Sheildmaidens Were Real! New Findings Show 1/2 of Viking Warriors Were Women

a reply to: ATODASO

Great thread made...huge viking fan and I have always been curious what role their women played more and how their families were organized. I think we should get a group of people on here and just flat out start up vikings again...whos with me?

My daughters are all part Viking and they can be quite ferocious. The eldest one is only of slight build but got kicked out of a local pub the other day for punching an Aboriginal bloke for calling her bad names (we live in Australia). The youngest is about 6 foot and is as strong as an ox. Armed with a sword she could she could do tremendous damage. The girls watch shows like The Vikings, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and are blue eyed and fair haired.

a reply to: ATODASO

Not that surprising, they were not alone either and for hundred's of years the female warrior's of the past were ignored or written out of history, except the like's of Boadicca of the Icenea celt's of Britain, like there more northerly sisters the Celtic woman often participated in battle though not to the degree of the sheild maiden's but the most famouse are of course the Amazon tribe, recorded in greek myth were a greek hero fought a mighty amazon eventually slaying her he than took her helmet off to see what the face of his enemy was and immediately fell in love with her stairing at his dead enemy,

(put's some very worrying thought's about the mentality of the greek warriors and what went on in there mind's there eeeeh),

Anyway from archeological dig's we know the Amazon woman to have been up to six feet tall and strongly built with auburn or blonde hair and since there is a theory that viking culture and indeed much of it's gene pool originated further east (near the black sea) before migrating to scandinavia this would mean it is likely they may have been a related tribe, the descendant's of the amazon's still live today and are often very beautiful Eurasian woman as well as tall and here auburn hair often reappears among them.

archive.archaeology.org...

www.amazonation.com...

womenshistory.answers.com...

Much of history was rewritten and even erased or forgotten due to the sensabillity's of the four hundred years of Roman Rule and culture in which woman were strictly second class.

www.lothene.org...

Then of course we have contemporary and modern female warriors like this famous lady or perhaps infamous all depending on which side of her barrel you were standing on,
en.wikipedia.org...

Great thread and well worth a star and flag.

Oh and remember the story of pope joan the female pope who was written out of Catholic history, not a warrior but certainly a woman of power.

a reply to: kdyam

Women have played a huge part in the shaping of the world up until the times of monotheism. Gotta love single god "religion" for putting a woman in her supposed "place". ( which I think is a total crock... men and women are equal and always have been.)

It isn't so much the single god religion, as much as it is the patriarchal single god religions. These are the ones who have degraded and oppressed women to the point of being merchandise to buy and sell. What's amazing and disgusting to me is it's still happening in the 21rst century EVERY DAY!

It doesn't surprise me in the least, that as these religions are slowly losing their grip on our world, those archaeological finds that used to be politically incorrect, are now coming to the forefront. As we look at societies that weren't controlled or influenced by the abrahamic, and other male driven cults, we're finding women had a much bigger role in shaping civilization than we have heretofore realized.

I'd Imagine if the women stayed behind to maintain the farm, they'd have to fight off wild boars and the like?

Great thread. Read an article on this yesterday.

A devastating blow to male chauvinists everywhere!

Women are equal to men! Get ready for the "But I'm bigger then a woman and therefore better replies..." LOL

Thanks for the thread, I found some interesting reading off it. However it's got to be said that your headline "New Findings Show 1/2 of Viking Warriors Were Women" is total nonsense.

The research makes no mention of female warriors at all, and is concerned with the number of female settlers that would have accompanied the men. This is the researcher's conclusion in the article:

Women may have accompanied male Vikings in those early invasions of England, in much greater numbers than scholars earlier supposed, McLeod concludes. Rather than the ravaging rovers of legend, the Vikings arrived as marriage-minded colonists. "Although the results presented here cannot be used to determine the number of female settlers, they do suggest that the ratio of females to males may have been somewhere between a third to roughly equal," the study concludes.

from here

There's some more interesting stuff in the this blog

One of the comments sums it up best:

Shane McLeod (the author of the original scholarly article) does not claim that these women were warriors. McLeod wrote his article, "Warriors and Women: The Sex Ratio of Norse Migrants to Eastern England up to 900 AD", as part of a small debate going on in academia. This debate seeks to find out whether the Vikings who came to England in the 9th century were simply raiders (that is they came to England only to get wealth) or came as setters (that is they wanted a new home). McLeod's article lends support to the side that claims that the Vikings came as settlers.

So the question is whether viking men brought their families with them, or whether they just planned to take Anglo-Saxon women as wives and start families.

The idea of massed ranks of women warriors in viking armies is just silly to be honest, and not supported by any evidence. There is not a single piece of contemporary documentary evidence supporting any female warriors on the battlefield, let alone them making up half of the attacking force. Women may have been more equal in viking society than Christendom, however it was still a patriarchy with the enormous majority of rulers being men. A woman's place would still have generally have been looking after the home and children. Although there are known women rulers and traders.

That's not to say that women never fought on the battlefield (it's a big debate), but IMO they would most likely have been outliers and not the norm. Women may be better than men at many things, however one area men definitely excel at over women is standing in muddy fields hitting each over the heads with bloody great axes.

originally posted by: FatherLukeDuke
Thanks for the thread, I found some interesting reading off it. However it's got to be said that your headline "New Findings Show 1/2 of Viking Warriors Were Women" is total nonsense.

maybe our sources differ?

Researchers at the University of Western Australia decided to revamp the way they studied Viking remains. Previously, researchers had misidentified skeletons as male simply because they were buried with their swords and shields... researchers discovered that approximately half of the remains were actually female warriors, given a proper burial with their weapons.

i think my source refers to a recent re-examination of the findings from your source.

originally posted by: amazing
Great thread. Read an article on this yesterday.

A devastating blow to male chauvinists everywhere!

Women are equal to men! Get ready for the "But I'm bigger then a woman and therefore better replies..." LOL

With the advent of the gun the survivor of the battle field moved from being the Large male to the small agile well co ordinated and faster reflex male, also large guy's make good target's for the enemy while smaller guy's are harder to hit, this was a reversal to the period before the gun and the Viking warriors were well known as giant's on the battle field which it happens was more down to there diet than there genetic's though both did play a part.
One particularly Nasty Viking raider who became very wealthy raiding the monastery's off the coasts of Britain and Ireland had to answere the grumble of his men, there was lot's of gold but no woman so he said to his men, Look they are not married and live together, these monk's may as well be woman.
Erik became renowned for raping the monk's and he was a true giant for the day at over 6'8" with red hair, the monk's predictably called him Satan and the devil incarnate.
Much later in his life in his 80's he converted to christianity "Just in case".

Read this account under the Lindisfarne section.

www.ivargault.com...

It is also worth remembering not all viking's were actually viking's, some were frisian and some dane but the true Vinkinga were from the fjord's of Norway and the Saxon's had once shared there culture but were ethnically different.

Today we speak a language called English which together with German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are descended from a common tongue we today call Old Norse that they all Spoke, this is one of the reason's why Chaucer's old English is so hard to understand as it was written during a linguistic transition and Modern English in particular was Latinised under the influence of the Norman French, though themselves of Norse Origin the Norman's had truly adopted french as there language and had become the most Technically cultured of the Norse people's but not the kindest and in 1066 whent hey invaded Middle Earth (the Saxon name of England) having crossed the Whale Road (The English channel was once a highway for migrating Whale's of probably now extinct species) they set about living up to there viking ancestry by Raping and pillaging the undefended villages of the south of England.

Meanwhile Harald Godwinson the last rightful Saxon king of England having just fought a long battle and routed the Danes who under there king Harald Hadrada (Who was arguably the rightful king of northumbria as well as Denmark) had staged an attempted invasion of the north at Stamford Bridge, made a forced march south, on foot his army covered the distance in just four day's so with heavy armor they must have marched at least 40 miles a day if not more.

Exhausted from there march and with many men having fallen by the road the English stood there ground with untried farm boy's and undisciplined men making up there rank's, most of there army were not soldiers and so they were not the same army that had defeated the Dane's, those that were soldiers were tired and barely able to stand there ground.

The Norman's meanwhile had raped and murdered the English woman, they were well fed having feasted on the fat of the land and now faced the weary Saxon's who formed there shield wall atop Hasting's hill.

When the battle came the Saxon's still held all day but as the day wore on a group of Normans who had been bested retreated in dissaray and seeing the untried English that had filled Godwinsons line break in pursuit of his retreating men William saw an opportunity so rallied his men and attacked the now broken shield wall which succumbed to his assault.

