Fighting for the Vikings
Reviewed by Mark Redknap
Viking Weapons and Warfare
J Kim Siddorn
Tempus £15.99
ISBN 0-7524-1419-4 pb
In recent years, the membership of re-enactment and living history groups has increased, in parallel with a growth of public interest in social rather than political history. Members of the many groups gather information from diverse sources to recreate as authentically as possible the costume and equipment of the past, in many cases using the same materials and methods of manufacture. This can help answer practical questions raised by archaeologists, and plays an important part in correcting mistaken impressions of the past.
Kim Siddorn, the author of this book, is the founder and national organiser of the early medieval re-enactment group Regia Anglorum. He is also member of the Executive Committee of the National Association of Re-enactment Societies (NAReS), which holds information on such groups across the UK. With 20 years of re-enactment experience, he is therefore well qualified to discourse on the subject from the point of view of the Viking warrior, focusing on the advantages and constraints of the main types of weapon.
The book starts with a discussion of that most important resource, iron, and then takes the reader through some of the Viking warrior's most important equipment - spear, shield, armour, sword, scabbard, helmet. It closes with chapters on money, ships and the sea. As a popular introduction to each subject and the type of equipment recreated by re-enactors, the book serves its purpose.
But for the archaeologist, it falls somewhat short of the mark. Most statements are personal opinions, and few sources for information are provided, whether from published accounts or from specialists. The text suffers from sloppy editing, misprints and poor spelling. Many line drawings are poor and appear to have been copied from a range of sources which have not been cited. Some of the translations used and many of the artefacts mentioned are not referenced, making it difficult for any serious student of the subject to follow up the evidence. Most startling of all, missing altogether is a chapter on one of the Vikings' most important weapons, the axe.
The main value of the book lies in the record of the author's long experience with Viking weapons, and his personal opinions on a range of matters, from the psychology of command to tactics and strategy in the field. Perhaps the publishers should have added 'a personal view' to the title.
It is also worth remembering the cautionary words of the experimental archaeologist Peter Reynolds: 'Any attempt to relive the remote past is destined to failure, because the knowledge and experience of previous generations are denied to us. To place modern man into a prehistoric context, given the limitations of our knowledge, is only to observe how modern people may react both to the conditions and to each other.'
Mark Redknap is a Viking specialist at the national Museums of Wales
Early food
Reviewed by Merryn Dineley
Prehistoric Cooking
Jacqui Wood
Tempus £15.99
ISBN 0-7524-19743-9 pb
Some years ago, I attended a prehistoric cookery course run by Jacqui Wood. At the time I was beginning my own experimental research into ancient cereal processing techniques and brewing; but whereas I am limited to a simple hearth at the bottom of my garden, Jacqui Wood has, over 25 years, built several roundhouses on her land in Cornwall, made tools, worked with textiles, experimented with cookery and metallurgy. In brief, she has investigated most aspects of prehistoric life and has become very well known as an experimental archaeologist. She was asked to make the grass cloak and shoes for the Ice Man exhibit in the Bolzano Museum, Italy, and she regularly gives demonstrations and practical courses across Europe and in Britain.
This fascinating book begins with a general overview of changing lifestyles from the Ice Age to the Iron Age in northern Europe. This is interspersed with illuminating interpretations that can only come from practical experience. Lists of archaeological finds come to life as Wood discusses their medicinal, practical or culinary uses.
She goes on to discuss the major food types and different food preparation techniques - I especially enjoyed the 'cooking with hot stones' chapter which, with sections on pot boilers, bread stones, stone pits and water pits, emphasises the diversity of prehistoric cooking methods and menus. Other chapters cover bread, dairy products, seafood, meat, beans and lentils, herbs and spices and puddings.
Wood has made the traditional assumption that cereals were primarily used to make bread and, although there is a chapter on yeast, wines, beer and teas, she has overlooked the potential importance of malt sugars in the prehistoric diet. She has also confused sprouted grain with malted grain and therefore her brewing recipes are not correct. Another fault of the book is that the illustrations are disappointing - the black and white photographs of clay-baked fish did no justice to my own experience (on her cookery course) of cracking open the baked clay to reveal a freshly baked trout, cooked to perfection and tasting delicious.
This is both a reference and a cookery book. Recipes are given at the end of most chapters with practical adaptations for the modern kitchen. Wood convincingly argues that ancient cooking methods are simple and effective and that there is no great mystery in recreating the food that was eaten in the past.
