Human skull manipulation in Vendel-Viking Period Sweden and Denmark

Abstract This study reviews a sample of at least 34 manipulated skulls from 18 sites in Sweden and Denmark, all dating from the period AD 750–1050. For reasons of soil chemistry, Norway has not produced any unambiguous finds. Many extra skulls are found in or near graves and seem linked to a custom of slave decapitation at the grave side. Several are from proto-urban environments, some apparently once having been displayed on the surrounding palisades. Several have been deposited in wet contexts. People also collected skulls from inhumation graves, recent and ancient, for purposes mostly unknown but including the inauguration of an assembly platform. Old Norse literature demonstrates that though decapitation was shameful, the head itself was potentially magical.