Vikingakvinnornas invasion

USA Today rapporterar att det är hög tid att revidera bilden av vikingarna.

Det var ingalunda bara män som invaderade England omkring år 900 och grundade sitt kungadöme Danelaw. Forskaren Shane McLeod på Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies vid University of Western Australia har i en forskningsrapport i Early Medieval Europe funnit att tidigare arkeologiska fynd sannolikt misstolkats:

Women may have accompanied male Vikings in those early invasions of England, in much greater numbers than scholars earlier supposed, McLeod concludes. Rather than the ravaging rovers of legend, the Vikings arrived as marriage-minded colonists. ”Although the results presented here cannot be used to determine the number of female settlers, they do suggest that the ratio of females to males may have been somewhere between a third to roughly equal,” the study concludes.