Harald was said to have been hit by an arrow in the eye and been struck down in battle and his house carl's who were the Saxon Nobles and much closer to there people formed a defencive circle around there stricken king, they died to the last man defending him.

After the battle the Norman's Gelded Harald's Body (they castrated it) as a warning to anyone claiming to be his heir and they left the bodys of the English for Two years unburied atop the hill, this was followed by over 400 hundred years of Oppression and the implementation by the Norman's of Serfdom, litterally slavery the norman owned the saxons and could do anything he wanted to them and there woman, it became illegal to speak Saxon and the only language permitted in the company of a Norman lord was Norman French, they built great fortresses to suppress the English and indeed it was Norman's not Engish that attacked Scotland and Wale's with whom though stormy the English had actually had treatise and trade (modern british Arsitocracy is actually based on these criminal's, there was no one to hold them to account so they were law's unto themselves but they were not christian in the way they treated those they had invaded and conquered).

Under the Norman's in particular Women were oppressed unlike under the Saxon or the Native British culture's were woman were highly respected, in the case of the older Celtic british they were able to acheive any status that a man could.

It was recorded that Edith Swan Neck Queen of the Saxon English was only able to identify her husband's body by a mole when she searched the battle field for him and there is the question if the Norman's gelded his body did she then have children to him, after this of her life little or nothing is known or of her fate though she was supposedly beautiful with the name Swan neck because of her long neck.

On his death bed William is rumored to have confessed he had no right to the English throne and asked absolution, the pope was merely a puppet so his backing of the Norman's was political in nature as was his excomunication of the english (it happened twice in history but she second time the Norman King Henry Tudor was a serial killer of woman so in his case it was justified but not against an entire nation).

a reply to: ATODASO

I think we are both talking about the same 2011 paper by Shane McLeod:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

It is behind a paywall, but this is the abstract:

Various types of evidence have been used in the search for Norse migrants to eastern England in the latter ninth century. Most of the data gives the impression that Norse females were far outnumbered by males. But using burials that are most certainly Norse and that have also been sexed osteologically provides very different results for the ratio of male to female Norse migrants. Indeed, it suggests that female migration may have been as significant as male, and that Norse women were in England from the earliest stages of the migration, including during the campaigning period from 865.

and this is the start of the paper:

There is some archaeological evidence for early Norse female settlement, most obviously oval brooches, but this evidence is minimal. The more difficult to date evidence of place names, personal names, and DNA samples derived from the modern population suggests that Norse women did migrate to England at some stage, but probably in far fewer numbers than Norse men," begins the study.

No mention of female warriors, but of migrants.

The USA Today article discusses it and has some quotes from the author.

From analysing 14 burials they found:

Overall, McLeod reports that six of the 14 burials were of women, seven were men, and one was indeterminable.

That's it. Nothing about female warriors.

I think the Tor.com site and a few others have misrepresented this totally to be something about female warriors, which it isn't. To go from 6 out of 14 people buried were women to "half of viking warriors were women" simply not supportable.

a reply to: FatherLukeDuke

the evidence is open to interpretation, but i think we're both kind of right. women warriors existed, but not in equal proportion to the men. here's a helpful comment from the tor article.

I'm a historian who studies burial in the early middle ages, and the burial of women with weapons is one of my specialties!

...The key thing to note is the word 'settlers': the article is arguing that women migrated from Scandinavia to England with the invading Viking army in the 9th century. Several of these women, the article notes, were buried with weapons, but they are still far outnumbered by the armed men. Most of the women settlers mentioned in the study were buried with 'traditional' female outfits: brooches that held up their aprons...

...The good news, though: while women buried with weapons are rare, they *are* being found.

a reply to: FatherLukeDuke

then you obviously have not met my wife... she is of Irish decent and while not overly tall (5' 8") with curly red hair, she is a very strong woman. She actually played football in high school, and got in many fights with males and won quite a few. And she is not huge and body builder looking, she is what i consider very attractive perhaps i can convince her to dress as a viking warrior again and take pictures this time...