Merryn Dineley is an experimental archaeologist based in Manchester
European rock art
Reviewed by Iain Hewitt
European Landscapes of Rock Art
eds George Nash & Christopher Chippindale
Routledge £19.99
ISBN 0-415-25735-2 pb
Do not be misled by the absence of the term 'prehistory' from the title of this book. With the exception of just one of the ten chapters, the contributors discuss a range of prehistoric rock art sites in Britain, Ireland, Alpine Italy (two), Spain, and Scandinavia (three). This is an academic book that explores the complex interplay between the artist, images, composition, landscape, and the modern observer.
The quality of the contributions varies considerably. Two chapters are rather mundane and at least one of these lacks meaningful structure and depth. And why was Richard Bradley not amongst the authors? In recent years he has been a star in the field of European rock art and landscape studies. Though absent, his influence is felt strongly throughout. One other debit is a tendency on the part of some authors to assume that the reader has previous knowledge of their subject matter. The book is not intended to be an introduction to rock art, but it is galling when, for example, there are no illustrations to explain imprecise terms such as 'spots' and 'mushrooms'.
On balance, the good outweighs the bad and some chapters are outstanding. British and Irish prehistoric motifs are overwhelmingly abstract in form and many scholars avoid them for this reason. However, Purcell examines a number of rock art sites on the Inveragh Peninsula in Ireland and in so doing identifies two groups of decorated surfaces - those intended for 'public' gaze, and 'private' restricted sites. Frachetti and Chippindale consider the concept of time as represented in the art of Alpine Italy. Their work is a little masterpiece. Also worthy of mention is Nash's analysis of a single panel of rock art at Tumlehed in West Sweden. In this fascinating chapter the author recreates the prehistoric landscape context of the art and explains how this may have influenced the design.
At the top of my list is the one chapter that is not directly concerned with prehistoric rock art. Instead, Baker explores a modern phenomenon - Red Army graffiti scrawled onto the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945. The author goes on to explain how the building and its immediate urban landscape have been interpreted and reinterpreted on several occasions since the 19th century. Does this changing perspective have parallels with our ancestors' developing relationship with their own landscapes as expressed in their rock art? Is Russian graffiti on a stone building rock art? If so, perhaps we should reassess the significance of medieval church wall paintings. These are the sort of issues that lead the mind onwards. The book as a whole would have been enriched by a few more chapters like this.
Ian Hewitt teaches archaeology at Bournemouth University
Ireland in prehistory
Reviewed by Ed O'Donovan
The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland
John Waddell
Wordwell £20.00
ISBN 1-869857-39-9 pb
This book is faithful to its name and is the most comprehensive single synthesis of Irish prehistory ever produced. The book is built upon successive generations of archaeological work and the breadth of scholarship it contains is staggering. This is reflected in the book's colossal bibliography and the number of sites, monuments and discoveries that are accounted for.
The book is laid out chronologically, beginning with the emergence of Ireland from under the retreating ice sheets at the end of the last Ice Age, and it follows the archaeological evidence from the Mesolithic through to the 'royal sites' of the Irish Iron Age. The chapter headings steer clear of archaeological terminology - the Neolithic, for example, is treated under the heading 'Farmers of the fourth millennium'; and megalithic tombs are ordered within a chapter titled 'The cult of the dead'.
Each chapter highlights the principal themes of the era in question, and sub-sections refer to important sites, artefacts or social interpretations for that period. Individual sites described range from the ever-increasing number of Neolithic rectangular houses and the unparalleled Neolithic field systems at Céide to the fascinating ritual Iron Age pond known as the King's Stable in Ulster, where weaponry and incomplete human remains lay buried. Among many other themes, 'warrior aristocrats' and 'tribal kings or priestly keepers' are explored for the Iron Age; while 'amber and the Nordic question' is examined in the Bronze Age.
In the preface, the author acknowledges that this is primarily a book of evidence. It is not easily read from cover to cover, but its thematic layout does allow the book to be scanned for sites, periods and themes of interest. The volume has already become the definitive textbook on the prehistoric archaeology of Ireland. It is an ideal way for a British audience to become acquainted with sites, discoveries and themes in prehistory located across the Irish Sea.
Ed O'Donovan is an archaeologist with Margaret Gowen Ltd in Dublin.
Assessing the Danelaw
Reviewed by Phil Sidebottom
Vikings and the Danelaw
eds James Graham-Campbell, Richard Hall, Judith Jesch & David Parsons
Oxbow £40.00
ISBN 1-84217-047-3 hb
Many of the papers in this book may seem somewhat familiar to specialist readers. Nevertheless, it is an extremely useful book, if only for its most comprehensive review of current scholarship on the Viking settlement areas of England.
