Message #5232

[Zeptepi]

Europa,
Early Viking history, similar to the so called Pictish history, is, I agree,  very sketchy indeed.  However, this makes research that much more interesting!

Sources are quite numerous really, and my research, (if I can call it that) is multi-dimensional.  This is looking afresh at the highly biased orthodox material available, ancient mythology and recent DNA samplings with another look at the dating of the many post Neolithic habitation sites to be found in NW coast of Scotland and Orkney and Shetland islands.

A good place to start is a book named, The Blood of the Vikings, by Julian C Richards. ISBN-10: 0340733853.  This is an excellent source of DNA tracing that attempts to show the spread of Norwegian  ancestry through the UK.  Unfortunately, timelines dating to my period in question remain well within the realms established  academia.

My most reliable source, at the moment,  is probably study of the Celtic myths and the Norse Sagas.  All of these can most be likely ‘googled’.   I treat them the same way as I do with Sumerian clay tablets (Sumeria is my main study) that is to read them to be literally  true and not to place any modern or quasi-religious spin on them.  That way we might, just might, uncover what exactly they were saying to us.  If read in this manner they shed an entirely different view, so much so, that much of our history needs revising.

What’s your own view?

Best wishes,
John.