This thread that's making the rounds has some really important points, but I think it also needs some tempering. Long thread alert, but TL;DR let's not throw babies out with bathwater. 1/36 https://twitter.com/CatJarman/status/1313754635325374464

First, this isn't intended to be a hot take or anything, more as a respectful, comfortably luke-warm take on atypical burial more broadly in the Viking World & a transdisciplinary rumination about how the Gedrup grave fits into that picture. 2/

I want to start with what Cat & I agree on: this is a weird grave, the recent DNA results indicating the interred are mother & son are exciting, & they give us an opportunity to reassess & have more discussions about what exactly is going on here in richer & more nuanced ways. 3/

However, I think it's really important to pause and reflect on her 4th tweet in particular. Is it really true that we have 'NO' evidence that the interred was hanged, murdered, a slave, or someone like Oddr, the son of Katla from Eyrbyggja saga? 4/

I'll start with the easiest of these. Based on the new DNA analysis, there is certainly no reason to think that the male (M) individual in the grave was a slave to the female (F) individual. 5/

The revelation that F is M's mother is, I think, the evidence we needed to do away with this problematic interpretation. But just because M was not F's slave doesn't actually preclude their both being bonded people. 6/

That is difficult to prove. The grave is not well furnished. 2 small iron knives (1 on M's chest, 1 at F's hip), a bone needle case, & an iron pin are the only personal items to be found, & a somewhat unusual spearhead lay by F's right leg. F was covered by 3 large stones. 7/

Reading status (one way or another) into the assemblage is by no easy task. A small set of 'slave burials' has been discussed by e.g. Torun Zachrisson & the primary feature of these burials is that they are found in association with a 'master' burial. 8/

While Viking-Age slavery is tricky and we're only starting to find holistic ways to study it, Gerdrup certainly doesn't seem to fit the current slave/master interpretive model based on the new DNA evidence. So we can move on to trickier interpretations. 9/

Was either murdered? Well, that's another difficult matter. Without soft tissue, discerning violent death is v. hard & F's cause of death has not been determined. That being said, we need to remember that violent death is not necessarily murder in this cultural context. 10/

Murder, mörðr, is distinct forom violent killing, víg, because it is deceptive and secretive. This is something that we simply cannot read into in terms of archaeological interpretation. But this naturally feeds into the discussion of hanging. 11/

I'm less convinced there's no evidence for hanging. The vertebrae of M aren't just spaced, but are described as twisted. It could be the result of soil shifting, it's hard to say, but anthropological analysis discussed by Bennike & Christensen-1983-suggests hanging as likely. 12/

Interesting, but Cat's right, inconclusive. Hanging is nearly impossible to detect osteologically, but Gerdrup remains the best & only known candidate for hanging among Viking-Age burials & we shouldn't be so keen to throw out this interpretive angle quickly. Here's why. 13/

As @grungeviking & I have shown, there's v. little evidence for execution in Viking-Age Scandinavia. The legal systems focus on fines, arbitration, & outlawry - unsurprising for a decentalised, customary legal system. Violent punishment increases with power centralisation. 14/

However, hanging does have early associations with esp. disruptive crimes like theft & murder (mörðr). As such, we should not expect to detect much evidence of hanging in the archaeological record, but as methods improve, we might see more conclusive evidence. 15/

With F being M's mother, it is less likely that she was a victim of his violent action, but we would do well to remember that people, past & present, are complex and life is messy. 16/

Intragroup & intrafamilial violence is uncomfortable, but real, & we don't consider it enough our study of the Vikings. Gerdrup is an opportunity to do so, with an eye to cultivating more and richer historical empathy for the full range of peoples who lived this history. 17/

It's not impossible, & we have no conclusive evidence yet to rule out the possibility that M did in fact kill F, was hanged for his especially transgressive act of kinslaying, and F was laid over with stones out of an apotropaic attempt to stop her from rising from the grave. 18/

