Do you want the latest Viking DNA news featuring a woman with a weapon? Of course you do. This one gets a little weird and a little gory, though.

Yesterday, Roskilde museum announced results from the odd Gerdrup double grave dating to ~AD 800-900: A woman buried with a spearhead + man who had apparently been hanged & with legs tied. Allegedly, he was a murdered slave and she... http://cphpost.dk/?p=119053 

perhaps a volve, or sorceress/seeress. Her skeleton was covered with several huge stones. Now, DNA shows they were mother and son! Previously, the grave had already been linked to this Saga reference, from 13th century Iceland:

I wanted to check out the evidence for 'hanging' - turns out, there isn't any. Apparently, the cervical vertebrae were spaced far apart and the skull at an odd angle. There doesn't seem to be a proper osteological report. I checked with a very experienced osteologist...

...who agrees this is not unusual - bodies and skulls in particular do weird things as the body decomposes & soil presses down. So, seriously -- NO evidence he was hanged, or murdered, or a slave, or Odd the son of Katla. BUT we now have two definite parent-child double graves...

...from the Viking Age (Repton being the other). That is super important because we STILL don't know enough about this phenomenon and the 'slave/master' scenario is thrown about too often, especially if one is a woman. (see #RiverKings for more on this!) https://www.amazon.co.uk/River-Kings-Catrine-Jarman/dp/0008353077

Still, lots of exciting questions about the Gerdrup grave. See e.g. Gardela's for one view on the stones... https://www.academia.edu/347093/_Garde%C5%82a_L_2011_Buried_with_Honour_and_Stoned_to_Death_The_Ambivalence_of_Viking_Age_Magic_in_the_Light_of_Archaeology_Analecta_Archaeologica_Ressoviensia_4_2009_339_375

...and why did the woman have a spearhead with her? Answers on a postcard please!