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""As the first world war drew to a close, work began in the Scandinavian countries

to try and position the Nordic region as a central area for international Science.
The argument was that since scientific cooperation between the European
countries had been interrupted by the war, the Scandinavian countries ought to
take on the task of mending the broken threads. In 1919, both Norway and
Denmark established substantial government research funds, and Norway even a
scientific institute for international cultural research. From its inauguration, The
Scientific Research Fund of 1919 decided to study and investigate the Viking
remains in the British Isles.
The actual task of collecting the materials was undertaken by well-respected
Norwegian archaeologists during journeys in Britain and Ireland during the 1920s.
Starting in 1940, 6 volumes of Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland were
published, with Prof. Haakon Shetelig in Bergen as the editor. There were
separate volumes on finds and monuments in England, in Ireland, and in
Scotland, as well as a volume presenting the Insular metal finds in Scandinavia.
Today, 70 years on, Sheteligs volumes are still standard references. But burial
archaeology has moved on considerably since the mid-20th century. What was
once thought to be certain Viking burials are now under scrutiny. What is, after
all, a Viking burial? Presumably, a burial of someone with a non-Anglo-Saxon,
non-Celtic and also non-Christian identity. But how do we recognize a deceased
persons identity from burial remains? The question of otherness in the British or
Irish context is important in this respect, but it could be argued that this
presupposes a typical form of Viking burial in the Scandinavian homelands. Since
morturary customs in the Nordic countries are in fact varied to the extreme, one
might conclude that it is almost impossible to distinguish Viking burials in
England, Ireland, or Scotland.
However, when we look at the distribution of burials which because of either their
furnishings, their rite (i.e. cremation) or their situation could be argued as
belonging to intruding people of Scandinavian origin, an interesting pattern
emerges. There are clear differences between Viking graves in the different
parts of the British Isles. While such graves are relatively few and isolated in
England and also in Ireland with the exception of the large KilmainhamIslandbridge cemetery in Dublin, they occur much more frequently in Scotland,
and particularly in the Northern Isles, and there are also interesting differences
between would-be Scandinavian graves in these different areas. It is likely that
these differences reflect very different forms of interaction between people of
Scandinavian origin and the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Pictish populations of the
British Isles. Furthermore, a closer study of such differences might tell us more
about where in the Nordic area the Scandinavians originated.""

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