For You Lot Data - Large-Scale Whaling Inwards Northward Scandinavia May Appointment Dorsum To Sixth Century

The intensive whaling that has pushed many species to the brink of extinction today may move several centuries older than previously assumed. This persuasion is held past times archaeologists from Uppsala too York whose findings are presented inward the European Journal of Archaeology.

Top: a board-game slice made from whalebone at the halt of the sixth century CE, constitute inward Gnistahögen close Uppsala,
Sweden (photograph past times Bengt Backlund, Uppland County Museum). Bottom: the os construction of the gaming
piece compared alongside reference os from minke whale (photograph past times Rudolf Gustavsson,
Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, SAU) [Credit: Bengt Backlund/Rudolf Gustavsson]

Museum collections inward Sweden incorporate thousands of Iron Age board-game pieces. New studies of the raw cloth composing them exhibit that most were made of whalebone from the mid-6th century CE. They were produced inward large volumes too standardised forms. The researchers so believe that a regular render of whalebone was needed. Since the producers would hardly accept constitute the carcasses of beached whales a reliable source, the gaming pieces are interpreted every bit prove for whaling.

Apart from an osteological survey, species rootage has been determined for a pocket-size publish of game pieces, using ZooMS (short for Zooarchaeology past times Mass Spectrometer). The method shows that all the pieces analysed were derived from the North Atlantic correct whale (Eubalaena glacialis), a massive whale weighing 50-80 tonnes. It got the shout out because it was the correct whale to hunt: it swam slowly, to a greater extent than or less shore, too contained too then much blubber every bit to float afterwards beingness killed.

Whalebone gaming pieces look at the same fourth dimension every bit production features for blubber too large boathouses were multiplying inward northern Norway. The gaming pieces were in all probability made inward this region, from where they were transported southward too ultimately used every bit burial gifts inward Sweden.

The origins of large-scale whaling inward northern Europe accept long been shrouded inward mystery. Written sources refer to whaling on a large scale during periods corresponding to the Viking Age inward Scandinavia. Ninth-century sagas most the Norwegian merchant Ohthere/Ottar (a invitee too informant at the courtroom of King Alfred the Great) advert his extensive hunt for large whales, exactly these stories accept long been controversial every bit factual sources.

The gaming pieces non alone betoken early on whaling. To the archaeologists, they are an of import cistron inward query on extensive early on trading networks. These were well-functioning several centuries earlier the formation of towns inward Viking times. The novel study, along alongside several other archaeological studies over the past times few years, shows increasingly substantial exploitation of marine resources, too also of inland resources inward northern Scandinavia. In a supplementary in-depth study, the results volition also move used to written report human influence on the marine ecosystems inward relation to whale population trends, since it is instantly realised that the inception of large-scale whaling took house farther dorsum inward fourth dimension than was previously known.

Source: Uppsala University [June 13, 2018]


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