The Viking Age in the West has long been perceived as a direct, colonising expansion of Scandinavian peoples, its causes most frequently sought within Scandinavia and linked together as concerted phenomena. This debate piece seeks to question these assumptions. Drawing on recent research that stresses the heterogeneity of Viking war-bands—and their early involvement in Francia and England—it proposes a ‘southern route’ through which Viking influence flowed towards the North Atlantic. The saga-attested early dominance of Norway over the Northern Isles is challenged, and attributed to a politicised re-writing of history four centuries later.

The warrior woman has long been part of the Viking image, with a pedigree that extends from the Valkyries of Old Norse prose and poetry to modern media entertainment. Until recently, however, actual Viking Age evidence for such individuals has been sparse. This article addresses research showing that the individual buried at Birka in an ‘archetypal’ high-status warrior grave—always assumed to be male since its excavation in 1878—is, in fact, biologically female. Publication, in 2017, of the genomic data led to unprecedented public debate about this individual. Here, the authors address in detail the interpretation of the burial, discussing source-critical issues and parallels.

The use of tar and resinous substances dates back far into Scandinavian prehistory. How it was produced, however, was unknown until recent excavations in eastern Sweden revealed funnel-shaped features—now identified as structures for producing tar. A new way of organising tar production appeared in the eighth century AD, leading to large-scale manufacture within outland forests. Intensified Viking Age maritime activities probably increased the demand for tar, which also became an important trade commodity. The transition to intensive tar manufacturing implies new ways of organising production, labour, forest management and transportation, which influenced the structure of Scandinavian society and connected forested outlands with the world economy.

The ‘Birka dragon’ symbol is synonymous with the famous Viking Age town of that name, an association born from the 1887 discovery of a casting mould depicting a dragonhead. Recent excavations in Black Earth Harbour at Birka have yielded a dress pin that can, almost 150 years later, be directly linked to this mould. This artefact introduces a unique ‘Birka style’ to the small corpus of known Viking Age dragonhead dress pins. The authors discuss and explore the artefact's manufacture, function and chronology, and its connections to ship figureheads.

Archaeological evidence for the Viking Great Army that invaded England in AD 865 is focused particularly on the area around St Wystan's church at Repton in Derbyshire. Large numbers of burials excavated here in the 1980s have been attributed to the overwintering of the Great Army in AD 873–874. Many of the remains were deposited in a charnel, while others were buried in graves with Scandinavian-style grave goods. Although numismatic evidence corroborated the belief that these were the remains of the Great Army, radiocarbon results have tended to disagree. Recent re-dating of the remains, applying the appropriate marine reservoir correction, has clarified the relationship between the interments, and has resolved the previous uncertainty.

A massive tenth-century AD ring fortress was recently identified at Borgring, south of Copenhagen in Denmark. The combination of high-resolution LiDAR mapping, geophysical survey and targeted small-scale excavation has demonstrated that the site belongs to a rare class of monuments—the Trelleborg-type ring fortress. Borgring is the first such monument to be found in Denmark in over six decades, and provides an opportunity to investigate a type-site of Viking Age military organisation and conflict. The authors argue that Borgring complements a varied group of fortification structures in late Viking Age Denmark, part of a military network close to contemporaneous European ideas of military kingship and defence.

Metal detecting in England has recovered a large number of Viking Age single finds that have been reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. These reveal that silver bullion of Scandinavian origin was used as currency throughout the Danelaw between AD 865 and 940. Standardised weights of copper alloy were an integral part of this metal-weight economy. Bullion was not the sole means of silver payment during this period: coinage had long been used in the occupied Anglo-Saxon territories and continued to be minted under the Vikings. The resulting dual-currency economy may have facilitated trade with neighbouring Scandinavian territories, but the two currencies also served as markers of cultural identity, offering a choice of monetary media.

A rare, intact Viking boat burial in western Scotland contained a rich assemblage of grave goods, providing clues to the identity and origins of both the interred individual and the people who gathered to create the site. The burial evokes the mundane and the exotic, past and present, as well as local, national and international identities. Isotopic analysis of the teeth hints at a possible Scandinavian origin for the deceased, while Scottish, Irish and Scandinavian connections are attested by the grave goods. Weapons indicate a warrior of high status; other objects imply connections to daily life, cooking and work, farming and food production. The burial site is itself rich in symbolic associations, being close to a Neolithic burial cairn, the stones of which may have been incorporated into the grave.

Ship burials are a well-known feature of Scandinavian Viking Age archaeology, but the discovery of 41 individuals buried in two ships in Estonia belongs to the Pre-Viking period and is the first of its kind in Europe. The two crews met a violent end around AD 750, and were buried with a variety of richly decorated weapons, tools, gaming pieces and animal bones. The rich grave goods suggest that this was a diplomatic delegation protected by a cohort of elite warriors. They were armed with swords of Scandinavian design, possibly from the Stockholm-Mälaren region, and stable isotope analysis is consistent with that being the probable homeland of the crew.