Vikings Brought Their Animals with Them to Britain over 1,000 Years Ago: CNN

- Vikings brought their animals with them to Britain over 1,000 years ago, CNN, Feb.1, 2023. - Ed.

When the Vikings crossed the North Sea to reach Britain in the ninth century AD, they brought their dogs and horses with them, according to new research. Archaeologists uncovered what they believe to be the first scientific evidence of this practice in Vikings while analyzing remains from a Viking cremation cemetery called Heath Wood in Derbyshire, England. Heath Wood consists of 59 burial mounds, and 20 of them have been studied. Although the remains at the cemetery were cremated, bone fragments endure and serve as missing puzzle pieces, revealing information about who was there and when.

Researchers analyzed femur and cranium bones that were traced to 2 adults, 1 juvenile and 3 animals, including a horse, a dog and possibly a pig.

Cremation was standard practice at the time for Scandinavians, while those in Britain buried their dead. But in order to determine the true origin of the people and animals at Heath Wood, the scientists took their analysis a step further. The surprising reason why Vikings abandoned a successful settlement. The researchers tested the bone fragments for strontium, a natural element found in rocks, soil & water, which ends up in plants. When animals and humans eat plants, strontium makes its way into their bones & teeth. Strontium exists in different ratios around the world, acting like a geographical marker for the origins of various species. One adult & one child cremated at Heath Wood were likely local to the area. But the bones of one adult, as well as the animals, had different strontium ratios that suggest they originated from the Baltic Shield area in Scandinavia, which included Norway & central and northern Sweden.

The adult and animals likely died soon after crossing the North Sea to arrive in Britain. The fact that they were included on the same cremation pyre suggests that the adult was someone of importance who brought their horse & dog with them — & the animals may have been sacrificed when the person died. It’s possible that the pig bone was a preserved food source or token brought from home, rather than a living pig that was transported. A study detailing the findings published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. New science & old viking stories. Previous work at Heath Wood used carbon dating to determine that cremation of the remains there occurred between the 8th & 10th centuries, but the origins of the cremated people & animals were unclear.

The area is also of interest because the Viking Great Army wintered at Repton, which is near the cemetery, in 873 AD. The army, which included warriors from different populations in Scandinavia & possibly the British Isles, invaded Britain in 865 AD. The new findings offer distinct insights when compared with the primary source material used by researchers, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an annual record of events compiled around 890 AD & written in Old English. “Basically, it deepens our understanding of the Viking Great Army when it first arrived on British shores in East Anglia, "Our main primary source of the time, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, reports that the Army seized horses in Britain from the local population, but our isotopic evidence shows that this was not the only story — they also brought animals with them from their homelands.”...

- More, https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/01/world/vikings-animals-britain-scn/index.html