The Jomsvikings Unearthed at Last?

[Varangian]

I found this really interesting.

Dorset, 2009, a contract company is developing a road when they dig up 54 human skeletons (all of whom have been beheaded).

All dated to between 980 AD and 1030AD, all male, all of Scandinavian descent.

Apart from the (obvious) beheading, there is no other signs of trauma (very different to the skeletons found after the St. Brice's Day Massacre). All of the dead appeared to have *faced* the executioner and looked him in the eye as they were methodically executed, one by one. If anyone is familiar with The Jomsviking Saga, you will see an uncanny resemblance here.

More information here:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-viking-mass-grave-linked-elite.html

The 45 minute National Geographic documentary on this dig entitled "Viking Apocalypse" is also very interesting.

 

[Bowler1]

I saw the documentary and it was interesting. There is a story line there for the taking it was a harsh end for all the Vikings.

 

[Ursa major]

Grockles beware....

​

 

[J-WO]

'a brotherhood of elite killers whose strict military code involved never showing fear, and never fleeing in the face of the enemy unless totally outnumbered.'

It's not much of a code, is it? More the basic job description of a warrior.

(But, er, don't tell them I said that...)

 

[paranoid marvin]

a brotherhood of elite killers whose strict military code involved never showing fear, and never fleeing in the face of the enemy unless totally outnumbered.'

It's not much of a code, is it? More the basic job description of a warrior.

(But, er, don't tell them I said that...)

Could one call it a Norse Code?

*gets coat*

must dash!

 

[J-WO]

Maaaarvin!

*shakes fist*

 

[Ursa major]

As Homer Simpson might say (if he had a bad cold): "Swede!"


And I think we're finnished, now....

 

[Dave]

Isotope testing on the men’s teeth subsequently revealed that they had indeed come from Scandinavia.

Couldn't they do y-DNA testing and find their Haplotype?

 

[Ökuþórr]

I'm just curious. How does one stand in front of a man, look him in the eye, and behead him from the front to back?
Wouldn't you need to be standing to the side to achieve that? Standing infront of someone, surley your sword/axe would come down on the side of the neck, not the front.

 

[Ursa major]

If you were executing these men, would you want them to be standing up at all? At the very least, wouldn't you want them to be kneeling? Or lying face up (though not on the ground) with or without () their head on a block of some sort?

 

[Bowler1]

I have been thinking about the final swing, not easy from what I can figure, the chin can get in the way, a little to the side I think. Varangian, you have a lot to answer for.

The bravery from the Vikings is what really excites me, I write SciFi so I won't be writing historical stuff like this. However, hero(s) go off on a raid, ends badly for all while looking their killer straight in the eye. Very brave. (cough, cough, hint!!!)

 

[Varangian]

Sorry Bowler, I didn't mean to start all this!

I..err..have never beheaded anyone (except a few times in a computer game called 'Die by the Sword', years ago....crap game by the way) but I'd imagine that the executioner would be standing slightly off to the side. I guess we'll never know.

Marvin, I got a chuckle out of that!

 

[hopewrites]

well it's usually the opposing commander(s) the executed prisoners would look at isnt it? so they could be looking him in the eye, while surviving members do the actual beheading.

I dont think that DNA would help if you just wanted to know where someone spent most of their life. Something about how bits of the food and water you eat and drink ending up inside your teeth, leaving a map of where you have lived. Not sure at all how that works, or if its built up in rings like a reverse tree or something.

 

[Dave]

I dont think that DNA would help if you just wanted to know where someone spent most of their life.

The article doesn't specifically say how the researchers know that they came from Scandinavia, but I believe the best that both radiocarbon and K-Ar dating methods on teeth could do would be to say only that they had spent most of their "teeth-forming years" in a place with a similar geology and habitat to Scandinavia. K-Ar dating would measure Calcium 40 percentages. Carbon dating would measure the Carbon 14 percentages.

It is less likely, but it is possible that they were just foreign slaves. I don't see convincing evidence presented here (but then I haven't read the original research either.)

In the last few years genetic genealogy has progressed in leaps and bounds. Determining their y-DNA Haplotype would actually prove their ancestry and could actually say with a very high certainty that they were Viking warriors.

Haplogroup I1

 

[J-WO]

Perhaps it was an attempt to pick food out from between their teeth that went tragically wrong...