Vikings Into Dental Health

 Science Alert, Scientists Studied 3,000 Viking Teeth And Discovered Surprisingly Advanced Dentistry

A new analysis of Viking-era teeth – dating back around a thousand years – has given us some interesting insight into the dentistry of the time, which looks to have been more advanced than previously thought.

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg and the Västergötlands Museum in Sweden looked at a total of 3,293 teeth from 171 of the Nordic marauders, including both kids and adults.

Modern-day dentistry assessments were carried out on the teeth, including the use of X-ray scans and dental probes, and it turns out that these Scandinavians didn't just leave their teeth to rot and decay.   "There were several signs that the Vikings had modified their teeth, including evidence of using toothpicks, filing front teeth, and even dental treatment of teeth with infections," says Carolina Bertilsson, an odontologist from the University of Gothenburg.

The teeth date back to the 10–12th centuries CE and were collected from the well-known Varnhem archaeological dig in Sweden. The site is notable for soil conditions that favor the preservation of remains, including bones and teeth. Of the adult teeth analyzed, 13 percent were shown to be affected by caries or cavities, often on the surface of the roots. Tooth loss was common too, with adults having lost an average of 6 percent of their teeth, excluding the wisdom teeth.

However, teeth collected from children aged under 12 showed no signs of tooth decay.  

Notably, evidence of dental treatment was also seen, including attempts to fill in the holes created by molars – most probably to provide some relief from the toothache that would come as a result of infection. "This is very exciting to see, and not unlike the dental treatments we carry out today when we drill into infected teeth," says Bertilsson. "The Vikings seem to have had knowledge about teeth, but we don't know whether they did these procedures themselves or had help."

As for the deliberate filing of front teeth found in one individual, the researchers think this might have been for the purposes of identifying the person for some reason. It's something that's been seen in other studies.

Teeth are made of strong stuff, which makes them more likely to be preserved in the ground, giving us fascinating clues about ancient people.

Another finding of note is that by the age of 40, tooth loss was a far bigger problem for the Varnhem Vikings than tooth decay – even with their toothpicks and rudimentary treatments. "This study provides new insights into Viking oral health, and indicates that teeth were important in Varnhem's Viking culture," says Bertilsson.

I suspect if you looked at almost any sort of early civilized culture, you'd find similar concern for dental health, and some occasionally helpful interventions. 

The Wombat has Rule 5 Monday: Happy Lee-Jackson Day! up and at 'em at The Other McCain.

Tuesday Tunes - Chain of the Golden Horn

Leave's Eyes:

 . . .  is a German symphonic metal band from Germany and Norway.  They were formed in 2003 by Liv Kristine, formerly the lead singer of Theatre of Tragedy, and the entire line-up of Atrocity. To date, the band has released seven studio albums, a single, six EPs, one live album and a DVD.

Most of Leaves' Eyes' lyrics, written by Liv Kristine until her departure in 2016, concern Norse mythology and the Viking Age. The melodic singing vocals of Liv Kristine and her replacement Elina Siirala are occasionally backed up by death growled vocals from Krull, identified under the vocal style Kristine refers to as "beauty and the beast".

Interesting, but not really my genre.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Hedley Lamarr Presents The Teutonic Titwillow, Lili von Shtupp! ready and willing.

DNA Confirms Viking Warrior Woman

Shades of Lagertha Viking skeleton’s DNA test proves historians wrong

The remains of a powerful Viking — long thought to be a man — was in fact a real-life Xena Warrior Princess, a study released Friday reveals.

The lady war boss was buried in the mid-10th century along with deadly weapons and two horses, leading archaeologists and historians to assume she was a man, according to the findings published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Wrong.

“It’s actually a woman, somewhere over the age of 30 and fairly tall, too, measuring around [5 feet 6 inches] tall,” archaeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University, who conducted the study, told The Local.

And she was likely in charge.

“Aside from the complete warrior equipment buried along with her — a sword, an ax, a spear, armor-piercing arrows, a battle knife, shields, and two horses — she had a board game in her lap, or more of a war-planning game used to try out battle tactics and strategies, which indicates she was a powerful military leader,” Hedenstierna-Jonson said. “She’s most likely planned, led and taken part in battles.”

The discovery marks the first genetic proof that women were Viking warriors, according to science publication Phys.org.

The Viking grave was first found and excavated by Swedish archaeologist Hjalmar Stolpe in the late 1800s.

But a few years ago, osteologist Anna Kjellström of Stockholm University noticed its skeleton had fine cheekbones and feminine hip bones, researches said.

