Maenoferren put me on to this book in a post back on 26th of September. I ordered the book straight away and over the last week have been reading it every night. The research and piecing together of information long discarded as meaningless or contradictory has lead to some ground breaking understanding of Viking life and culture.

Dr Cat Jarman, pictured above, is a bioarchaeologist and field archaeologist specialising in the Viking Age, Viking women, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). 

“She uses forensic techniques like isotope analysis, carbon dating, and DNA analysis on human remains to untangle the experiences of past people from broader historical narratives.

Her book “River Kings”, about connections between Vikings in the west and the Silk Roads, will be published by HarperCollins in 2020.

Dr Jarman is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol and the director of the archaeological research unit Munin Archaeology.

She completed her PhD in Archaeology at the University of Bristol in December 2017, on the late 9th century Viking Great Army at Repton in Derbyshire. Her thesis research combined complex bioarchaeological and forensic analyses of Viking Age burials, including a mass grave of almost 300 individuals, alongside new excavations of the Viking winter camp and Early Medieval Monastery. This research formed the basis of the 2019 documentary “Britain’s Viking Graveyard” (Channel 4) / “The Lost Viking Army” (PBS/Nova).

Dr Jarman has also researched and published on the diet, resource use, and origins of the ancient populations of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). She now directs ongoing excavations at the Anglo-Saxon and Viking site of Repton and a newly discovered Viking winter camp at nearby Foremark. She also directs excavations of a Viking Age Rus fortified settlement at Vypovzyv in Ukraine.

She is an experienced public speaker and communicator, recently speaking at TEDxBath on the topic of archaeology, migration, and forensics. She frequently shares her expertise in the media (recent examples include New Scientist, New York Times, and BBC radio) and on podcasts (e.g. HistoryHit with Dan Snow) and her research has been covered by print and online news outlets internationally.

Dr Jarman has contributed to numerous TV documentaries as both an on-screen expert and historical consultant, including programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, History, Discovery, and more.

Currently, she is a senior adviser on academic content development for the new museum of the Viking Age at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. She is also a research fellow at the Cultural Heritage Institute, Royal Agricultural University. In addition, Cat was recently elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.” From her publishers website

Cat Jarman re-examined a small carnelian bead found in the site of Repton and uses this to trace the most likely journey it might of taken from its origin in India or Baghdad through the Viking world to England.

Previously we have studied the bones and teeth of Viking remains to assess diet, injuries and the like, but Jarman went one step further and has used DNA analysis, isotope analysis and radiocarbon dating of these finds to show a far greater migration pattern than we had thought previously.

Using the Isotope analysis of the bones and teeth we gain a new understanding of the movement and trade in the Viking world between Britain and as far as Gujarat, India, where the carnelian bead may have begun its journey.

I really like the way Jarman begins each chapter by explaining the object(s) she is going to discuss and highlights the issues that she and others have in interpreting the evidence. In fact on page 21 she states “The graves we find are multifaceted: we have no way of knowing whether those items even belonged to the deceased or whether they were gifts placed there by the mourners. They may not even reflect much about the person’s life… The dead do not bury themselves.” (21) Jarman then uses the previous information we have, any new information gleaned by her research and also any myths or unreliable evidence to come to a “tentative” conclusion.

Her discussions on death and the ritual practices surrounding it and on the role of women in Viking society are excellent.

This has been the single most enjoyable and enlightening book I have read this year and I thoroughly recommend it to you. At under AU$20.00 it is a bargain!