In Search of the Vikings

"The title of this book expresses the nature of Viking studies as viewed by its editors and contributors: it is a search, and not an easy one, and by no means a complete one as yet. A thousand years is a long time for the traces of a migrant Scandinavian people and culture to remain detectable. Most of the settlements, burials and hoards they left behind have gradually disappeared under more modern development, or been eroded away, leaving only a few startling discoveries to be made in modern times. Carved stones in churches have fared a little better, but many have still been lost to posterity. Language, folk traditions and blood-lines have diffused with generations of later influences and new introductions, but some key aspects survive. Putting all these types of evidence together is a major challenge. No individual is expert in every research skill and area of understanding required. It is, and should be, a team effort.^ Until fairly recently, archaeologists, place-name scholars, linguists, saga-scholars, historians, and geneticists tended to work in their own separate disciplines, in some cases jealously guarding their territory. Few publications were brave or rash enough to at