Doesn't everyone know who Ronda Rousey is? I would be very afraid to face her fist to fist, give her a weapon and im out...

a reply to: grumpy64

I feel bad for your girls' boyfriends if they screw up

a reply to: TexasSeabee

Hey, I'm totally not denying that women can be warriors. There are documented cases through history, including ones were women pretended to be men so they could fight.

Doesn't everyone know who Ronda Rousey is? I

Yeah, I'm a MMA fan. Rousey would undoubtedly have me on my back with my arm broken in several places within about 10 seconds of the fight starting. However if she went against any of of the professional male fighters in her weight class (or any lower, come to that) they would do the same to her - she wouldn't stand a chance. And that's keeping in mind that most men are in higher weight classes. The gap between male and female fighters is enormous.

originally posted by: ATODASO
the evidence is open to interpretation

Well, most is. However your interpretation does in no way agree with the professional archaeologist who actually wrote the paper. The paper is purely making an argument that there may have been more female settlers than once believed. The paper has been out for 3 years, but it is only recently some sites have sensationalized it and it started doing the rounds on social media.

women warriors existed,

I tend to think the vikings might have, but there is very little actual evidence. The accounts of viking female warriors all come from writers several hundred years later, meaning they are hardly likely to be accurate. Nobody at the time of the invasions recorded women warriors - and you think they would have mentioned it, as it would be so unusual.

originally posted by: LABTECH767
It is also worth remembering not all viking's were actually viking's, some were frisian and some dane but the true Vinkinga were from the fjord's of Norway and the Saxon's had once shared there culture but were ethnically different.

Today we speak a language called English which together with German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are descended from a common tongue we today call Old Norse that they all Spoke

WHERE in the hell are you pulling your history out of?! Viking is not an ethnicity! It is a title! Vikings were Norwegians, Swedes, Danes who went pillaging! If they stayed at home as farmers they were not vikings.

German and Dutch are NOT descended from Old Norse. Slightly influenced by. The Angles and Saxons did NOT speak Old Norse. Think you have some reading to do.

originally posted by: ATODASO
a reply to: skalla

i can't get enough of slim blondes with big swords.

...heh...

originally posted by: Ridhya

originally posted by: LABTECH767
It is also worth remembering not all viking's were actually viking's, some were frisian and some dane but the true Vinkinga were from the fjord's of Norway and the Saxon's had once shared there culture but were ethnically different.

Today we speak a language called English which together with German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are descended from a common tongue we today call Old Norse that they all Spoke

WHERE in the hell are you pulling your history out of?! Viking is not an ethnicity! It is a title! Vikings were Norwegians, Swedes, Danes who went pillaging! If they stayed at home as farmers they were not vikings.

German and Dutch are NOT descended from Old Norse. Slightly influenced by. The Angles and Saxons did NOT speak Old Norse. Think you have some reading to do.

It is believed the first people to bare the Title Viking came from a small inlet on a Fjord in Norway, that Village and bay like Inlet are called Vikin (A name which may predate the Viking's), Now in old norse the Word Vik meant man as well so there is some dispute about the real meaning of viking with related norse word's such as Vikingr and Viking actually having two meaning's to do with adventure and travel.

The Saxon people were primarily of a mixture of ancestry and the Later idiology (the first Saxon mercenary's hired by Vortigen in britain were Hengist-the Stallion and Horsa-the Horse both Hunnic Name's) that led to the second world war was based on a falacy, the German's are a rather mixed bunch even before modern immigration and originally consisted of several loose tribe's who shared a language and culture but varied within themselve's and there is as well as a heavy slavic influence (including polish blood) a very strong Hunnic ancestry, the hun's through there artifact's are traced as best modern anthropologists can back to western China though as a nomadic horse tribe (who had there own religion that was not Thule but a horse cult that was assimilated into Thule blending with the cult of Odin's horse) they were likely mixed with all the people between.

The Dane's were a seperate group to the other germanic tribes and may provide a more true Germanic tribal legacy with less hunnic ancestry (Just a fun page though I would not use it as teaching material www.dandebat.dk... ) than the German's and the dutch were of course the Frisian people who were again another group whose legend's are supposed to have included a lost land in the sea as written in the now lost Oara Lindus text's that were taken by the Nazi's for there own racial propeganda (some claim they were a forgery created in the 1800's).

