Saturday 20 November 2010

EMAS Easter Study Tour to Denmark

20 - 27 April 2011

The full details of the EMAS (the University of London Extra-Mural Archaeological Society) Easter archaeological study tour to Denmark are now available online.

The EMAS Easter Archaeological Study Tour will be a tour of many of the major Early Medieval and Viking Period sites in Denmark.

The itinerary will include sites such as the Viking Age fort at Fyrkat, the amazing cemetery at Lindholme Høje with its ship-shaped setting in stone, the great mounds at Jelling together with the rune stones and, of course, the Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde and the VikingCenter at Ribe, which has been described as the best Viking museum in the world.

You can find the details here...

Learning more about Thanet's Viking past

DISCOVER the stories behind Vikings that splashed ashore at Pegwell with two forays into the past this week, on Sunday at Quex and next Monday in Broadstairs.

In the second in our occasional History Beneath Our Feet series, Marilyn Bishop from the Isle of Thanet Archaeology Society (IOTA) talks about what she describes as "one of the most fascinating yet still little-known times in the history of Thanet" – the Dark Ages.

She said: "When the Roman army departed in 410 AD the country, left to the mercy of raiders from across the North Sea, descended into chaos.

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How did the Norse really colonize Greenland?

Almost everybody have sometime heard or read about what is often referred to as the ferocious Vikings sometimes also called Norsemen or Norse for short. You may also have heard about how the man known as Eric the Red discovered Greenland. But that is not entirely true!

But before telling the story of Eric the Red and Greenland let’s look at what could have driven the people from mostly Scandinavia going on explorations across the world. The medieval written sources and also the rune stones reveal a society which seems to somewhat have encouraged people travelling abroad to do great deeds.

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Vikings brought Amerindian to Iceland 1,000 years ago: study

The first Native American to arrive in Europe may have been a woman brought to Iceland by the Vikings more than 1,000 years ago, a study by Spanish and Icelandic researchers suggests.

The findings boost widely-accepted theories, based on Icelandic medieval texts and a reputed Viking settlement in Newfoundland in Canada, that the Vikings reached the American continent several centuries before Christopher Columbus travelled to the "New World."

Spain's CSIC scientific research institute said genetic analysis of around 80 people from a total of four families in Iceland showed they possess a type of DNA normally only found in Native Americans or East Asians.

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Friday 19 November 2010

Vikings Possibly Carried Native American to Europe

Medieval texts suggest the Vikings arrived in the New World more than 1,000 years ago.

The first Native American to arrive in Europe may have been a woman brought to Iceland by the Vikings more than 1,000 years ago, a study by Spanish and Icelandic researchers suggests.

The findings boost widely-accepted theories, based on Icelandic medieval texts and a reputed Viking settlement in Newfoundland in Canada, that the Vikings reached the American continent several centuries before Christopher Columbus traveled to the "New World."

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Tuesday 9 November 2010

'Vikings were murdered in Oxford'

Archeological studies have revealed that Viking settlers of Oxford were brutally killed and dumped in a ditch in an ethnic cleansing plan some 1,000 years ago.

Remains of 34 to 38 young men were discovered in March 2008 during excavations for a new college building.

The bones dated back to between 960 and 1020 CE and included cracked skulls. Some of the skeletons bore stab wounds in their spines and pelvic bones. There were also signs of burning.

Five had been stabbed in the back, and one had been decapitated.

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Monday 8 November 2010

Viking life on display in Aberdeen

An exhibition inspired by Viking life has opened in Aberdeen.

Exposure is a sound and light installation at Satrosphere and runs until 6 December.

Studies of soil samples dated up to one thousand years old at a Norse settlement in southern Greenland gave clues to the harsh life experienced by settlers at the time.

Dr Paul Adderley, environmental scientist at the University of Stirling, worked with composer Dr Michael Young of Goldsmiths, University of London.

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Experts reveal brutal Viking massacre

VIKING skeletons buried beneath an Oxford college were the victims of brutal ethnic cleansing 1,000 years ago, archaeologists have discovered.

Experts were mystified when they discovered a mass grave beneath a quadrangle a St John’s College, St Giles, in 2008.

But, after two years of CSI-style detective work, they believe they can pinpoint the exact day in 1002 AD that Danish settlers were rounded up on the streets of Oxford and murdered, before being carted out of the city gates and dumped in a ditch.

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