Vikings May Have Used Body Modification as a 'Sign of Identification'

[Judi Lynn]

A recent study analyzes Scandinavian examples of filed teeth and elongated skulls dating to the Viking Age

Sonja Anderson
Daily Correspondent

April 8, 2024

Examples of artificially altered bones belonging to island-dwelling Vikings may be examples of purposeful body modifications, according to a study published in the journal Current Swedish Archaeology. Researchers think they may have been part of social rituals of initiation.
For many years, historians had assumed that tattooing was the only form of body modification used by Scandinavians in the Viking Age. However, evidence of two other forms is beginning to change that narrative: filed teeth and elongated skulls.

Tooth modification from this period was first described around the 1990s, while skull modification is “a rather newly discovered phenomenon that requires intensive research,” write co-authors Matthias Toplak and Lukas Kerk, Germany-based archaeologists at the Viking Museum Haithabu and the University of Münster, respectively.

“While both forms of body modification have received wide attention in other cultural contexts,” they continue, “the specific expressions of these customs in Viking Age society still lack systematic investigation in terms of their social implications.”

The researchers examined the remains of 130 men with “horizontal furrows” carved into their teeth, many of whom were found on the Swedish island of Gotland. They also analyzed three cases of modified skulls, all belonging to women on the island.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-viking-trade-guilds-standard-uniform-carved-up-teeth-180984080/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Viking Age women with cone-shaped skulls likely learned head-binding practice from far-flung region

By Tom Metcalfe
published 7 hours ago
The skull modifications were found on the skeletons of three women buried on Gotland almost 1,000 years ago.

The elongated, cone-shaped skulls of Viking Age women buried on the Baltic island of Gotland may be evidence of trading contacts with the Black Sea region, a new study finds.

The women's skulls were most likely modified from birth by wrapping their heads with bandages. This practice is attributed to the nomadic Huns, who invaded Europe from Asia in the fourth and fifth centuries, and it was followed in parts of southeastern Europe until the 10th century.

But the modifications have been found only on the skulls of three Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066) women buried on the now-Swedish island of Gotland and nowhere else in Scandinavia, which indicates it was a foreign practice, said study lead author Matthias Toplak, an archaeologist at the Viking Museum Haithabu in Germany.

Filing down teeth
In the study, published Feb. 24 in the journal Current Swedish Archaeology, Toplak and his co-author Lukas Kerk, an archaeologist at the University of Münster in Germany, looked at the evidence of skull modification from Gotland and filed teeth found on skulls around Scandinavia.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/vikings/viking-age-women-with-cone-shaped-skulls-likely-learned-head-binding-practice-from-far-flung-region