The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

The Scandinavian presence
• 199 •
killed by a slashing blow to the top
of her head. Most interpretations
accept that this was a warrior
accompanied to the afterworld by
symbolic representations of various
aspects of his property, including a
slave girl (Bersu and Wilson 1966).
Ship burials are also known from
other areas of Norse settlement,
including the Northern and Western
Isles. At Scar on the island of Sanday
in Orkney, a small rowing boat, about
6.3 m long, was discovered eroding
out of a cliff in 1991. Despite the
sea damage, it is one of the bestrecorded
Norse graves from
Scotland. Buried in the boat were a
man in his thirties, a woman in her
seventies and a child. The age
difference makes it unlikely that
They were a typical family group, but
both adults had rich personal gravegoods,
also making it unlikely that
they were a master or mistress and
slave. The man was armed with a
sword and arrows, and had a fine
comb and a set of 22 gaming pieces.
The woman was wearing a gilded
brooch and beside her was a
whalebone plaque, a sickle, cooking
spit, a small pair of shears and a
steatite spindlewhorl (Ritchie 1993).
Figure 11.2 The burial at Balladoole in the Isle of Man, showing clenched
nails from boat and outlines of earlier Christian graves.
Source: Richards 1991
The reappearance of pagan burial in the British Isles appears to have been a relatively shortlived
phenomenon, representing the first generation of Scandinavian settlers. Their successors
rapidly adopted local burial customs and become archaeologically indistinguishable from those
given Christian burial. At Raunds, Northamptonshire, 368 Christian burials have been excavated
in a tenth- and eleventh-century graveyard clustered around a church within a rectangular ditched
enclosure. All the graves were aligned east-west with the head to the west; none was buried with
grave-goods. Most of the bodies were simply placed in holes in the ground, although slabs of
limestone were used as pillow stones in about 60 per cent of the graves. There are indications of
wooden coffins in some cases, and six elite burials were distinguished by being placed in lidded
stone coffins. On the Isle of Man, over 300 Christian burials have been excavated in a cemetery
to the north of St German’s Cathedral, St Patrick’s Isle, Peel. Most of them were in stone-lined
cist graves, although the later ones simply have stone pillow slabs to protect the head, or are
buried in wooden coffins. There are also at least seven Scandinavian burials of the tenth century,
although only that of a high status female was accompanied by grave-goods, apart from items of
dress. The woman had been laid with a cushion to support her head and was accompanied by
various items including a cooking spit, a work box or bag with two needles, a pair of small shears