ANTHROPOLOGY 232, SECTION 01: THE VIKING WORLD
Fall 2014
Instructor: Douglas Bolender
Email: Douglas.Bolender@umb.edu
Office hours: TBA
Syllabus
Class Hours
TBA
Room: TBA
Course Description: The Viking Age (c. 793-1050 AD) is best known for Scandinavian raids
throughout coastal Europe. This course examines the archaeology of the societies behind the Viking
raids from their origins in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, to their expansion into Europe and the British
Isles, and on to the discovery of North America and the colonization of Greenland. In addition to
covering the archaeology and history of Viking Age societies, the course presents and critically
evaluates several anthropological themes which have been exemplified by Norse society: the
Germanic mode of production, gift exchange and reciprocity, proto-world systems, gender and
class identity, pagan religious systems and mythology, the archaeology of religious conversion, and
cultural contact in the preindustrial world.
Learning Goals: This course satisfies the World Cultures distribution area for general education.
Courses in World Cultures invite students to examine culture as a vital framework for thought and
action. In this course we will explore the meaning of culture through the various approaches used
to study the Viking world employed by anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, environmental
scientists, and literary scholars. As an anthropology course, we will compare the Viking World to
other cultural traditions and to our own contemporary cultural beliefs and practices. In addition,
this course aims at giving students specific knowledge to counteract the idea that Viking world, or
any past culture, can be understood as a single monolithic entity. This class will demonstrate that
the Viking world is better understood as highly regional and with profound differences in the
experience of individuals based on social status, lineage, gender, and circumstance.The course
readings are intended to critically engage the complementary and contradictory nature of historical,
literary and archaeological sources on the Viking world. Written assignments will ask students to
address how these differing sources impact our understanding of the part and are designed to
qualify for the WPE portfolio.
Course Texts (available in the Campus Bookstore):
 Else Roesdahl, The Vikings, revised edition. 1999. Penguin Books, New York.
 Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald (editors), The Viking Age, a Reader.
2010. Univ. of Toronto Press, Toronto.
 The Saga of the Volsungs, 3rd edition (trans. Jesse Byock). 2012. Univ. of California
Press, Berkeley.
 Njal’s Saga. (trans. Robert Cook). 2002. Penguin Books, New York.
 Weekly readings will cover a variety of sources: selected primary sources, secondary texts,
and articles. Additional readings will be available online via class’s Blackboard website.
Student Evaluation:
New Course Supplementary Information for ANTH 232: The Viking World
1
1) Two short essays (25% each; 50% total). The short essays are intended to develop your
analytical skills dealing with a variety of literary and archaeological sources. Each essay
should be 4-5 double spaced pages.
2) Final presentation and paper (40%). The purpose of the final paper is to allow you to
explore a topic of your choice in greater depth and develop your own opinion on it. You
may choose any topic related to the Viking World. However, topics must be preapproved.
The final paper should be 5-8 double spaced pages. You will also give a 5 minute
presentation to the class summarizing your final paper.
3) Class attendance and participation (10%), this includes: informed contributions to
discussions, expressing opinions or raising questions about the material, reacting to other
students comments, and turning in reading and short responses.
Class Policies: I want you to succeed in my class. To do so, you need to stay current with the
readings, come to class, and make sure you understand what I am talking about. To help you avoid
simple mistakes, the following provides my policy on the basics.
Attendance and Tardiness – Please attend all classes and arrive on time. If you need to miss class for
any reason please let me know in advance if at all possible. You are always responsible for any
material, including lecture material and notes, films, assignments and exams regardless of
whether or not you are in class. If you miss class please check with another student to find out
what you missed. After 3 unexcused absences, you will lose one percent of the ten allotted to
attendance and participation for each additional absence.
Late Assignments – You should complete all assignments and exams on the day they are scheduled.
