Dogs, pigs and even horses. The Vikings loaded their animals aboard their ships before crossing the North Sea in search of riches and fame. Even the Great Heathen Army would have done it, the one that devastated and conquered much of England at the end of the 9th century.
Archaeologists from the University of Durham have found in a cemetery located in Heath Wood (Derbyshire) the first solid scientific evidence to suggest that the bloodthirsty Scandinavian warriors traveled with their pets, according to an article published in the journal PLOS ONE.
The excavations carried out in the place have made it possible to find the remains of an adult human and a younger one, a dog, a horse and what was possibly a pig that all came from what is known as the Baltic Shield, the area that covers Norway and central and northern Sweden.
Heath Word Cemetery was actually a pagan cremation pyre where the Vikings burned their dead – at a time when this ritual was absent among Britain’s indigenous peoples who converted to Christianity – and then buried their ashes under a mound. This has caused the evidence that has survived to this day to be reduced.
Strontium is a naturally occurring element found in varying proportions around the world that enters humans and animals through food, providing a geographic footprint marking movements throughout their lives.
Researchers have turned to isotopes of this chemical element (Sr) to discover that the horse and dog were transported to Britain. As for the pig fragment, experts believe it could be a game piece or a talisman brought from Scandinavia, rather than a living animal.
“These results provide the first and only evidence of the late 9th century migration of people and their animals, including horses and dogs, across the North Sea, from Scandinavia to the heart of England,” the study authors write.
The hypothesis of the archaeologists from the University of Durham is that the adult would have been someone so important in his homeland that he was able to take his pets on the journey that across the North Sea together with the Great Heathen Army that invaded the British Isles in the year 865 after Christ.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, a set of annals written in Old English, the Vikings invaded the south-east coast of England and forced their way inland, reaching Repton, three miles from the site of Heath Word burial ground, in the year 873.
The site was excavated in the 1940s and 1950s. Archaeologists found 59 separate burial mounds and excavated 20 of them, uncovering Scandinavian grave goods, including swords and shields, and the remains of people that showed evidence of sharp force trauma.
