Think again about the pillaging Viking warriors - it wasn't just the men who raided Britain

[bemildred]

Viking colonisations of Europe may have been more like romantic getaways than drunken stag weekends, according to a study of Norse DNA showing the importance of women in the Scandinavian subjugation of the British Isles during the Middle Ages.

Scientists have found that Viking men took significant numbers of women with them in their longboats when they sailed to places such as the Scottish mainland, Shetland, Orkney and Iceland – contradicting the stereotype of male-only raiding parties with an unhealthy appetite for rape and pillage.

Researchers who analysed the genetic material – maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA extracted from 80 Viking skeletons unearthed in Norway – found that Norse women played a central role in the Viking settlements established in Britain and other parts of the North Atlantic.

Until relatively recently, it was thought to be mainly Viking men who sailed in longboats from their homeland in Norway, Denmark and Sweden to raid distant coastal settlements overseas.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/think-again-about-the-pillaging-viking-warriors--it-wasnt-just-the-men-who-raided-britain-9910537.html

[grasswire]

1. uh....the women were not there for romance!!

The women were warriors. Shield maidens. Brutal, murderous warriors.

That first sentence is really silly.

[bemildred]

18. I think the gender distinctions we take for granted are not really inevitable.

And yeah, I think those women were a respected part of the team, so to speak. The Vikings did a lot of colonizing, and women make excellent auxilliaries too.

[Xithras]

22. Most were not shield maidens.

While the Vikings were one of the most democratic and equal societies of their time, they still weren't democratic or equal in any sense that we would recognize today. Surviving medieval Viking law books make that pretty clear. Viking women could not be chieftains. They could not act as judges. They could not act as witnesses to testify against men. They could not speak at leadership assemblies. Women could attend Things, but they could not speak unless a man first requested permission for her...that gave her more power than most women in Europe, but certainly didn't make her legally equal. They couldn't wear pants. They remained under the authority of their husbands and fathers. And most importantly to this discussion...they could not carry weapons in public as a warrior would. It's undoubtable that nearly all Viking women knew at least the basics of weapons handling (since the Vikings raided each other as often as anyone else, most people were familiar with defensive fighting), but female warriors were still pretty uncommon.

The stories and sagas of both the Vikings and their neighbors make it fairly clear that shieldmaidens existed, but archaeology and surviving texts indicate that they were the exception more than the rule. Shieldmaidens enjoyed rights and a status not shared by most women in their society. There are also some indications that it was a status that was only held by unmarried women without children (which would explain the "maiden/girl" part of the title).

It's long been known that the vikings came as settlers, and in that regard it makes sense that the women would come along even if they weren't fighting. While female warriors may have been uncommon, Viking society put women in charge of virtually everything in their household. That's not meant in a negative way either...Viking women generally oversaw large households and wielded an exceptional amount of authority in their homes compared to other European societies. A home typically belonged to the oldest male heir, and the owners wife had authority to rule over anyone in their household...including other men who resided there. Women were also in charge of religious ceremony in the Viking household. Given the role women played in their society, it makes sense that women would have been present to help establish the new Viking towns from the very beginning.

I'm sure there were shield maidens as well, but the overwhelming majority of Viking women settling England were probably not warriors of any sort.

[Brother Buzz]

2. The Viking men brought women because they knew how to open Spam cans

[Thirties Child]

3. A Norse woman is in my Scots-Irish mitochondrial DNA

Good to know how she got there.

[bemildred]

5. Yep, my Dad was born in Glasgow.

My kid has Dayglo red hair. His mother is of Ukrainian Jewish extraction, which is the other half of that red hair. The Norse were fond of raiding East as well as West.

[UTUSN]

4. My little joke

When there was a news item about "Viking treasure" having been unearthed, my first thought was, "I wonder who the owners were!1" Haha.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. And apparently the raid was not considered to be concluded until the heaviest one broke into song.

[scarletwoman]

14. ...

[Lolita46]

7. Who cares?

Long gone.

[KoKo]

9. It's a very interesting bit of history being discovered. n/t

[Iggo]

10. Yeah, fuck history! I live in the now, man!

Welcome to DU!