Late work will not be accepted without a valid, and documented, medical reason or serious
family emergency. If you have a legitimate reason why you will not be able hand in the assignment
on time please contact me at least one week before the due date and we can discuss alternatives. I’m
usually accommodating if you take responsibility for your work in advance. I am inflexible about
late work after it is late. Unexcused late work will not be accepted and will not receive
credit.
Written Assignments – Written assignments that suffer from significant grammatical, logical, or
rhetorical flaws will not be graded. Instead they will be returned to the student to re-write.
Resubmitted assignments will be graded down 1 whole grade. Rewrites are due one week after the
assignment is returned. Remember that a lower grade for a re-written assignment is always better
than receiving no credit.
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in the class in any form. Please refer to the university
policies on student conduct found online:
http://www.umb.edu/life_on_campus/policies/code. Please review the university policies and
strictly adhere to them in the class and in all of your work. Failure to do so will result in: (1)
minimally, a loss of credit for any assignment or exam found in violation of the rules; (2) forced
withdrawal or a directed grade of “F” for the entire course of study; (3) suspension from the
College; or (4) permanent dismissal. Be sure that in your written work all sources, opinions, and
analysis other than your own, including books, articles, magazines, web sites, and other media,
are properly cited in your bibliography. If you are unsure about what or how sources should be
properly cited please see me prior to handing in any assignment. Cheating on exams or
assignments is not tolerated.
Respect – Please keep in mind that your class peers come from diverse backgrounds and may have
diverging opinions or beliefs. You are encouraged to share your thoughts and perspectives in class
discussions. Differences of opinion are a normal part of critical discourse, but always remember
New Course Supplementary Information for ANTH 232: The Viking World
2
to treat your fellow classmates with respect. Also, please respect the classroom environment and
turn off all mobile phones before class begins. Text messaging or taking calls in class is not
allowed. You may use handheld and mobile computers but must limit use to note taking; do not
browse the internet or check email during class! Failure to adhere to these simple rules may
result in your expulsion from the class.
Special Needs – If you have a disability or special need pertinent to the class structure, assignments,
or exams, please inform me as soon as possible so that we can discuss accommodations to ensure
full participation and educational opportunity. If you have a disability and feel you will need
accommodations in order to complete course requirements, please contact the Ross Center for
Disability Services, Campus Center, UL Room 211 at 617-287-7430;
http://www.umb.edu/academics/vpass/disability.
Extra Help – If for any reason you are having trouble with the class or the assignments please let me
know. I am happy to meet with you. Please do not hesitate to email, come to my office hours, or
make an appointment. Additional support is available from the campus Reading, Writing, and
Study Strategies Center (RWSSC):
http://www.umb.edu/academics/vpass/academic_support/tutoring/rwssc
New Course Supplementary Information for ANTH 232: The Viking World
3
Class Schedule: Please complete readings in anticipation of the scheduled lecture. Lectures will
not always correspond to the material in the reading, and I will often focus on specific issues or
topics in the class. Your ability to follow and take full advantage of a lecture will be greatly
improved, if you have completed the scheduled background reading prior to attending class.
Scheduling is an imperfect, predictive science. While I hope to keep close to the outlined schedule
below, don’t be surprised if we deviate.
WEEK 1 (Sept. 3 & 5): Who were the Vikings?
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 3-29
Somerville & McDonald: 40. Viking raids on England (230-232); 41. Alcuin’s
letter to King Athelred (232-234)
Recommended readings:
Tacitus, Germania (excerpts)
Hedeager, “Scandinavia before the Viking Age”
WEEK 2 (Sept. 10 & 12): Viking Age Society
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 52-77, 129-140
No class Jan 21,
Somerville & McDonald: 3. The Lay of Rig (18-28); 4. Politics in Harald
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Finehair’s Norway (28-38); 21. Unn the Deep-Minded takes control of her
Day
life (126-129); 25. Gudrun drives her sons to take revenge (137-142); 28a.