The Norse people' are actually a more mixed bunch than you would think, though the scandinavian's through harsh terrain and weather are less mixed there origin's can probably be traced back to western russia and eurasia before there ancestors were displaced through tribal migration's of the Slavic Tribe's (the truth is they probably mixed and there was no definite displacement so they may simple be a vestige of the pre mixed racial grouping).

Now in the Norse country's it became a law that only the oldest son could inherit his father's holding's, this was coupled with a heavy taxation and this also meant the younger son's unless they were willing to live as there brother's servant's had to go and find new land for themselves.

Born in the Fjord's of Norway the Ship Lap (overlapping planking) construction of the Viking ship's which actually may date back to over 1000 BC was ideal and there small raiding and fishing vessel's had the unique nature that this ship lap planking along with the shape of the prow and the curved flattened hull trapped Air under the Hull along the overlap of the planking reducing water friction and allowing the boat's to slip more quickly through the water, this Probably Fjordland Boat design became the trade mark of the Viking's from all part's of the Norse world that were involved in the Raid's and came in many variation's but two stand out.

The broader Beam merchant vessel's, these could be beached due to there shallow draft but were too heavy to carry easily, they were the mainstay of trade in the viking world as the sea was the roadway of the viking's and were large enough to carry animal's.

The narrow Long Boat's, these were designed for war, narrow and swift they are the iconic image of the Viking Raider, sometime's with an ornamental carved head they could outpace anything then on the sea especially with a crew of strong rower's and a stiff wind to fill there Goat Hair Sail's, Viking ship's used Goat Hair from a breed of Goat that is found today only in scandinavia in norway, it's hair does not retain water and is also great for making warm clothing that allows your body to breath and even when wet keeps the warmth in.

There is today a strong different genetic component to the Norwegian people over the other Loosely called Germanic Tribe's (by the way Odin is thought to have been a possible bronze age king in a region near to the black sea and there has been some claim that extensive archeaological remains from a bronze age palace may have been the origin of the Valhalla mythos).

Genetically though the oldest people's in Europe are the Celt's by one hell of a way with a mitochondrial marker indicating tribaly distinct familial relationship over 60.000 years (this does not mean they always living in western europe though) and for the Scandinavian's (not the mixed and indeterminate genetic's of the Germans which are definitely central european when looked at in total dispersion) at about 40.000 years, the youngest race in europe perversely always claimed to be the oldest until modern genetic profiling proved otherwise and they are the Basques of france and spain at only 10.000 years.

Culture is often spread through conquest and tribal assimilation.

Thule may have displaced the earlier Celtic belief's of the Germanic people's as archeaoligical evidence shows the Celtic culture which spread through just this method may have originated in what today is southern Germany where as Thule culture was probably just as old and may have vied for dominance with the celtic belief's for some time and many variations on Thule, specifically in Germania show overlapping belief and ceremonial practice such as the sacrificial Bowl as recreated by the Nazi loonies for propeganda purposes, very ancient proto Thule markers and symbol's have been found in Norway, Sweden and Denmark as well as Estonia and Latvia indicating a deep cultural element and possible historical origin to the cult.

I could go on but where the hell do you get your opinion's from.

By the way Language is fluid, take regional inflexion and add a hundred or so years without television or radio to disperse new phrase and grammatical fluctuation's.

en.wikipedia.org...

Many word's in both German and Dutch are actually old norse in origin and many word's in Scandinavia are taken from them and indeed the Scandinavians are termed Northern Germanic people, there language is one branch away so was the same at one point but german inherited latin, russian and hunnic phrase and word's adding to there vocabulary.

a reply to: FatherLukeDuke

The article you're using was wrote and updated in 2011.

The article the OP, ATODASO is using was, is another update in 2014.
Here is the Link.

Link

Wyoming gave women the right to vote in 1890, before it even became a state. I read once that between the fact that the environment produced such a hard life and the indian attacks the women had proven to be just as capable as the men and thus they felt they deserved the right.
when it comes to protecting the homeland from enemies or from inhospitable environments women have stepped up to the plate and fought along side the men and were just as capable as them..
weather they were settlements or not.. these vikings women if their village was attacked probably found it more preferable to die fighting than to see the village burned to the ground and their children die a horrible death.
I would propose that the gender roles are easily faded away if necessity dictates it

I believe some Roman gladiators were female? I would also like to mention Joan of Arc, don't know if she actually slew any English or not.