Viking Age women with cone-shaped skulls likely learned head-binding practice from far-flung region

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The elongated , cone - shaped skulls of Viking Age woman buried on the Baltic island of Gotland may be evidence of trading contacts with the Black Sea region , a raw study observe .

The women ’s skulls were most in all likelihood modified deliberately from birth by wrapping their heads with bandage . Thispractice is attributedto thenomadic Huns , who invade Europe from Asia in the quaternary and 5th 100 , and it was followed in parts of southeastern Europe until the 10th century .

Artificially elongated skull of a woman buried in the 11th century on the Baltic island of Gotland.

One of the artificially elongated skulls of a woman buried in the 11th century on the Baltic island of Gotland, which was at that time a center for Viking Age trade.

But the modifications have been found only on the skulls of threeViking Age(A.D. 793 to 1066 ) charwoman buried on the now - Swedish island of Gotland and nowhere else in Scandinavia , which indicate it was a strange practice , said study lead authorMatthias Toplak , an archaeologist at the Viking Museum Haithabu in Germany .

While it ’s unclear if the skull modifications were disguise by a distinctive hairstyle , " I assume that the foreign ( or rather alien ) appearance of these female was seeable , " Toplak tell Live Science in an electronic mail . " It might have been a token of a certain elite group or some other social mathematical group . "

Related:12,000 years ago , a male child had his skull squashed into a cone shape shape . It ’s the oldest grounds of such principal - defining .

(Left): A drawing of a reconstruction of grave 192 on Gotland, which contained the remains of a woman with an artificially modified skull. (Right): A 19th century drawing of the grave.

(Left): A drawing of a reconstruction of grave 192 on Gotland, which contained the remains of a woman with an artificially modified skull. (Right): A 19th century drawing of the grave.

It ’s likely the modified skull were restrict to a few cleaning lady from one mob across a few generations , perhaps to foreground their connection with a removed region where the modifications were more common , he said ; at least one of the women may have originated in that realm .

" I suggest that the skull deformation on Gotland were regarded as evidence of far - touch trading contacts , and thus as relic of influence and success in trading , " he say .

Filing down teeth

In the discipline , print Feb. 24 in the journalCurrent Swedish Archaeology , Toplak and his co - authorLukas Kerk , an archeologist at the University of Münster in Germany , looked at the evidence of skull alteration from Gotland and file tooth found on skulls around Scandinavia .

The author propose the pattern of filing teeth may have been used as a sign of designation — perhaps cloak-and-dagger — for sure group of Viking Age merchandiser and may have been direct as an institution rite .

late researchhas proposed that the marks may have ensue from teeth used as tools — while leatherworking , for example .

The skull of a man with filed teeth who was buried on Gotland during the Viking Age.

The skull of a man with filed teeth who was buried on Gotland during the Viking Age. The same graveyard held 12 other individuals with filed teeth.

But the young study shows the marks were made deliberately . " The filings observe in Viking Age Scandinavia must be intentional , " Toplak said . " Modern experiments betoken that an smoothing iron file is necessary to achieve these distinct rut . "

The practice seems to have originated in Sweden ’s Uppland region , but the latest study suggests a concentration of filed teeth in skull buried on Gotland show the island ’s grandness for trade . " Gotland is the fundamental hub for all trading activities in the Baltic from the later Viking Age , on through the entire Middle Ages , " he say .

But tooth filing seems to have die out in Scandinavia after the twelfth one C . " The declination of this custom corresponds with the development of the classical merchant guilds in the Middle Ages , " Toplak said .

Detail of skull that shows deliberate grooves made on the front teeth.

Detail of the skull shows the grooves deliberately made on the front teeth with an iron file, possibly as a clandestine form of identification.

Viking body mods

The study attempt to explain the file tooth and the cone - shaped skulls from Viking Age Gotland by placing them in the ethnic context of the time .

The Viking Age Scandinavians were celebrated for their tattoo , which were described in a10th - C traveloguewritten by the Arab diplomat Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān . But until now , there had been piddling discussion of other forms of Viking Age body modifications , the author wrote .

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Side view of a human skeleton on a grey table. There is a large corroded iron spike running from the forehead through to the base of the skull.

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Kurt Alt , an archeologist at Danube Private University in Austria who was n’t regard in the survey , said such artificially modified skull were find in numerous context throughout the world and commonly among women . Such skulls were not always signs of foreign - suffer women , because some aborigine - born women also imitate the customs duty , he order .

Four views of a gold-covered figurine in the shape of a woman. She holds a shield and a sword and wears her hair in a ponytail. There is a small hole behind her neck, perhaps for hanging.