Migration and the Creation of Identity in the Viking Diaspora: a COMPARATIVE STUDY of VIKING AGE FUNERARY RITES from NORTHERN SCOTLAND and MØRE OG ROMSDAL
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Migration and the creation of identity in the Viking diaspora: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF VIKING AGE FUNERARY RITES FROM NORTHERN SCOTLAND AND MØRE OG ROMSDAL Frida Espolin Norstein Master’s Thesis in Archaeology Spring 2014 Cover illustration: Map of the North Sea region (after Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998:26). i Acknowledgments The work on this thesis has been both challenging and rewarding, and there are many people who have in some way contributed to the process. I would first and foremost like to thank my supervisor, Julie Lund, for always steering me in the right direction. Her advice and support has been crucial in shaping this thesis. I would also like to thank Lotte Hedeager for useful comments on the research design. My visit to the collections and archives at Vitenskapsmuseet in Trondheim was facilitated with the help of Ole Bjørn Pedersen and Anne Birgitte Høy- Petersen, who prepared the artefacts and documents I wanted to examine, for which I am very grateful. There are many people at Blindernveien 11 who deserve thanks for making this last year not just bearable, but often highly enjoyable. Thank you for many interesting discussion, both relevant and completely irrelevant to this work. In particular, I would like to than Nicolai Eckhof for helping me identify the combs used in this analysis, and Cathrine Bru Guldberg for literature advice. My excellent team of proofreaders, Hulda Espolin Norstein and Andrew Smith, need to be thanked, and so does Malin Vangsnes who provided useful comments on structure and consistency. I would also like to thank my family for all their support, especially my brother, Trym Espolin Norstein, who put up with me in Trondheim and always answered the phone when I needed someone to complain to. ii Contents Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ v List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. v Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Aims ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Methods ....................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Theoretical framework ................................................................................................ 5 1.4 Structure of the thesis .................................................................................................. 8 Chapter 2 Setting the stage - Vikings in northern Scotland .................................................. 9 2.1 Date of settlement ........................................................................................................ 9 2.2 Scale of settlement ....................................................................................................... 9 2.3 Norse-Pictish relations ............................................................................................... 10 2.4 Christianity in northern Scotland before AD 995 ...................................................... 11 Chapter 3 Material .............................................................................................................. 15 3.1 Dating ........................................................................................................................ 15 3.2 Gender ....................................................................................................................... 19 3.3 Grave goods ............................................................................................................... 21 3.4 Grave form ................................................................................................................. 30 3.5 Graves in the archaeological landscape ..................................................................... 33 3.6 Summary .................................................................................................................... 35 Chapter 4 Migration and ethnicity ...................................................................................... 36 4.1 Diaspora, migration and ethnic display ..................................................................... 36 4.2 Migration and graves ................................................................................................. 39 4.3 Scandinavian material culture in graves – ethnic display? ........................................ 41 4.4 Migration and ethnicity in northern Scotland ............................................................ 44 Chapter 5 Gender display .................................................................................................... 46 5.1 Gender and migration ................................................................................................ 46 5.2 Male and female migrants ......................................................................................... 47 5.3 Gender display in northern Scotland ......................................................................... 52 Chapter 6 Religion .............................................................................................................. 54 6.1 Christianity and paganism ......................................................................................... 54 6.2 Paganism in northern Scotland .................................................................................. 55 6.3 Pagan-Christian relations ........................................................................................... 60 6.4 Religion in Viking Age northern Scotland ................................................................ 63 iii Chapter 7 The past in the past ............................................................................................. 64 7.1 Memory, landscape and material artefacts ................................................................ 64 7.2 Graves in the archaeological landscape ..................................................................... 65 7.3 Mnemonic artefacts ................................................................................................... 69 7.4 The past in Viking Age northern Scotland ................................................................ 73 Chapter 8 Synthesis ............................................................................................................. 75 8.1 Migration and the creation of identity ....................................................................... 75 8.2 Elite power discourse ................................................................................................. 77 8.3 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 79 8.4 Concluding remarks ................................................................................................... 80 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 81 Appendix 1 Catalogue of pagan graves from northern Scotland and Rauma and Tingvoll, Møre og Romsdal ..................................................................................................................... 93 Appendix 2 Maps of pagan graves from northern Scotland and Møre og Romdsal .............. 102 iv List of Figures Figure 1 Map of Caithness, Orkney and Shetland in northern Scotland .................................... 3 Figure 2 Map of Rauma and Tingvoll in Møre og Romsdal ...................................................... 3 Figure 3 The chronological distribution of graves from northern Scotland and Møre og Romsdal. ................................................................................................................................... 16 Figure 4 Comb and comb-case from Links of Skaill ............................................................... 17 Figure 5 The distribution of gender in burials from northern Scotland and Møre og Romsdal .................................................................................................................................................. 19 Figure 6 The distribution of jewellery and weapon burials over time in northern Scotland and Møre og Romsdal. .................................................................................................................... 19 Figure 7 The average number of artefacts in graves of different gender. ................................ 20 Figure 8 Average number of artefacts in jewellery and weapon graves over time. ................. 20 Figure 9 Artefact types in northern Scotland and Møre og Romsdal ....................................... 21 Figure 10 Percentages of graves with different types of weapons in weapon burials from northern Scotland and Møre og Romsdal. ................................................................................ 22 Figure 11 Number of types of weapons in tool graves compared with all weapon graves from Møre og Romsdal. .................................................................................................................... 23 Figure 12 Oval brooches from Møre og