I want to stress that this is not my interpretation of the grave, but it's one that should not be dismissed out of hand, especially in light of Saxo's discussion in 10.5 of Gesta Danorum of kinslayers being hung alongside wolves due to the odiousness of their crime. 19/

Whether M in the Gerdrup grave was hanged or not, we certainly can say that he is treated in a very different fashion from F. This reconstruction of the grave ((c) Gardeła & Kuzma) shows this clearly. 20/

Though placed in the same pit, F is laid out carefully & the grave is cut to fit her. M was in a position suggesting he lay against the side of the grave which wasn't cut to his size & his legs were positioned with the ankles close together, which may suggest they were bound. 21/

Having discussed these matters with very experienced osteologists myself, this IS unusual & the differences in the treatment of mother & son by the same burial community has to be considered from many interpretive angles in order to come to the best conclusions. 22/

Though the Gerdrup grave is now the 2nd confirmed child-parent double grave, sitting alongside the double grave from Repton, it is also more than that. The treatment of the interred at Repton shows this. 23/

The interred in the grave at Repton are carefully laid out & the main difference between G511 & G295 is that the 1st is well-furnished and the 2nd sparsely. It is a rather different burial form than that of the Gerdrup grave which, in a whole host of ways, is atypical. 24/

The Gerdrup grave's F individual being covered by three large stones on her chest, R. leg and L. hip is 1 of these atypicalities. Weighting or stoning of bodies is unusual in Viking-Age burials and, Gerdrup being just 1 example, often accompanies other oddities. 25/

This is where M's positioning & his possible hanging are important, as is the location of the grave on a beach ridge at an old arm of the Roskilde fjord. In my thesis (ch. 6), I tried to show that atypical burials close to high-water marks have associations with execution. 26/

The earliest Scandinavian laws, such as the Norwegian Gulathing's law, attest this, as do Icelandic sagas, e.g. Eyrbyggja saga. This brings us to Oddr & Katla, who are, purportedly, magically empowered trouble-makers who cause death & injury in the district. 27/

When caught, Oddr is hanged at Búlandshöfði for his involvement in stirring up violent unrest, & Katla is stoned at the base of the rocks there. As you can see from http://sagamap.is , this too is in close association with the high-water mark. 28/

So, are M & F in the Gerdrup grave, Oddr & Katla, of course not. There are some eerie similarities considering the temporal and geographical distance between the medieval Icelandic saga and the Viking-Age burial in Denmark, but our interpretations need not be literal. 29/

The story of Oddr & Katla is that of mother & son against the district. They can be read as victims or villains, but in the end, they are executed for their close relationship and the host of woes placed (rightly or wrongly) at their feet. 30/

This gives us another way to look at the Gerdrup grave. Perhaps it attests close family members who didn't merit a richly furnished burial due to their differences with the burial community & lack of further familial connections to see to their affairs. 31/

It's easy to overinterpret atypical burials. They are evocative & strange & so unlike contemporary practice at first glance, but it is precisely for that reason that we shouldn't be so hasty to rule out possibilities like transgression, punishment, or apotropaic ritual. 32/

These interpretive possibilities open chances to discuss the grave and the people who lay in it in deeper, broader, & more nuanced ways, allowing us to better understand the period and its people, humanising them. 33/

The Gerdrup grave should be carefully thought about in the context of domestic violence, from the perspective of (just or unjust) execution, from the understanding people had regionally distinct religious beliefs & rituals different to our own, & other lenses besides. 34/

This is essential work since the Viking Age is so often presented as male, pale, & stale in the wake of 19th & 20th century appropriation of the period as a cheap symbol of nationalism at best and nazism at worst. 35/

To end the thread, Cat is right, the only thing we know for sure is that this is a parent-child double grave. Beyond that, all we can say is that M is not F's slave & that a raft of new discussions and interpretive models are needed to unpick the rest. 36/36