A skeleton bursts out of the ground

Sometimes archaeologists are in contact with really strange things, until a plausible explanation is found, of course. Very recently, archaeologists were astonished when a thousand-year-old skeleton was found entwined in the roots of a tree ripped from the ground after a great storm.

The Skeleton of a young man was unearthed after a great storm blew over an old tree near Collooney - Sligo - Ireland, thus revealing this peculiar finding. This was the burial place of a young man, between his 17's and 20's, who is believed to have had a violent and brutal death during the Early Medieval Ages. (The death of this young man took place around 1030-1200 AD) The skeleton shows Several injuries which are visible in the ribs and hands, probably inflicted by a knife.

What more secrets can this fellow tell us? It remains to be study.

The Viking Berserkers – Brave warriors or drug-addicted?

Nowadays we often use the word "Berserk" or "to go berserk" to label any person in a irrational state of mind, or a person who isn't able to control his/her actions because the rage is such, that the person enters a frenzy, lunatic state, a destructively person or frenetically violent. The word Berserker or Berserk, comes from the old Norse word "Berserkr", which means "a wild warrior or champion". These warriors wore hides of bears, which might explain the origin of the berserkr as a compound of "Bera" - Bear, and "Serkr" - shirt or coat. These were the fierce viking warriors who were known for battling in an incontrolable trance-like rage, and were alleged to be able to perform seemingly impossible super-human feats of strength, akin only to a wild beast.

In the medieval history and folklore, of both Norse and Germanic, the berserkers were described as members of an unruly warrior band/gang, whose main devine cult was the cult of Odin, the king of the Aesir tribe of gods. The berserkers were also commissioned to royal and noble courts as bodyguards and special elite troops, who would strike fear into all who encountered them.

It wasn't hard to struck fear into the hearts of the enemies, as the berserkers behaved like an animal, roaring, grunting and howling, entering in a state of uncontrollable rage. Most of them would leap towards the enemy, biting shields and gnawing upon the skin of their enemies. 

Dating back as far as the ninth century, the berserker Norse Warriors were said to be able to do things that normal humans could not. According to ancient legend, the berserkers were indestructible, and no weapon could break them from their trance.  They were described as being immune to fire and to the strike of a sword, continuing on their rampage despite injury.

Most anthropological and psychological studies indicate that the Berserkers simply worked themselves up into a self-induced hysteria before fighting, that was part of the cult to Odin, very violent. They would act like animals, abandoning their clothes and dress with animal pelts, an initiation process to leave behind the human condition and become an animal. Other researches indicate that the consumption of drugs or alcohol, or even mental illness, could be the key to understand their behaviour. Some botanists have claimed that berserker behaviour could have been caused by the ingestion of the plant known as bog myrtle, one of the main spices in Scandinavian alcoholic beverages.

Other more esoteric theories surround supernatural beliefs. For instance, some scholars have claimed that the Vikings believed in spirit possession and that berserkers were possessed by the animal spirits of wolves or bears. According to some theorists, berserkers learned to cultivate the ability to allow animal spirits to take over their body during a fight (an example of animal totemism) that also involved drinking the blood of the animal that they wished to be possessed by.
Speaking in a more esoteric term, there are some theories surrounded by supernatural beliefs.For instance, some scholars have claimed that the Vikings believed in spirit possession and that berserkers were possessed by the animal spirits of wolves or bears. According to some theorists, berserkers learned to cultivate the ability to allow animal spirits to take over their body during a fight, an ancient cult of animal totemism linked to shamanism, that also involved drinking the blood of the animal that they wished to be possessed by.

In 1015, Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson of Norway outlawed berserkers. The Grágás, the medieval Icelandic law code, sentenced berserker warriors to outlawry. By the 12th century, organised berserker war-gangs had been completely disbanded.

Experimental Archaeology and the Russian Hermit

There is this new type of archaeology which is called, Experimental Archaeology which I would very much like to bring into the country where I'm living, Portugal, because it is a country filled with history and different cultures in a 5000years time frame. Anyway, Experimental Archaeology is what the name says it is, studying a period in history and reconstruct it, it can either be in the place of the archaeological findings, it might be reconstruct an already existing structure or recreate it in a different part. Reconstructing old buildings and settlements using the tools and materials of that time placing everything it was needed to survive and live to better understand how the human being lived life, it helps us to understand the social behavior, the connections they had with other cultures, where did the materials come from, what did they do in the different periods of the year, the type of food they were eating and so on.. This would be very interesting to make in Portugal with the Celtic and Lusitanian settlements, or the Germanic structures to the North or even the similar type of Norse settlements along the northern and central coast of Portugal, not even to mention the thousands of megalithic structures all over the country. But I'm getting off the topic now.

So speaking of Experimental Archaeology, in Russia a 24 year old man is spending eight months living completely alone in thr harsh freezing Russian wilderness, in an attempt to reconstruct the life of a 10th century hermit, it is part of a social experiment as well as Archaeological one. The project started in September and it is expected to run until the end of May. The man is caled Pavel Sapozhnikov, from Moscow, and he can only abandon the project if his mental or physical health is at serious risk, or if by any way his life is under threat. The dangerous thing is, even if contracts an illness, for example, lung infection, he is expected to carry the project on as his ancestors would have done a 1,000 years ago.