Katherine Hulman's chapter, 'Defining the Danelaw', is complemented well by Dawn Hadley's 'In search of the Vikings', both summarising the current state of research and its inherent problems, and outlining new ideas. Lesley Abrams's chapter, 'Conversion of the Danelaw', provides a very thoughtful interpretation of the complexities of this 'event' and what the term 'conversion' really meant, anyway.
Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle describe the results of their excavations at Repton some years ago. A good deal of it examines the mass burial, which the Biddles still prefer to see as essentially that of the Viking war-dead of 873-4. The theme of Viking burials in the same geographical area is echoed in Julian D Richards's paper, providing a look at the political statements they may have been making through burial practice.
Coinage from the Danelaw is considered by Mark Blackburn; and Richard Hall examines the development of urbanism in the Danelaw, concluding that the Vikings were most likely responsible for the first truly 'urban' centres in post-Roman Britain. On the same theme, Alan Vince examines the development of Viking Lincoln where the evidence lends support to Hall's view. Still in Lincolnshire, Kevin Leahy and Caroline Paterson review Viking-period settlement in the county from artefactual evidence.
David Stocker and Paul Everson examine monuments in Lincolnshire and its near neighbours, viewing the production of these monuments in the context of contemporary political developments. Philip Dixon, David Stocker and Olwyn Owen describe their examination of a lintel from Southwell Minster in a well-crafted paper. Another contribution from Julian D Richards looks at two excavated settlements in Yorkshire of the Viking period.
From here on, the book moves away from archaeology and examines current thinking on place-names with contributions from Gillian Fellows-Jensen and Tania Styles. Many archaeologists will be enlightened by the chapters by David Parsons, Judith Jesch, John McKinnell and Thorlac Turville-Petre on the literature, verse and language of the Viking settlement areas. Such studies make important contributions to our understanding of the elusive nature, ethnic composition and geography of the Danelaw.
Phil Sidebottom teaches at the Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of Sheffield
Queen of the Anglo-Saxons
Reviewed by Stephen Driscoll
Image and Power in the Archaeology of Early Medieval Britain
eds Helena Hamerow & Arthur MacGregor
Oxbow £35.00
ISBN 0-84217-051-1 hb
This important book of essays in honour of Rosemary Cramp allows us to assess the contribution of one of the leading figures in post-war British archaeology, while reporting on recent developments in aspects of early medieval - mostly English - archaeology. With one exception, the nine contributions here are provided by Professor Cramp's former students, who have all carved out successful careers in a field that she helped to pioneer.
Two papers focus on Anglo-Saxon burials. Martin Carver offers a stimulating discussion of monumental pagan burials - of which Sutton Hoo is the archetype - in a European context. Catherine Hills, working with the almost invisible evidence of cremated ivory rings, similarly explores European connections. Carver's paper ranges over time and space to consider the political consequences of ostentatious burial in the early Middle Ages, while Hills uses her evidence to make the apparently self-evident point that the trading networks of early England included the Anglo-Saxon homelands on the Continent.
Rosemary Cramp is probably best known for her work on Anglo-Saxon sculpture and monasticism, so it is not surprising that the majority of the papers touch on these subjects. Nancy Edwards places the sculpture from St David's in a landscape context for the first time, and provides a taster for her soon-to-appear revision of the corpus of the Early Christian Monuments of Wales. Deirdre O'Sullivan searches for the ascetic in her excavations on Lindisfarne, while Peter Hill, in the most contentious contribution, uses evidence from Whithorn to suggest that Pelagian refugees were prominent in the 5th century conversion of southern Scotland. The longest and most substantial paper is Chris Loveluck's preliminary account of the excavations at Flixborough. The richness of this North Lincolnshire site initially suggested that it was a lost Anglo-Saxon monastery. The quantity and quality of the evidence from what now appears to be a secular settlement will take some time to analyse and publish in full, so this extended presentation is particularly valuable. Indeed, it may be all that some will ever need to know about this important site.
However significant these archaeological studies are, from an historiographical perspective the most important chapters are those that explicitly address Professor Cramp's contribution to the subject. Richard Bailey provides a warm preface that reveals aspects of her personality one could not appreciate from her scholarly publications. Just looking at the positions of her former students and the sites they present here gives some indication of the influence that Rosemary Cramp has had on British archaeology.
On the evidence of this volume one could make a good case that she is the most important academic in post-war British archaeology. Certainly she has few rivals. The sketch of her career by Chris Morris provides a good basis for appreciating the contribution she has made, and will no doubt become an important source for the history of the discipline in years to come.
Stephen Driscoll specialises in early medieval archaeology at the University of Glasgow
