Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Vogel Bomb. Here a Viking warrior is buried
Speaker 1: in Sweden in the tenth century CE. The grave is
Speaker 1: excavated in the eighteen seventies. DNA results are published in
Speaker 1: sounds like a typical archaeological process of discovery that we
Speaker 1: take for granted. This find, however, has been anything but typical,
Speaker 1: because this Viking warrior was a woman. Found in an
Speaker 1: underground chamber in eighteen seventy eight. This warrior had been
Speaker 1: buried in a seated position with two horses, as well
Speaker 1: as a sword, as knives, spears, shields, and armor piercing arrows.
Speaker 1: In addition, a set of gaming pieces representing military strategy
Speaker 1: was found in the lap of the seated body. Surrounded
Speaker 1: by such weapons of war and without typical feminine coated
Speaker 1: items such as jewelry or weaving equipment. This high ranking
Speaker 1: warrior was assumed to be a man for more than
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty five years. Though there had been
Speaker 1: an osteological analysis in nineteen seventies suggesting a slender bone
Speaker 1: structure indicative of a female, conclusive evidence was not presented
Speaker 1: until seventeen Charlotte hins Jerna Johnsen, an archaeologist at Sweden's
Speaker 1: Upsala University, and her colleagues published their genomic analysis in
Speaker 1: the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, explaining that ancient DNA
Speaker 1: taken from a tooth and arm bone of the buried
Speaker 1: warrior showed only x X chromosomes with no Y chromosome,
Speaker 1: confirming this Viking warrior was a woman and that she
Speaker 1: was likely more than thirty years old when she died.
Speaker 1: Why did the genetic results take so long? We spoke
Speaker 1: with hidden Dania Johnsen via email, and she explained that
Speaker 1: good science takes time. The project was working with several
Speaker 1: iron and Viking age skeletons, and processing ancient DNA isn't
Speaker 1: as easy as modern DNA. Their findings were initially met
Speaker 1: with questions and criticisms, including suspicions that the wrong bones
Speaker 1: had been tested, but a careful review of the data
Speaker 1: trail confirms that the bones first found in eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight were in fact the bones processed and they're definitely
Speaker 1: biologically female. The researchers do acknowledge that the items found
Speaker 1: at the burial site aren't necessarily the possessions of the
Speaker 1: buried Viking, but their opinion is that this was indeed
Speaker 1: the grave of a high ranking warrior. Hiden's Tierna Johnsen
Speaker 1: said most likely she was connected to the troops in
Speaker 1: Byrka and linked to the garrison situated very close to
Speaker 1: the burial. Some modern folks have raised the question as
Speaker 1: to whether this biologically female warrior was living as a
Speaker 1: man and whether this might have been as common as
Speaker 1: gender transitions are today, But the researchers caution against applying
Speaker 1: our modern day concepts of gender to an ancient non
Speaker 1: Western people. They do acknowledge that this is just one
Speaker 1: case study and quote there are many other possibilities across
Speaker 1: a wide gender spectrum, some perhaps unknown to us but
Speaker 1: familiar to the people of the time. Alongside these questions,
Speaker 1: the Bierka settlement itself is a fascinating site. Located on
Speaker 1: the island of Bierka in east central Sweden. It was
Speaker 1: the country's first urban center and with Sweden's most important
Speaker 1: trade center with Northern Europe in the eighth through the
Speaker 1: tenth centuries. Today, the Buerka Archaeological Site is a UNESCO
Speaker 1: World Heritage Site. The site contains more than three thousand
Speaker 1: known graves, with only about one thousand, one hundred excavated
Speaker 1: and examined so far, and only seventy five found with
Speaker 1: offensive weapons as opposed to defensive weapons. Though Viking women
Speaker 1: have been found buried with weapons before, nothing compares to
Speaker 1: the objects found at the site from this study. The
Speaker 1: amount and type of items at this site suggests a
Speaker 1: professional fighter, perhaps amounted archer, and the game board and
Speaker 1: associated pieces also suggests a command role. The fact that
Speaker 1: no tools or agricultural equipment were found there reinforces this
Speaker 1: martial role in society. In addition, a tasseled cap reserved
Speaker 1: for leaders of society was found at the burial site,
Speaker 1: and the fact that she was probably not a local
Speaker 1: inhabitant also tells us something about her status. According to
Speaker 1: Hiden's Tiana Jansen, the relatively high level of mobility indicated
Speaker 1: by the variation in strawntium levels between three different teeth
Speaker 1: is in concordance with the itinerant lifestyle of the social elite.
Speaker 1: The placement of the site itself also reflects a certain
Speaker 1: standing both in society and military. It's the westernmost grave
Speaker 1: site found at Berka, prominently situated near the gears and
Speaker 1: located there and had been marked by a boulder, making
Speaker 1: visible both from the settlement and the surrounding lake. Though
Speaker 1: these findings may lead to the re examination of excavated
Speaker 1: graves and bodies to determine sex, Hidden's Dyana Younsen and
Speaker 1: her colleagues are onto new projects and are currently working
Speaker 1: on a study on people buried in so called boat burials.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Jim Marion and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots
Speaker 1: of other topics that do some digging, visit our home planet,
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