Atlantis Online
March 28, 2024, 12:05:45 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Scientists to drill beneath oceans
http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,8063.0.html
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

Viking-era woman sheds light on Iceland’s earliest settlers

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Viking-era woman sheds light on Iceland’s earliest settlers  (Read 580 times)
0 Members and 67 Guests are viewing this topic.
Dakeya
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 1651



« on: April 16, 2016, 09:28:12 pm »


Viking-era woman sheds light on Iceland’s earliest settlers
Diet, artifacts tell tale of short life of the ‘woman in blue’
By
Bruce Bower
2:50pm, April 15, 2016
Viking-era brooches

EARLY ICELANDER  A young woman now determined to have been one of Iceland’s earliest settlers was found in 1938 in a grave with various Viking-era objects, including this pair of brooches.

Ivar Brynjólfsson/The National Museum of Iceland

    EMail logo EMail
    Print logo Print
    Twitter logo Twitter
    Facebook logo Facebook
    Reddit logo Reddit
    Google+ logo Google+

Sponsor Message

ATLANTA — Iceland’s “woman in blue,” the partial skeleton of a young woman found in 1938 in a grave with Viking-era objects, was a child of some of the island’s earliest settlers, researchers reported April 14 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Tooth development and wear suggest she was between 17 and 25 years old when she died.

It’s not known if the woman was a Viking or if she came from another northern European population, said bioarchaeologist Tina Jakob of Durham University in England. A chemical analysis of one of her teeth indicates that, between ages 5 and 10, she started eating a lot of fish and other seafood for the first time after having previously consumed mainly plants and land animals, a team led by Jakob and Joe Walser III of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik found.

VIKING-ERA JAW A female’s jaw dating to the early 900s, with some flesh still attached, floats in a jar filled with light paraffin oil. The jaw belonged to one of Iceland’s earliest colonizers, known as the “woman in blue” for her indigo-dyed apron.
Ivar Brynjólfsson/The National Museum of Iceland

“The ‘woman in blue’ was not Icelandic,” Jakob says. “She came from southern Scandinavia or the British Isles.” Between around 700 and 1100, seagoing Vikings from Denmark, Norway and Sweden settled in various countries, including Iceland. That raises the possibility that the “woman in blue” came to Iceland with Vikings.

A blue-dyed apron she wore — from which she got her nickname — and a strap from some type of garment display weaving techniques from 9th to 10th century Norway and Britain’s Celtic society, Jakob says. The apron’s plant-based blue dye was typical of female Viking clothing, she adds. Fiber and chemical studies show that Icelandic sheep provided wool used for these garments.

Radiocarbon dating of the apron, strap and one of the woman’s teeth indicate she was born around 900, the scientists conclude. Evidence of Iceland’s initial settlement dates to between around 871 and 930, Jakob adds.

While the woman lay in her grave, a Scandinavian copper brooch came in contact with her face, helping to preserve skin fibers. Bone and skin remains were unintentionally stained green because they were stored in jars filled with a preservative solution. These finds were recently transferred into jars of light paraffin oil to maintain preservation without further staining. DNA from the “woman in blue” is now being studied.
Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Dakeya
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 1651



« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2016, 09:28:34 pm »

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/viking-era-woman-sheds-light-icelands-earliest-settlers
Report Spam   Logged
Dakeya
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 1651



« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2016, 09:29:00 pm »



EARLY ICELANDER  A young woman now determined to have been one of Iceland’s earliest settlers was found in 1938 in a grave with various Viking-era objects, including this pair of brooches.
Report Spam   Logged
Dakeya
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 1651



« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2016, 09:29:40 pm »



VIKING-ERA JAW A female’s jaw dating to the early 900s, with some flesh still attached, floats in a jar filled with light paraffin oil. The jaw belonged to one of Iceland’s earliest colonizers, known as the “woman in blue” for her indigo-dyed apron.
Ivar Brynjólfsson/The National Museum of Iceland
Report Spam   Logged
Dakeya
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 1651



« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2016, 09:35:58 pm »

When Iceland was first settled the Vikings threw three sorts of hardy, half-wide beasts ashore to tame the land: Norwegian sheep, Irish cattle and kidnapped Irish folk. They depended on Irish slaves for centuries, continuing to raid northern Irish communities for fresh blood well past the turn of the millennium.

The Irish brought with them (their belief in) The Little People, who haunt the wild and windy spaces of Iceland as Huldufólk, the Hidden People.

Stories and magic about Huldufólk are similar to Greek myths and magic about chthonic entities, and may be a memory of the mysterious pre-Celtic "cattle people" of Ireland, who practiced underworldly rites with royal blood, counted their wealth in cattle and spread droving roads and overland-navigation cairns throughout Ireland.

To this day the Icelandic can point to particular cairns and say they were made by Huldufólk. One mustn't cast stones idly for risk of striking the Huldufólk, and one must respect graves and crossroads or risk a comeuppance from Huldufólk. If a stone won't come easily from the ground it's because the Huldufólk mean it to stay put, a rule that explains why certain "elf rocks" are bypassed by modern construction rather than being chipped or blasted away.
Report Spam   Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy