Surviving Violence: Healthcare in the Danish Viking Age

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Systems of Care in Times of Violence" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Viking Era has been characterized as a time of great violence in both modern and historical accounts, however, little work has been done to analyze the cultural norms and practical considerations surrounding healthcare during the Viking Age. If Viking Age society was as violent as purported, it would have needed to have well-honed systems of care in place to deal with the inevitable aftermath of these violent encounters. Bioarchaeological data provides an avenue for exploring how this society dealt with non-lethal violence through an examination of the actual bodies that experienced and received forms of healthcare. This paper will utilize the bioarchaeology of care method to analyze the care that one individual from the Danish Viking Age site of Bogøvej received after suffering blunt force trauma to the skull.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Systems of Care in Times of Violence   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25455