The betrothal of Olaf Hoskuldsson (146-148); 29c. How Aud dealt with her
humiliating divorce (155-157); 78. Egil in youth and old age (362-369)
Recommended readings:
Brink, “Law and society”
Callow, “Transitions to adulthood in early Icelandic society”
Jochens, “The illicit love visit: an archaeology of Old Norse sexuality”
Karras, “Marriage and the creation of kin in the sagas”
WEEK 3 (Sept. 17 & 19): Viking Age Culture
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 30-51, 168-184
Recommended readings:
Ostergard, Woven into the Earth (excerpts)
Schmidt, “Reconstruction of the Lejre hall”
Stenvik, “Iron production in Scandinavian archaeology”
WEEK 4 (Sept. 24 & 26): Mythology and the Heroic Ideal
Required readings:
The Saga of the Volsungs (all)
Roesdahl, 140-146
Somerville & McDonald: 8. The Norse creation myth (76-84); 9. Ragnarok (8590); 30. The accomplishments of a Viking warrior (160-162); 103. Advice
from Odin (Hávamál) (491-493)
Recommended readings:
Dumézil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen (excerpts)
Jakobsson, “The hole: problems in medieval dwarfology”
Meulengracht Sørensen, “The unmanly man: concepts of sexual defamation in
early northern society”
Sturluson, The Prose Edda
New Course Supplementary Information for ANTH 232: The Viking World
4
WEEK 5 (Oct. 1 & 3): Religion, death and burial
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 147-158
Somerville and McDonald: 10. A prophetess in Greenland (90-92); 13. Odin
hangs on Yggdrasil (96-97); 16. The temple at Uppsala (102-103); 19a. An
Arab description of a Viking funeral (106-110); 19d. The death of Baldur
(111-113); 20. The living dead (114-124)
Price 2008, “Bodylore and archaeology”
Recommended readings:
Hastrup, “Cosmology and society in medieval Iceland”
Jakobsson, “Vampires and watchmen: categorizing the mediaeval Icelandic
undead”
Lucas and McGovern, “Bloody slaughter: ritual decapitation and display at the
Viking settlement of Hofstaðir, Iceland”
Price, “The archaeology of seiðr”
Raudvere, “Popular religion in the Viking Age”
Assignments:
Thursday, 3 October: Group discussions: Howell’s Dilemma
WEEK 6 (Oct. 8 & 10): Ships, Trade and Towns
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 78-93, 108-128
Somerville & McDonald: 5. Hoskuld buys a slave (38-40); 37. Animal head on
the prows of ships (201-202); 38b. Olaf Tryggvason and the Battle of Svold
(204-214); 77. Advice for sailors and merchants (360-362)
Recommended readings:
Barrett et al., “‘Dark Age economics’ revisited”
Bill, “Ships and seamanship”
Miller, “Gift, sale, payment, raid”
Sindbæk, „The small world of the Vikings“
Skre, „The development of urbanism in Scandinavia“
Assignments:
Thursday, 10 October: First Paper Due: Howell’s Dilemma
WEEK 7 (Oct. 15 & 17): Vikings in the East: Russia and Byzantium
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 277-292
Somerville & McDonald: 58. The Piraeus Lion (302-303); 60. The Rus attack
Constantinople (304-308); 61. On the arrival of the Varangians (309-315);
62. A Muslim diplomat meets Viking merchants (316-318); 64. A Norwegian
soldier of fortune in the east (321-325)
Recommended readings:
Androshchuk, “The Vikings in the east”
Kierpichnikov, “A Viking period workshop in Staraya Ladoga”
Metcalf, “What happened to Islamic dirhams?”
WEEK 8 (Oct. 22 & 24): Vikings in the West
New Course Supplementary Information for ANTH 232: The Viking World
5
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 187-232
Somerville & McDonald: 42. An English gospel ransomed from the Vikings
(235); 43. Viking raids on Ireland, 795-842 (235-240); 45. Irish resistance to
the Norse men (242-245); 47. The northmen in France, 843-865); 49. An
account of the siege of Paris (267-269); 51. Viking activities in England, 851900 (274-282); 55. Runic inscriptions from Maes Howe (293-294); 57. Rollo
obtains Normandy from the King of the Franks (295-300)
Recommended readings:
Barrett, et al, “Culture contact in Viking Age Scotland”
Holm, “The slave trade in Dublin”
Price, “Laid waste, plundered and burned: Vikings in Frankia”
WEEK 9 (Oct. 29 & 31): North Atlantic Expansion
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 262-276
Somerville and McDonald: 66. The islands in the northern ocean (330-331); 67.
