HEAS Seminar Series – Archaeological Science
November 24 @ 10:30 - 12:30
As part of the HEAS Seminar Series in Archaeological Science, Jane Kershaw from the University of Oxford will give a talk on How lead isotope analysis of silver sheds new light on the origins of the Viking Age on the 24th November 2025 at 10:30 in HS7 in Franz Klein Gasse.
The Viking Age (c. 800 -1050 AD) is widely recognised as a pivotal episode of cultural expansion in Eurasia, yet its origins remain poorly understood. In a recently concluded 5-year project, we aimed to address the question of where, when and how the Viking Age began through the large-scale geochemical analysis of a major spoil of Viking expansion: silver.
Analysing over 300 Scandinavian silver products (rings/ ingots) for lead isotopes and trace elements, we quantified the relative amounts of eastern, Islamic and western European silver in use during the eighth and ninth centuries. We found a dominance of trade-related Islamic silver in most regions and, for this silver, an earlier date of import than the extant coin record suggests. Together, these results provide strong grounds for situating the origins of the Viking Age not in western Europe as normally assumed, but across the Baltic, in Eastern markets.
