes from 38 burials in the Viking-era town Sigtuna also shows evidence of female mobility. Seventy percent of the females and 40% of the males in the burials—which date between the 10th and 12th centuries—are non-local.

§45. New "high-tech" studies tend to garner lots of attention. This column is no exception. But, Pam Crabtree has published a helpful reminder that "low-tech" methods should not be forgotten (2018). Researchers working on medieval Ethiopia are blending high and low tech methods by using historical maps and Google images to understand the archaeology of an area underserved by archaeological survey.

§46. One of the most striking features of 2018 in medieval archaeology is a surge of attention to political economy. Some bring new empirical techniques to bear on long standing questions, such as Hannah et al. (2018) who compare evidence for increasing social hierarchy with results of isotope analysis. They found little dietary difference across what otherwise appear to be distinct social strata. A similar study of early medieval Bohemia did find differences in diet of upper and lower status populations (Kaupová et al. 2018). Researchers from Trinity College Dublin are using mapping technology to garner fresh insights on the distribution of wealth at circa 1300 in Ireland.

§47. Other works reflect renewed efforts at forging narratives about medieval Europe that move beyond national narratives. Duncan Wright (2018) reviews a triumvirate of books reflects a decade long trend toward this "broader remit." Similarly, in a commemoration of Klavs Randsborg, Richard Hodges (2017) calls for more attention to the pivotal role Charlemagne's correctio had across Europe, even down to current turmoil in the EU. Mitchell et al. (2017) explores how Richard Hodges political economic perspectives continue shaping research.

§48. Other studies remained fixed on a single region but make similar calls for a reconsideration for political economy. Runge et al. (2018) propose a new perspective on the urbanization of medieval Odense. Gundersen and Larsen (2018) critique Runge's views. Jervis (2017) urges a shift away from narratives centered on the commercialization of the English economy. Jervis advocates more variable concepts of how social selves are negotiated via objects and the recognition that the variable negotiations foster different political economies. This article and the accompanying comments provide a stimulating survey of current perspectives. Soderberg (2017) urges a similar perspective on the roles of religion in early medieval Irish urbanism.

§49. Thomas et al. (2017) make a call for approaches to religion that is similar to Wright's call for political economy: shift to long-term and cross-cultural as opposed to focused on national traditions. Lash (2018a) echoes Jervis' call for a relational approach by adopting a taskscape perspective on penitential devotion in medieval Ireland. Lash (2018b) elaborates the same perspective in a modern ethnographic context.

§50. 2018 was a good year for those interested in "pre-Christian Celtic" religions. Archaeologists working in east England found a five-centimeter tall copper alloy figurine holding a torque that excavator associate with Cernunnos. Study of some of the skulls excavated from the late Iron Age site of Le Cailar in southern France show signs of having been embalmed, likely in preparation for being displayed (Ghezal et al. 2019).

§51. Other publications 2018 publications on religion include Zori (2018) on Viking pre-Christian rites of passage and feasting and Pudney (2018) on coins and cosmologies in Iron Age Britain. Livarda et al.'s The Bioarchaeology of Ritual and Religion (2018) has several articles on Roman, Gallo-Roman, and Iron Age rituals with humans and animals.

§52. 2018 has also produced a large crop of synthetic studies, including Lewis (2018) on fifty recent finds dating between 1050 and 1550 from the British Portable Antiquities Scheme. Gandila (2018) on Byzantium's northern frontier. Salvadori (2018) on zooarchaeological studies of the transition from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages, and Seetah (2018) on the history and archaeology of the Indian Ocean, including the medieval period.

§53. Oxford released several handbooks and dictionaries on topics of medieval interest, including Late Antiquity (Nicholson 2018), later medieval archaeology in Britain (Gerrard and Gutierrez 2018), the archaeology of early Christianity (Pettegrew et al. 2018), early Christian ritual (Uro et al. 2019).

§54. This column is an effort to foregound some positive moments from 2018. But, archaeology certainly does not operate outside the gravitational pull of other forces. Some of those other forces were on view in reactions to the announcement that grains of lapis lazuli had been identified in the dental calculus of a medieval female buried at a woman's monastery in central Germany.

§55. An impressively multi-disciplinary research team concluded that the most likely scenario for its presence is that the woman was a scribe illuminating manuscripts (Radini et al. 2019). The discovery provides evocative evidence for female scribes and illuminators. It also provides a reminder of their integration into the systems bringing lapis lazuli from Afghanistan to what the authors characterize as an "otherwise unremarkable female community in northern Germany."

§56. But, I found the dismissals of the possibility of female scribes chilling. Recognition that female scribes existed is hardly a novel one. Well over a decade ago, Alison Beach, a co-author on the lapis lazuli paper, published Women as Scribes (2004 Cambridge University Press). But, Christina Warinner recounts that an expert flatly rejected the possibility of female scribes working with precious material, suggesting that she might have been a cleaning woman. Here is to hope for 2019.

Notes

1. See also 'Painted People' in Scotland Developed Written Language 1,700 Years Ago and New Dating of Pictish Sites Reveals Early Origins of Written Communication in Northern Britain. [Back]

2. Burning Questions at Dun Deardail and Archaeologists Solve Ancient Mystery of 'Melted' Iron Age Fort [Back]

3. For a review of recent work at Tintagel see A Dark Age Beacon. [Back]

4. See Borgring Fortress Discovery: Dendrochronological Dating Results, Thousand-Year-Old Viking Fortress Reveals a Technologically Advanced Society, and Vikingeborgen. [Back]

5. See also Ancient DNA from Viking Graves Proves the Fierce Fighters Rode Male Horses and Viking Men Buried Themselves with Stallions and Ate the Mares. [Back]

6. See in particular her references to earlier versions in the footnotes of that post. [Back]

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