Ritual Specialists in the Viking World: An Introduction to Part 4

Archaeology has always had a very special relationship with death. This largely results from the fact that studies of the past are predominantly concerned with people who are long gone. Tangible remains of individuals who walked the Earth long before us can be encountered within virtually all kinds of archaeological sites, but it is usually cemeteries and graves that are the richest sources of information about them.In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – a time when archaeology was not yet regarded as a serious and respectable academic discipline – prehistoric and medieval graves would either be ‘dug up’ accidentally by.