They conducted DNA analysis and confirmed it was a female.

The old stories score another victory.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Joy Harmon up on time at The Other McCain.

Melting Glaciers Reveal Lost Civilization

Reindeer hunter stumbles upon 1,100-year-old Viking sword

The incredibly well-preserved Viking sword was found by a reindeer hunter on a remote mountain in Southern Norway.

The Glacier Archaeology Program at Oppland County Council was recently notified about the sword, which was found in late August in the high mountains of the Lesja area. “It is a common type of Viking sword – what makes it special is the context and the preservation: It was found at 5381 feet above sea level,” explained Lars Pilø, an archaeologist at Oppland County Council, in an email to Fox News. “To my knowledge, a Viking sword has never been found at such a high altitude before.”

That is in remarkably good shape! A little emery cloth, and a sharpening and it would be functional!

Researchers accompanied hunter Einar Ambakk, who found the sword, back to the site with a metal detector, but were unable to find any other artifacts nearby.

Pilø told Fox News that the sword had been lying on the mountain surface for around 1,100 years. “That a sword should survive more than a thousand years in the open is hard for some people to believe,” he explained, but added that, for professional glacier and high altitude archaeologists, it is less surprising. “Previously we have found iron arrowheads that are even older, with the same degree of preservation,” he added.

Well, it could have belonged to a Viking shield woman like Lagertha, right?

Pilø attributed the sword’s incredible preservation to the excellent quality of Viking iron, as well as the cold, dry conditions on the mountain. Additionally, the sword was found lying in scree, or small, loose stones, as opposed to soil, which helped preserve it, he said. “Just to be clear: the sword is not from the ice, though of course it would have been covered with snow and ice for much of the year,” he said.

In a post on the Glacier Archaeology Program’s website, Secrets of the Ice, Pilø speculates that, given the inhospitable terrain, it is possible that the sword’s owner became lost during a blizzard. “It seems likely that the sword belonged to a Viking who died on the mountain, perhaps from exposure,” he said. “However, if that is indeed the case, was he traveling in the high mountains with only his sword? It is a bit of a mystery…”

In his email to Fox News, Pilø explained that retreating glaciers and ice patches have revealed a trove of artifacts in Oppland County. “We have more than half of such finds worldwide, the oldest dating back 6,000 years,” he said. “The retreat of mountain glaciers and ice patches here in Oppland is part of a worldwide phenomenon linked to climate change.”

The Viking age occurred during the height of the Medieval Warm period. It is quite possible for an artifact dropped at high altitude to have been covered by a mountain glacier during the subsequent  Little Ice Age and thaw out in the recent warm period. It's climate change, all right.

New glacier forming in California?

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Not All That Obscure" up and ready for business.

US Coast Guard vs. Vikings

So far, the bureaucrats are winning: World's Largest Viking Ship Might be Defeated by U.S. Coast Guard

The world's largest Viking ship has encountered an unexpected enemy: American bureaucracy.

The Draken Harald Hårfagre, which began sailing in 2012, is 115 feet from stem to stern, 26-feet wide, has a 2,798-square foot silk sail, and a Douglas fir mast 79-feet tall. Built with over 10,000 nails and detailed ornamentation, the Harald Hårfagre, named after the first king of Norway, travels the world reminding everyone how epic the ancient Vikings were. It was funded by Sigurd Aase, a Norwegian oil and gas tycoon.

 How cool!

However, Aase's ship has hit an unexpected dilemma in America. At first glance, the Tall Ships Duluth festival would be a perfect fit for the Harald Hårfagre. A "rare chance to catch a glimpse, step aboard, and even set sail on some of the grandest ships of yore," Tall Ships celebrates nautical traditions in the Great Lakes partially located on the Canadian-American border. When the Hårfagre crossed the American border for the festival it was approached by the Coast Guard, which informed the team that it needed a ship's pilot. The ship, of course, had a captain, but there's a large difference a captain and a pilot. The Coast Guard says the Hårfagre was notified of the need for a pilot last February.

I was on an oceanographic ship a few times when pilot was needed. It's interesting how they get on board a moving ship, and take over the ship. Captains don't like it, though.

The question comes down to if the Harald Hårfagre is engaged in commerce. Because the Hårfagre charges admission and takes tickets, the Coast Guard has ruled that it's a business ship and requires a pilot. Sarah Blank, spokeswoman for the Hårfagre, disagrees. "For us to have tickets, admissions or appearances, it's not a commercial interest," she told MLive. "It's because otherwise, we are not able to fund our expedition at all." A statement released on the ship's website refers to Hårfagre as a "non-profit sail training vessel."

