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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 12 2017, @11:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the Valkyries,-Amazons,...Xena? dept.

DNA proves fearsome Viking warrior was a woman:

A 10th century Viking unearthed in the 1880s was like a figure from Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries: an elite warrior buried with a sword, an ax, a spear, arrows, a knife, two shields, and a pair of warhorses. [...] a new study published today in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology finds that the warrior was a woman—the first high-status female Viking warrior to be identified. Excavators first uncovered the battle-ready body among several thousand Viking graves near the Swedish town of Birka, but for 130 years, most assumed it was a man—known only by the grave identifier, Bj 581. [...] Now, the warrior's DNA proves her sex, suggesting a surprising degree of gender balance in the Vikings' violent social order.

Her name was Lagertha.

Reference: Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, et. al., A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23308


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:54PM (#567200)

    ... they might not necessarily have been great warriors, they might just have been rich arseholes that wanted to go to the afterlife in style.

    Erm, it is Viking society we are talking about. No arsehole got rich or stayed rich, especially after death, without also being at least a competent warrior, at least at some point in their life.

    You know how it goes ... "A wimp and his gold are soon parted".