It's what the Vikings did

[boatman]

Not outdoors at all but this Easter I shall be in the Falmouth Maritime Museum supporting their long running Viking Voyagers exhibition. Being Easter it involves chocolate where greedy little pagans cast their own chocolate Thor's hammers. I will be starting each session telling the children and parents about how real metal was got from the ore and cast into metal objects using flint and steel for the fire and what natural products were used for this and daily life.

Of course I will not present myself as a Viking but as an English or Anglo-Saxon who traded with them and something of the outdoor and sailing life. Nice little things bring the past into the present, for example, Old English for ship was scip that might have been pronounced "ship" or "skip" (see "skipper"). Or that the Anglo-Saxon for book was bóc.

 

[boatman]

http://www.nmmc.co.uk/index.php?/wh...landing_at_national_maritime_museum_cornwall/

 

[Goatboy]

I'm on my phone so can't follow your link Boatman (service is mercifully bad here). Sounds like a great time is going to be had and a lot is going to be learnt. I find the blending of Easter and Pagans quite funny as in my head I feel part of the reasons for the Viking raids were in part prompted by the Christian expansion of the likes of Charlamane (oh my spelling is off today!) (Sorry I know we don't discuss religion on the boards so I'll stop there.)
Be good to hear how it all goes if you feel like letting us know after the fact? Do you think that the popularity of your "favourite" show Vikings will help draw in the visitors? At least you can set them right on some of the more spurious portrayals.
Hope you have fun and looking forward to hearing how it goes, not driving at the moment so I'm having withdrawals of getting to good museums and attractions these days; the Loch Tay Crannog centre has just re-opened for the season and they sent me a teasing email the other day.
ATB,
GB.

Sent via smokesignal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Toddy]

The Viking's suddenly had a problem at home of population pressure.
The development in their iron making led to better ploughs, more land could be opened up for crops, more children survived, and within twenty years those children themselves were having children…..and so on until there were real problems. From about 500ce we know of the production of iron in Viking areas.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...TQ57ZI-D6xOc13QWScxO9cQ&bvm=bv.89947451,d.d24

They were the people of the Viks, the fjords, with virtually no roadways everything moved by water; that made them sea traders, and the rest just kind of led on from that.

Sounds like a good day Boatman you'll be talked out by the end of it and still on a rush of people and information and connections made
Have fun.

M

 

[Goatboy]

Aye Toddy I know that that's the main reason for their expansion out and raids but the big empire of Charlamane was having a bit of an early crusade against the pagan tribes and also wouldn't trade with non-believers, prompting some early adopters of their belief in the likes of Harald Bluetooth as a sort of hedgebetting excercise. I think that there was a pressure felt as well as the need for physical space.

Sent via smokesignal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Toddy]

Hmmm, maybe….but their attacks were on Christianised areas and loot was a major attractant.
If you want to see some of the best examples of British made (English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Pictish….the whole caboodle) fine metalwork, then best head to some Scandinavian museums.
Their first graves here are only two generations pagan, and we find grave goods, then it changes quite dramatically and their graves are E/W aligned, no longer crouched inhumations either, but laid out like logs and clearly Christian.
If their push was in response to Charlemagne's efforts, it's a bit of a long shot to the Shetlands, the Hebrides, to sieges at Dunbarton or to Dublin and the like from the Continent.
Not saying it wasn't all part of the whole, but I don't think it's a fundamental underpinning the same way the exploitation of iron was, iimmc.

M

 

[Goatboy]

I agree that it wasn't the over-riding factor but just part of the mix that makes history such a rich cake.
One of the things with som of the historians that say if such had happened instead of this or that is that there are so many converging factors that lead us to where we are today. Like that background flavour that gives the cake it's full taste if I can overstretch my point to breaking point.
It was a period of huge upheaval and change both with new technologies and ways of thinking and belief. I think it's one of the reasons why I'm so drawn to history, trying to get an impression in my mind as to why things happen to make us what we are.

Sent via smokesignal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Qwerty]

Their first graves here are only two generations pagan, and we find grave goods, then it changes quite dramatically and their graves are E/W aligned, no longer crouched inhumations either, but laid out like logs and clearly Christian.
M

Science is a wonderful thing and Dublin is now giving up more information that shows how the arrival and settlement date is much earlier than presumed or recorded.

http://www.archaeology.org/issues/168-1503/features/2969-ireland-dublin-early-viking-prescence

 

[demographic]

Science is a wonderful thing and Dublin is now giving up more information that shows how the arrival and settlement date is much earlier than presumed or recorded.

http://www.archaeology.org/issues/168-1503/features/2969-ireland-dublin-early-viking-prescence

I was slightly amused recently when I read THIS article about the genetic makeup of the residents of the UK, it shows that although the Vikings invaded they didn't leave much of a genetic trace.
Which basically means that most of the people who fancy themselves as a Viking, aren't.

 

[John Lee]

I was slightly amused recently when I read THIS article about the genetic makeup of the residents of the UK, it shows that although the Vikings invaded they didn't leave much of a genetic trace.
Which basically means that most of the people who fancy themselves as a Viking, aren't.