This isn't an easy task, Sapozhnikov is living in the replica of a 10th century farm house placing in a forest clearing around 50 miles north of Moscow. With the help of the expert archaeologist, Alexander Fetisov, the farm was built using only materials and techniques that would have been used by ancient Russians. Obviously this includes fire lights that burn on linseed oil, wooden beds, animal fur clothes and bedding and calendar scratched into the wall of the house. Sapozhnikov is only allowed to leave the fenced-off area of the farm to hunt and gather food. His is banned from any kind of communication and he can only use authentic tools that were used in ancient Russia.

He is already been living there for six months but the real challenge is during the cold harsh Russian winter season, a time when temperatures in the region can drop as low as minus 30ºC. This period of the year was deliberately chosen to highlight exacly how difficult Russian ancestors would have been living and hunting in these conditions.

The experiment is part of a project called ‘Hero’ and was set up by events manager Alexei Ovcharenko from agency Ratobor.  The theory behind the experiment is ‘to trace the social and psychological changes in personality and learn how important the support of others is to modern humans.’  Ovcharenko added that eight months is long enough for the experiment to yield results, but not too long that it will 'pathologically endanger' Sapozhnikov.  However, a medical expert and project leader does visit him once a month to check on his progress.

Sapozhnikov starts his morning by milking his goats, collecting eggs, butchering chickens for food and eating breakfast, follwing by chopping wood and collecting water from the well, and when the season calls for it, gathering mushrooms from the near by forest. The rest of the day is spent either hunting for food or carrying out manual labour on the farm. This also includes insulating the house with manure, maintaining his house and outbuildings, and other tasks around the farm.

Of course Sapozhnikov wasn't sent to this mission with lack of information, he spent months learning how to prepare animals and how to live in these conditions. He also became skilled in using ancient tools and familiarised himself with ancient fire-building and washing techniques with the help from the archaeologists.
For example, to produce hot water he must place stones in his fire stove until they are glowing, before putting these stones into a bucket of cold water, he then uses this water to wash his clothes, cooking utensils, his home, and his own body, although, because water is scarce there, clothes and body washing is carried out infrequently.

Helgö and the Scandinavian Traders

The human being has always been a great traveler, going from one country to another, exchanging goods, beliefs, ideas, friendship, other economical connections and so on. Today in the modern world, this is too easy and it seems to us that these kind of interactions wouldn't be possible in ancient times, or at least, it might have been so difficult to travel from one country to another and it took too long, that people simply stayed in their own land, but amazingly this wasn't the case in ancient times, and i will give you some exemples, starting with a small Island called Helgö, situated in Lake Mälaren near Stockholm in Sweden, a place that has seen much movement in ancient times as we seen in any other modern capital city.

Around the year 200 AD the first town was build in Helgö . Today it seems a very remote place but the lake was once a fjord, boats could easily sail, go to and fro, from Helgö out into the Baltic Sea. From there, routes led to the east of Russia, west of Britain and Ireland, and, by following the rivers through the hinterland, far south to Constantinople and even into the Mediterranean Sea, making trading posts from Portugal and Spain, all the way to the southeast to Italy and Greece. Helgö was at the centre of a vast trading network, not just to the scandinavians, but also boats from other countries came to this place.

Those familiar with the norse history and the lovers of Vikings know well that Scandinavian traders travelled widely, not just in terms of war and to pillage. Some of the places they have travelled to are remarkable for that period. They have travelled to places such as Dublin in Ireland where they founded a Scandinavian trading port. Recently i have read a book called the Eaters of the Dead which is the account of the Arab diplomat Ahmad ibn Fadlān and he recorded the Scandinavian Rus trading on the Volga River, the book might be a fictional book, but it was based on the real accounts of this Arab diplomat, there are lots of text excerpts and i went to investigate the real story of this account, and the book is only fictional when talking about the Norse group that went with Fadlān into the North of Europe, because in truth he was really there, and this is one exelent proof how far the Norse people went, and speaking about the Rus Norse tribe, they were so importante and made so much trading routes often to the could east parts of Europe, that the country was named after them ( Russia ). Farther south, the Scandinavians formed the elite Varangian guard, protecting the Byzantine emperor himself, one of these guards, called Halfdan, even carved his name in runes in the main church, the Hagia Sofia.

Wherever country Scandinavians went, they traded with the inhabitants of the regions and also those inhabitants came to the Scandinavian lands, this is actually accounted by the unusual collection of objects discovered at Helgö. Digging at a farm, archaeologists found the top of a bishop’s crozier originating from Ireland, a christening cup originating from Egypt, and, most curious of all, a bronze statue of the Buddha originating from the area around Afghanistan. The items date to the 6^th century AD, it is remarkable to see such objects there, from diferente religions, diferente beliefs of those of the inhabitants of Helgö.

It is possible that traders reached places as remote as Afghanistan, why not? Centuries earlier the Celts did the same and went as far as Mongolia and the Gobi Desert north of China. Imagine the amount of knowledge these people had, interacting with so many diferente cultures and religions, how would early Scandinavians face this fact, when their gods were so much diferente than others' gods? Probably they all lived well with that fact, for the trading with other countries would continue for many centuries, people in those times weren't as fanatical about religion as most countries are today.

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