According to the DNA study of the remains from the grave on the island of Bjork in Lake Malaren of the ancient Vikings, high military positions were occupied not only by men but also by women.
This conclusion was made by Swedish scientists after studying the DNA of remains from the grave on Bjork Island in Lake Malaren, discovered in the XIX century. Then, besides the bones, numerous objects were extracted from the burial, including weapons, the remains of two horses, a board game, which indicated the high military status of the buried person. Before that, it was believed that this is a man, but new evidence suggests that this is a woman.
The head of the study, archaeologist Charlotte Hedensherna-Jonson believes that all this indicates a much more complicated arrangement of the society of the Vikings, than was generally assumed. "This gives a deeper understanding. When people talk about people from ancient history, they forget that they were personalities, "she said.. According to her, in ancient societies the main was not so much gender, as personal abilities.
"Even if I think that the officer positions were more often occupied by men, if there was a suitable person, then his sex was of far less importance," says the scientist archaeologist. At the beginning of the 20th century, in Norway, the remains of two women warriors from the Viking burial grounds were also recovered. This became known after studying skeletons. On Bjorka (in translation - "birch island"), located 50 km from the Swedish capital, more than a thousand years ago settled settlement of Birka, which is often called the first city of Sweden. In 1993, the island was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
In the year 800 Bjorke was the largest trade center in the Baltic. In the summer months, when ships came here with goods, the number of residents could reach 8 thousand. human. In terms of significance in the economic and cultural life of the early medieval Northern Europe, historians compare Birka with ancient Novgorod Novgorod. It was from the walls of Birka that the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" began, in the 10th-12th centuries it connected Sweden with Rus, Byzantium, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Who founded this city and why the Vikings left it is unknown. All the finds made here undoubtedly show that after 960 the city was abandoned: perhaps because of the shallowing of the straits of Lake Malaren or changes in international trade routes. For over a thousand years, ships with goods from Eastern countries arrived on the island.
Inhabitants Tags build their houses and live on the mountain of garbage. These things, for example, found here during the excavation of 5 tons of bones, have become an important part of those findings, on the basis of which archaeologists draw conclusions about life in those days. Vikings ate pork, beef and fish - pike, zander and herring. Bread they baked from wheat and peas.
The stone cross was erected on the mountain in 1834 in memory of the monk Ansgar, who sailed to the island in 830, to convert to the Christianity of the 700 pagans living here. Many Vikings adopted a new faith. They built a church on their island. But still most of them remained pagans - in the burial grounds archeologists find those things that, according to the ancients, could be useful to them in the afterlife. These items testify to the people buried there and their position in society.
The main attraction of Birka for a long time was a very modest museum, the basis of the exposition consists of the things reconstructed by modern masters, as well as all kinds of mock-ups. From the very Viking settlement, only the trees almost leveled to the ground have been preserved, signifying the line of fortifications, and piles of stones on the site of the graves. But in 2008 a village appeared in the ancient capital of Vikings Birka on the island of Bjerke. Houses here were erected with the help of methods and tools of those times. The archaeological research project for the reconstruction of the Viking village was the first of its kind, since the creation of houses was in accordance with the data obtained during excavations on the island. The construction was conducted by students of the archaeological faculty of the University of Gotland. This is reported by the "City Portal".