First, I'd like to say that the folks on BCUK are more informed than many on other forums. It's always fun as well as educational to read the BCUK forum. I always thought the Vikings were spreading their genetic seeds wherever they invaded. As my Uncle Joe said, "those boys weren't just sitting around playing with themselves." Same theory about the Romans. If that theory is true, Yorkshire should be populated by descendants of both Vikings and Romans.

 

[Goatboy]

The genetic links for ancestry are a statistical nightmare. Britain has had visitors and invaders for so long, often by succesive groups of closely related peoples. Friessians, Angles, Jutes, Normans the list goes on. Trying to winnow through all that wheb the starting countries also had incomers to try and find a genetic marker is a nightmare. Sure I remember reading somewhere about a chap who's DNA was a very close match to Iron Age remains that were found near to his home, giving him quite a link to the area. Also how incomers integrated themselves. Did they take over en mass or were they a small group at the top of a broad pinacle. Were the supposedly native peoples even native? Or were they a mix of folk who'd trickled here over time.
Personally think that one of the things that made "Britain" quite so succesful was that it's been made up of progressive layers of inovative incomers that blended together and that language and culture absorbed each other taking all the best bits from each.

Sent via smokesignal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Toddy]

I reckon that as long as folks have built boats then they've traded their way around the sea lanes

I know that humanity is a cline…that regardless of how different we might look around the world, we can successfully breed fertile offspring. That makes us one species.

I firmly suspect that sailors and seafaring folks have always 'exchanged genes' and spread goods and knowledge and gossip around their routes. For an island people I think we no longer make as much use as we ought of the waters. We've become too reliant on massive road networks. Effective though they might be, they're dreadfully inefficient and wasteful.

Healthiest dog is the mongrel, maybe it's a good thing to get the gene pool stirred up a bit on occasion, just that we could do without the war-mongering.

Interesting reading on the links folks and a good thread Boatman


M

 

[demographic]

First, I'd like to say that the folks on BCUK are more informed than many on other forums. It's always fun as well as educational to read the BCUK forum. I always thought the Vikings were spreading their genetic seeds wherever they invaded. As my Uncle Joe said, "those boys weren't just sitting around playing with themselves." Same theory about the Romans. If that theory is true, Yorkshire should be populated by descendants of both Vikings and Romans.

Seems from that article about genetics that they tended to rule the place but not mix much with the locals.
Maybe they were Jaffas*?
Rhythm method?




*Practically seedless.

 

[Wayland]

I was slightly amused recently when I read THIS article about the genetic makeup of the residents of the UK, it shows that although the Vikings invaded they didn't leave much of a genetic trace.
Which basically means that most of the people who fancy themselves as a Viking, aren't.

Part of the problem back when the old "Blood of the Vikings" tests were done was that the Danish and Swedish chromosomes were almost identical to the resident Anglo Saxon chromosome. That was some time ago so things may have improved since then.

The more isolated Norwegian chromosomes were easier to track and showed up strongly in Ireland, the Scottish Isles and Westmoreland, my paternal home ground. Which seems to be supported by the map but not mentioned in the article?

In fact, the strongest link they originally found on the mainland came from just south of Penrith, almost exactly where my father was born along with at least the last twelve generations of his family on both sides.

Scandinavian surnames are scattered all over the family tree on that side from about seven or eight generations back.

My mothers side on the other hand look to be pretty much A/S with a few Huguenots in the later generations. In fact her maiden name is about as A/S as it gets without an Æ to start it off.

 

[nic a char]

but then there are the place-names, and http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/h...gs-carried-redhead-gene-to-scotland-1-3200177...

 

[Toddy]

The place names are a mix. We have Pictish place names, British (pre Roman) place names, Gaelic place names as well as the ones in the areas that the vikings settled.
All the farmstead names are classic to the areas folks settled.

As for the redheaded bit, that's long pre-Viking here. The Greeks and Romans knew of the people of these islands and red hair, and they both pre-date the Vikings by hundreds of years. Besides, they reckon that the Neanderthals carried the red hair too.

"Scotland has the highest proportion of redheads; 10% of the population has red hair and approximately 35% carries the recessive redhead gene. Ireland has the second highest percentage….and a 1956 study of hair colour amongst British army recruits also found high levels of red hair in Wales and the English Border counties."
M

 

[Tengu]

Where do the dark haired Shetlanders come into it?

 

[Toddy]

Where do the dark haired Shetlanders come into it?

Ancient British stock apparantly, or the later incomers from post-Viking rule when the King of Scots took over.

http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/vikingorkney/genetics.htm

M

 

[xylaria]

Did north scotland ever have a pigmy tribe? Werent the picts dark little people.

The norse have by legend been known as tall and pale, quite a few native shetlanders looked like bjork. Short dark with almost olive skin some with a tendency to oblique eyes. The islands I visited there was a very restricted pool of indigenous surnames.

 

[Goatboy]

Did north Scotland ever have a pigmy tribe? Werent the picts dark little people.

Yes they were called the "Whereami" tribe and lived among the tall grass areas in Sutherland.

Seriously yes the Picts were reconed to be pretty small in stature though there's frustratingly very little information about them. Though I was lucky to grow up not too far from Meigle where there are some lovely Pictish artefacts. There's also the very good Pictavia museum in Brechin which is worth a visit if you're ever up that way. My Granny was supposedly of Pictish stock, a tiny wee black haired woman with bright blue eyes and she went brown as a nut at the first hint of the sun.