快猫短视频

Archaeologists have uncovered the first physical evidence that confirms some Vikings shipped their own horses and dogs from Scandinavia to England.

The animal bone evidence comes from a burial mound at the only known Viking cremation cemetery in the British Isles. The Heath Wood cemetery 鈥� located in what is now Derbyshire in central England 鈥� is believed to be a burial ground for the first large Viking army to travel to the country. The soldiers arrived in AD 873 on a campaign of conquest against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

鈥淲e know of individual Viking burials that have animal remains in them in the British Isles, but very few,鈥� says at Durham University in the UK. 鈥淭his is basically the only one where we can show that they are not from Britain, that they have come from the Baltic Shield鈥�, an area that encompasses Finland, Sweden and much of Norway.

Loeffelmann and her colleagues analysed bone fragments from the site that previous research had identified as belonging to a horse and a dog. Specifically, they measured the amount of the element strontium. Found in bedrock, strontium can weather into the soil above, where it gets taken up by plants and eventually consumed by animals and humans. The ingested metal often takes the place of calcium in bones and teeth. 鈥淵our ribs reflect what you鈥檝e been eating for the last five to six years before you died,鈥� Loeffelmann says.

Different geographic areas have specific ratios of the various elemental forms, or isotopes, of strontium. By measuring the ratio of strontium isotopes in the animal bones, the researchers found a probable match with the Baltic Shield bedrock.

But buried bones can continue to exchange strontium with the soil they are buried in. That means humans or animals who mostly lived in Scandinavia may end up with a strontium isotope ratio that looks more like the one typically found in England if they are buried in England.

Luckily, the Viking burial custom of burning bodies on a funeral pyre preserved the necessary evidence. The cremation process crystallises bones in a way that preserves the strontium ratio at the time of cremation.

鈥淚 think this is the first time anyone has been able to prove the movement of horses and dogs with the Vikings 鈥� and likely not to be repeated soon,鈥� says at the University of Bradford in the UK, who was not involved in the study. 鈥淚t鈥檚 such unusual circumstances, with the likelihood that these are 鈥榳ar graves鈥� of people and animals who died relatively soon after arrival.鈥�

The challenging logistics of transporting large animals on longships across the North Sea make it less likely that Vikings would have done so regularly on a large scale. But the presence of burial artefacts such as an elaborate sword suggests the horse and dog probably belonged to a high-status Viking, says at the University of York in the UK.

鈥淭o think that they brought horses and indeed the dog across reinforces the idea that these are quite treasured personal possessions and status symbols of the Viking lords,鈥� says Richards.