Mobility at the Center of the Viking World
Date
2020-04-23
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Abstract
This dissertation examines migration at Gotland, an important island in Viking Age Scandinavia (750-1050 CE) that is widely recognized for its role in trade. Located off the southeast coast of Sweden in the Baltic Sea, Gotland connected western European and Eastern trade routes. Despite its economic importance, there has been little investigation into the political affiliation of this island. It is argued that Gotland was both independently ruled, and that it was a part of the Svear kingdom, a Swedish polity that ruled over the Baltic Sea. One step toward addressing the political identity of Gotland is to investigate mobility on the island. Although artifacts indicate trade occurred with much of the known world, the degree of migration to the island is not known. This project examines the degree of mobility of two skeletal populations from Gotland, Fröjel and Kopparsvik. Biological distance (biodistance) from cranial and dental nonmetric traits were used to assess gene flow between Gotlandic populations and among Scandinavian populations. Strontium isotope analysis was used to determine the geological origins of individuals from the Gotlandic populations. The dental biodistance results showed that Fröjel and Kopparsvik were biologically isolated from mainland Scandinavian populations. The cranial biodistance results, however, indicated a small biodistance between Kopparsvik and the Svear kingdom, while Fröjel remained isolated from biologcial interactions with the mainland populations. While dental nonmetric traits reflected the ancestral relationships among Scandinavian populations, cranial nonmetric traits indicated more recent changes to the population structure. These interpretations of migration on the island are corroborated by the increase in non-local individuals at the Kopparsvik cemetery throughout its use, as determined by strontium isotope analysis. While there were only local individuals interred at the cemetery during the earliest phase of use, there was an increase in nonlocal individuals throughout the latter half of the Viking Age. Gotland, therefore, saw increased Swedish presence throughout the Viking Age, which suggests an effort by the Svear kingdom to take advantage of trade on the island. Fröjel, however, remained isolated from gene flow and immigration, indicating that the Svear kingdom had limited authority on Gotland.
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Keywords
Viking Age, Gotland, Biological Distance, Strontium Isotope Analysis
Citation
Peschel, E. M. (2020). Mobility at the Center of the Viking World (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.