The Seasonality of Ritual Sites in Viking-Age Scandinavia and Iceland

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ephemeral Aggregated Settlements: Fluidity, Failure or Resilience?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper will address Viking-age ritual sites (cult sites assembly (thing) sites) in Scandinavia and Iceland from the perspective of their seasonality. These sites were used for gatherings of various kinds seemingly at certain points of the calendar year. Calendrical rituals formed a key part of Viking-age religion, although the impact of these have not yet been analysed by archaeologists. An introductory survey suggests that the most important Viking-age feasts and gatherings took place at the times of the year when people were not tied down by key agricultural tasks. In this paper, the interplay between calendrical rituals and daily life will be examined for the first time and the archaeological evidence for gatherings at key points of the year analysed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Ephemeral Aggregated Settlements: Fluidity, Failure or Resilience?

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22856