[Nye Bevan]

11. Yeah, I felt that way about history lessons when I was at school, too!

[DavidDvorkin]

8. How nice to know that the women were just as vile as the men.

[Nye Bevan]

12. Who knows? Maybe the women exercised something of a civilization influence over the menfolk (nt)

[stevenleser]

13. Art imitates life, Wagners "Die Walküre" suggest the existence of Norse fighting women

In that sense, this news shouldn't be surprising

[KMOD]

15. Boudica

one of my daughters portrayed Boudica at the school's living museum.

What a fascinating female warrior to research.

[bemildred]

16. +1. nt

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

26. Boudica was a Celt, however nt

[LiberalEsto]

17. This could explain my peculiar DNA matches.

Even though I am pretty sure that I'm 100% Estonian in the maternal line, a mitochondrial DNA test only found extremely distant matches scattered in places like Norway, the UK and Ireland.

Quite a few Estonians went to sea as Vikings, and if some long-ago sister of a maternal ancestress went along, it could explain the DNA connection. It's the only explanation I can think of. Otherwise they likely mixed up my results with those of someone else.

[CTyankee]

19. Is this kind of test expensive? I'd love to find out what I really am, DNA wise.

I seem to be so boringly WASP. I was hoping there was something Mediterranean in the mix, or African.

[LiberalEsto]

24. About $100, more or less

I saved up for a while to pay for it. I used FamilyTreeDNA, but I'm pretty disappointed in them. Some friends got the 23andMe DNA tests and were very happy with all the information they received. One of these days, if I can find the money, I'd like to try again with 23andMe.

[CTyankee]

27. thanks. I don't think I want to spend the money but it is something to think about in the future...

[csziggy]

29. There are various prices from different companies

And some companies have better databases from which to do comparisons and make matches.

This thread in the Ancestry/Genealogy group here discusses the different companies: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11561433

If you can't get to there, look at the article on this blog:
http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2014/04/06/2014-most-bang-for-dna-bucks/

I've gotten the test from Ancestry.com for myself and for my husband but haven't taken the time or spent the money to transfer the information elsewhere are the Legal Genealogist recommends. Since I am a full member of Ancestry, I have been able to follow up the connections found there and that has taken enough of my time to satisfy me.

I'm not as familiar with the other places, but with Ancestry you really can't do much with your results without a membership, so if you're not a member and don't plan to become one, it would not be the best place to get your tests.

One thing to think about is that the different companies offer discounts at different times. Usually if you get on their mailing lists, you will receive the offers and can make the jump at the lowest price. Ancestry DNA is usually $99. I got our tests for $79 each during a discount period. On Black Monday last week, they had another discount.

Even though both sides of my and my husband's families are well researched, there were some surprises in our results. Mine showed some Asian and some Mediterranean trace DNA even though nothing in my genealogy for hundreds of years indicates any ancestry from those areas. My husband's shows no British genetic material, though he does show Scottish/Irish/Welsh - that does match his genealogy but I was surprised there was none from the purely British DNA of the UK. We're both as WASP as can be - everything in our researched background is Northern Europe/British Isles - so it's fun to see what might be hiding in the woodwork.

[grasswire]

30. about a hundred bucks

ancestry.com and natgeo are two options

[Spider Jerusalem]

28. It's a lot more likely that the Vikings came to Estonia than the other way round.

The Norse raided in the Baltic as well as the North Sea. The founders of Kievan Rus for instance were "Varangians" (Vikings).

[bklyncowgirl]

20. Sounds to me like they were planning on forming colonies.

It makes sense. We know they did this in Iceland and Greenland, why not other places. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't.

This of course doesn't mean that they were all nice homebodies--the women in many cultures are equally if not more bloody minded than the men.

[bemildred]

21. Yep, they did a lot of colonizing, when they could.

Like in "Normandy".

[Xithras]

23. They did, and it worked exceptionally well.

The entire English midlands was once known as the Danelaw because the Vikings utterly conquered the native population and ruled for centuries. The name York, for example, is descended from the original Viking settlement name Jorvik. The descendants of the Danish and other Viking settlers ruled those lands without question until shortly before the invasion of William the Conqueror, when the foundations of the England we know today were laid down.

[HereSince1628]

25. Viking Women!!! Don't let them NEAR the 50 yard line!!!!!!!