I'm glad they explained that. It cleared thing s right up -- clear as mud. Can somebody explain the author's explanation? What's a steaming pantload of 21st century gobbledygook.
All I can say is watch out for we Viking women. And our Viking kitties!!
We can be real badasses when we have to be. :-)
Translation: “She was a rich girl who liked to play dress-up as a warrior”
Like to gamble too, it appears.
It would be too simple for this guy to accept the fact that a woman could be a woman and a great warrior alsoSet against this backdrop, the team behind the study noted other Viking women likely bore arms.
“We would be very surprised if she was alone in the Viking world; other women may have taken up arms in the same seasonal or opportunistic context as many male Viking raiders,” they wrote. “A few may have risen to positions of command—indeed, the quality of the individual’s clothing, and the presence of the gaming set, implies that she may have been one of them.”
Those poor women! They had to go through life as women even though in this enlightened era today it’s possible they identified as men!
Well, check under that chastity belt.....and all will be revealed.
Pardon me for the long extract below. Note that this extract, like the one you provided, comes from the follow-up article published several years after the original study report. The extract is, in fact, the concluding paragraphs to the article. The author was replying to criticisms from the archaeology community. It serves as a good explanation of the study team’s motivations and why they felt limited in their ability to make assertions beyond where their data took them. Of course, given the subject and the article having been written in the early 21st century, the text contains references to academic study areas that are going to set some conservative readers’ teeth on edge. It is probable that left/liberal critics were equally upset at their reluctance to engage in feminist/transgender/queer fantasizing about female warrior societies, etc.
Direct links to both articles are given below after the extract:
“We have not ‘gone looking’ for female Viking warriors. The case of Bj.581 arose after the discrepancy in sex determination was discovered through Kjellström’s original study on the Mälar population (see the OSM); since then, we have followed the trail of data and analysis. Similarly, the DNA work that confirmed the female sex of the individual was part of a much larger genomic study, not specifically directed at Bj.581. We feel no intrinsic need for there to have been a female warrior buried in the grave, nor for such individuals to have existed more widely. We simply find it interesting that this seems to have been the case. In the course of our research—and even more so after the 2017 publication—it has been enlightening to discover how many people apparently need that not to be so.
Time will prove us right or wrong, but we think it probable that more Viking Age female warriors will be found in the archaeological record—either as new discoveries or as reinterpretations of old finds, perhaps using genomics, as we have done. Given the enormous numbers of buried individuals from this period that have been sexed only indirectly using associated artefacts, it is even possible that female warriors will eventually appear in some quantity. Currently, the figure of the woman with weapons seems to be an exception, but this does not mean that she can be deconstructed out of existence—especially on the basis of Pavlovian scepticism. She adjusts and nuances our interpretations, and challenges our stereotypes. She adds still further dimensions to our understanding of the Viking Age as a time of critical cultural transformation and social encounter.
Clearly, the investigation of Bj.581 has relevance for archaeological studies of gender (including feminist and queer theory), violence, mortuary behaviour, symbolism and many other fields, both in general and with specific reference to the Viking Age. At the same time, the relatively meagre data from this single, unusual (and exceptional?) grave cannot be made to bear an infinite burden of expectation and agenda—whether in support of, or in resistance to, our conclusions. This article is not, and for practical reasons cannot be, an attempt to achieve a greater understanding of Viking Age sex/gender systems in their totality. Instead, this is a case study that, in some ways, presents more questions than answers, but which also opens up previously unexpected possibilities. Not least, we stand before the collective corpus of excavated Viking Age burials with an urgent task of patient and careful reassessment, in relation to not only gender, but also concerning the social signals encoded within every aspect of funerary ritual. In the specific case of Bj.581, of course, one may draw different conclusions, but the integrity of the grave and the biological sex determination are secure. It is now for others to decide how they deal with the wider implications.”
Article links:
Original study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23308
Follow-up article:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/viking-warrior-women-reassessing-birka-chamber-grave-bj581/7CC691F69FAE51DDE905D27E049FADCD/core-reader
Cool. I thought “shield maidens” were a myth.