Charities in the United States normally get around these perky rules by calling their fees "donations". Walk up to the  door of the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York, and ask. They'll let you in. It's too bad the Vikings need a good lawyer.

A ship's pilot is a nice profession, with pilots typically charging $400 per hour. It's estimated that the Harald Hårfagre would need $400,000 to cover its entire time in the Great Lakes. "The fees are just not possible for a project like Draken Harald Hårfagre to pay," Aase, the chariman of Crudecorp, said in a statement. Although it is currently docked in Bay City, Michigan, if nothing changes the ship plans to turn around and head back to Norway.

Of course, the Viking ships were designed for shallow waters, and to be beached during landings so a pilot should be completely unnecessary. I also assume that somewhere on board is a GPS and a modern depth finder, which would help even more.

A Second Viking Site Found in North America?

Not much to look at

Discovery Could Rewrite History of Vikings in New World

It’s a two-mile trudge through forested, swampy ground to reach Point Rosee, a narrow, windswept peninsula stretching from southern Newfoundland into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Last June, a team of archaeologists was drawn to this remote part of Canada by a modern-day treasure map: satellite imagery revealing ground features that could be evidence of past human activity.

 Just one word: satellites!

To date, the only confirmed Viking site in the New World is L’Anse aux Meadows, a thousand-year-old way station discovered in 1960 on the northern tip of Newfoundland. It was a temporary settlement, abandoned after just a few years, and archaeologists have spent the past half-century searching for elusive signs of other Norse expeditions.

“The sagas suggest a short period of activity and a very brief and failed colonization attempt,” says Douglas Bolender, an archaeologist specializing in Norse settlements. “L’Anse aux Meadows fits well with that story but is only one site. Point Rosee could reinforce that story or completely change it if the dating is different from L’Anse aux Meadows. We could end up with a much longer period of Norse activity in the New World.”

The site of the discovery, hundreds of miles south of L’Anse aux Meadows, was located by archaeologist Sarah Parcak, a National Geographic Fellow and “space archaeologist” who has used satellite imagery to locate lost Egyptian cities, temples, and tombs.

Basically, the changes soil height and drainage caused by the old human works cause changes in the vegetation that can be seen on satellite images, looking at certain color bands.

 Parcak led a team of archaeologists to Point Rosee last summer to conduct a “test excavation,” a small-scale dig to search for initial evidence that the site merits further study. The scientists unearthed an iron-working hearth partially surrounded by the remains of what appears to have been a turf wall.

The archaeologists don’t yet have enough evidence to confirm that Vikings built the hearth. Other peoples lived in Newfoundland centuries ago, including Native Americans and Basque fisherman. But experts are cautiously optimistic.

“A site like Point Rosee has the potential to reveal what that initial wave of Norse colonization looked like not only for Newfoundland but for the rest of the North Atlantic,” says Bolender.

While of great historical interest, the Viking colonization of North America didn't amount to much. It left no substantial settlements, no genetic traces in the native populations that anyone has been able to find. Ultimately a dead end. But maybe it was a useful way to get rid of some malcontents.

The Norse didn’t do much mining. Most of their iron was harvested from peat bogs, and their very way of life depended upon it. Metal nails held their ships together as they sailed west—expanding their realm across the North Atlantic—and south, establishing trade routes throughout Europe and the Far East. A modern-day reconstruction of a Norse longship, built by the Viking Ship Museum in Denmark, required 7,000 nails made from 880 pounds (400 kg) of iron—which means that a blacksmith would have had to heat and process 30 tons of raw bog iron ore.

Bog iron prospectors knew what telltale signs to look for, such as an oily looking microbial slick on the surface of stagnant water. In fact, three historians authored a study making the case that iron was a prerequisite for Viking settlements. L’Anse aux Meadows, they observe, was a site used for iron production and ship maintenance, providing evidence “that the explorers, knowing their ships needed repair, actively sought out a location where they could acquire bog iron and produce new nails.”

Awe, come on, we know they used it to make swords, axes, hammers and spear points, and only used the scraps to make nails.

 Was Point Rosee a Viking outpost a thousand or so years ago? The evidence thus far is promising. The turf structure that partially surrounds the hearth is nothing like the shelters built by indigenous peoples who lived in Newfoundland at the time, nor by Basque fishermen and whalers who arrived in the 16th century. And, while iron slag may be fairly generic, “there aren’t any known cultures—prehistoric or modern—that would have been mining and roasting bog iron ore in Newfoundland other than the Norse,” says Bolender.