Sail directions and distances in the North Atlantic (331); 70. Icelandic
accounts of the discovery and settlement of Iceland (336-342); 71.
Skallagrim’s landtake in Iceland (343-346)
Recommended readings:
Goodacre et al, “Genetic evidence for family-based Scandinavian settlement”
McGovern et al, “Landscapes of settlement”
Ross, “Land-taking and text-making in medieval Iceland”
WEEK 10 (Nov. 5 & 7): The Icelandic Sagas: Farms and Feud
Required readings:
Njal’s Saga (all)
Recommended readings:
Byock, “The importance of land in saga feud”
Jakobsson, “Masculinity and politics in Njal’s Saga”
Turner, “An anthropological approach to the Icelandic saga”
Assignments:
Thursday, 7 November, Group discussions: Archaeology and the sagas
WEEK 11 (Nov. 12 & 14): The Vikings in the New World: Norse Greenland and North America
Required readings:
Somerville & McDonald, 72. The settlement of Greenland (346-348), 73. The
King’s Mirror on Greenland (348-349), 75. The Norse discovery of Vinland
(350-354), 76. Thorfinn Karlsefni in Vinland (355-357)
Diamond, Collapse (excerpts)
Recommended readings:
Arneborg, “Greenland and Europe”
Arneborg et al, “Human diet and subsistence patterns in Norse Greenland”
Jochens, “Vikings westward to Vínland: the problem of women“
Lynnerup, “Life and death in Norse Greenland”
McGovern, “Cows, harp seals, and bells”
Ogilvie et al., “Seals and sea ice in medieval Greenland”
Sutherland, “The Norse and native North Americans”
Wallace, “An archaeologist’s interpretation of the Vinland Sagas”
New Course Supplementary Information for ANTH 232: The Viking World
6
Assignments:
Thursday, 14 November, Second paper due: Archaeology and the sagas
WEEK 12 (Nov. 19 & 21): Christian Conversion
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 158-167
Somerville & McDonald: 84. The conversion of the Danes under Harald
Bluetooth (398-400); 86. A poet abandons the old gods (408-409); 87. The
Christianization of Norway under Saint Olaf (409-416); 88. The conversion of
the Icelanders (417-419); 93. The travels of King Sigurd, Jerusalem-Farer
(423-431)
Recommended readings:
Byock et al, “A Viking Age farm, church, and cemetery”
Jochens, “Late and peaceful: Iceland’s conversion through arbitration in 1000”
Sawyer, “The process of Scandinavian Christianization in the tenth and eleventh
centuries”
Vésteinsson, “The formative phase of the Icelandic church, ca. 990-1240 AD”
WEEK 13 (Nov. 26; no class Nov. 28 Thanksgiving Break): Viking States
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 233-261
Somerville & McDonald: 94. Harald Finehair and the unification of Norway
(434-439); 95. State-making in Denmark: the Jelling stone (439-440); 97.
Knut the Great and the North Sea empire (444-456)
Recommended readings:
Thurston, “The tyranny of the historical record?”
WEEK 14 (Dec. 3 & 5): The End of the Viking Age
Required readings:
Roesdahl, 295-297
Somerville & McDonald, 100. The battle of Stamford Bridge (471-479); 101.
The decline of the Earls of Orkney (479-484)
WEEK 15: (Dec. 10 & 12): Final Paper Presentations
Assignments:
Final paper presentations
FINAL PAPER DUE: Dec. 17
New Course Supplementary Information for ANTH 232: The Viking World
7