![]() ![]() In this chapter, we provide a critical review of a number of previously identifiekad ‘proxies’ for slavery in the archaeological record. While many aspects of slaving during the period remain obscure, archaeologists have increasingly sought to untangle the numerous threads of evidence that might speak to these practices and the ways in which they were conceptualised and implemented among communities. The societies of Viking-Age Scandinavia have long-been known to have exploited enslaved populations. The analysis points towards diversity following a north-south gradient in terms of dietary preferences (δ¹☼/δ¹⁵N), which demonstrates a higher degree of marine consumption in northern Norway, as opposed to the southern regions similar patterns are also observed through the mobility study (δ¹⁸O), which uncovers high levels of migration in the study population. Results of multi-isotope analyses (δ¹⁸O/δ¹☼/δ¹⁵N) in tandem with a cultural historical approach question the hegemonic masculinity associated with the ‘violent Vikings’ and the apparent preconception of stationary women and mobile males in Viking Age Norway, thus challenging conjectural behavioural distinctions between women, men and children. Based on a framework of radiocarbon dates (¹⁴C), the studied inhumation graves are distributed across a broad chronological and geographical scope, covering the Late Iron and Viking Age (c. Multi-isotope studies from human remains from Viking Age graves throughout Norway allow for a deeper understanding of mobility, livelihood and social organization during the Viking Age (750–1050 CE). It is argued that coalitions and conflicts that arose from these interests, and new constraints and opportunities that emerged for these three types of agents, provide keys to understanding why and where Vikings raided overseas up to the mid-ninth century. The peak in this trade on the threshold of the Viking Age invites a reconsideration of the coinciding and conflicting interests of Scandinavian long-distance traders, kings, and Vikings. Because of their high numbers and durability, whetstones retrieved in Ribe and other urban sites may be regarded as a proxy for long-distance seaborne trade from the Arctic. ![]() Geological analyses of whetstones retrieved in eighth- to early ninth-century Ribe, south-western Jylland, in present-day western Denmark, demonstrate that the majority were quarried near the aristocratic manor Lade (‘loading/storing place’) in Trøndelag, present-day central Norway, some 1100 km by sea to the north. 890, but in light of this paper’s findings, its history may be pushed further back in time. ![]() Hitherto, the earliest firm evidence of this trade has been Ohthere’s account c. During the Viking Age, Arctic Scandinavia was a source of exquisite furs, down, walrus ivory, and other commodities that met with high demand in England and on the Continent. ![]()
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