So it seems likely. Was it close to a real settlement, or was it just a defensible place to collect and do the first step in preparing the iron ore for smelting?

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Time Begins on Opening Day" and "FMJRA 2.0: Headhunter (Egg Salad Remix)" ready for sampling at The Other McCain.

The Vikings of Cheboygan?

USA: Viking Artifacts Discovered Near Great Lakes

Michigan| A group of amateur archaeologists searching for the remains of a native american settlements near the town of Cheboygan, on the coast of Lake Huron, have uncovered a large quantity of artefacts, allegedly of Norse or Viking origin. A total of 194 objects, mostly made from various metals including silver, iron, copper and tin, were found on what could be the site of an ancient viking trade post, controlling the Straights of Mackinac, that leads to Lake Michigan.

Seems like pretty solid evidence, or an extensive and very expensive hoax. Hoaxes aren't unknown in science, but I choose to hope that this finding proves true.

The artefacts are of various nature and geographical origin. Swords, axes and other weapons from Scandinavian or Germanic origin, silver buttons and a balance scale allegedly from the British isles, hair combs and knife handles made of walrus ivory and originating from Greenland or Iceland… The presence of all these goods suggests an elaborate and efficient economic system based on long-distance trade.

Archaeologists had been searching the eastern coast of North America for signs of the passage of Norsemen, ever since the discovery in 1960 of the site of l’Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland, Canada. Many items found on that first site had suggested that an elaborate network of trade existed between that specific Norse colony and the American continent. Such clues included the remains of butternuts, which didn’t grow on any land north of the province of New Brunswick, and therefore had to be “imported”. Other possible Norse outposts were identified in 2012, in Nanook, in the Tanfield Valley on Baffin Island, as well as in Nunguvik, on the Willows Island and the Avayalik Islands.

This is very interesting.  What happened to the Viking settlements in the New World?  We know that the Viking settlements in Greenland petered out as the the climate cooled at the end of the medieval warm period, and agriculture there became no longer viable. Hower, they were in contact with the Viking settlements in Iceland throughout the era, and it's thought the last settlers there sailed back to Iceland.

This is however the first Viking settlement discovered in the area of the North American Great Lakes, and this could bring a lot of new information concerning the actual extent of their trade network on the continent. The site is strategically located to enable control of the waterways leading to both Lake Michigan and Lake Erie, while enabling a navigable access to the St-Lawrence Bassin and the Atlantic Ocean. All of the items already already recovered have been transfered for further analysis to the Department of Archaeology of the University of Michigan, which has also inherited the responsability for the site. Further research should be done over the next months to complete the survey of the site and gather all possible remaining artefacts.

But what about American settlements?  Were they cut off when their compatriots left Greenland, or did they too, make their way back across the Atlantic?  If they were cut off, did they persist in America for some period of time, and breed into the local population. Can we find traces of the European genes in the Indians Native Americans of the the East Coast and Great Lakes region? Or were they massacred without leaving behind genetic evidence.

Wombat-socho has the Mother of All Rule 5 posts: "Rule 5 Sunday: The Fremont Street Experience" up at The Other McCain, despite the distraction of Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas!

Rule 5 Saturday - The Hot New Viking - Alyssa Sutherland

 Last year, right around this time, I did a Rule 5 post on the Girls of Vikings, the History Channel show based loosely on the life and times of Vikings around the time they first started raiding the British Isles.  That old post has become very popular in the last few weeks, as the new season of the show has begun to air.  In the last episode of the first season (after my post) they introduced a new character, Princess Aslaug played by Alyssa Sutherland, the alleged daughter of dragon slayer Sigurd and shield-maiden Brunhilde.  She and the protagonist, get it on, and thus endeth the season.

In the beginning of the second season (which I confess to being a little behind on watching), she shows up pregnant, with a retinue of fellow, uh, hot Viking chicks (left) and proceeds to make havoc of Ragnar's stormy marriage with Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), who tends not to take things lying down, or at least maybe only one thing. That's about as far as I am currently.

Alyssa Sutherland is an Australian model and actor, with emphasis on the model part, although she has played parts in "The Devil Wears Prada" (2006), "Day On Fire" (2006) and "Don't Look Up" (2009), as well as 'The Flake Girl' in the iconic Cadbury's Chocolate ad.

More Alyssa below the fold.