Historical Bunny!

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Viking skeleton’s DNA test proves historians wrong

The remains of a powerful viking — long thought to be a man — was in fact a real-life Xena Warrior Princess, a study released Friday reveals.

The lady war boss was buried in the mid-10th century along with deadly weapons and two horses, leading archaeologists and historians to assume she was a man, according to the findings, published in in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Wrong.

“It’s actually a woman, somewhere over the age of 30 and fairly tall, too, measuring around [5’6″] tall ,” archaeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University, who conducted the study, told The Local.

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I don't think that says much of the original investigators, or perhaps 'Xena' had
a more complicated bone structure (women's hip bones different, or something)

Handley_Page said:

I don't think that says much of the original investigators, or perhaps 'Xena' had
a more complicated bone structure (women's hip bones different, or something)

Click to expand...

The skeleton was unearthed in the late 1800s; by the standards of the day we should probably call it a success that they kept all the bits and didn't sell them off to random collectors. Even if they'd had reason to suspect she was female, I don't think they had good methods for sexing skeletons at that stage.

Even today, physical examination of a skeleton is only about 80-90% reliable for determining sex (some discussion here), hence the need to confirm via DNA testing.

But, yes, fascinating story. I'd love to know more about her.

I might write more A MATTER OF TIME stories where a Mad Scientist's funky time travel always goes awry. He looks for Eve but is really raped by Lucy, etc. So he goes looking for Xena (and Gabby, the little minx) but materializes in Vikingland where the warrior queen and her lusty, horny cohort use him badly. He barely escapes but finds himself bedded with Brunhilde before he can return home.

POVs will shift. 3rd-slightly-omniscient mostly, but 1st-present for the Viking queen's narrative as she toys with him. Call her Freya. She recalls her past (story background), then encounters the rogue scientist and has her fun in real time. She is not polite.

Handley_Page said:

I don't think that says much of the original investigators, or perhaps 'Xena' had
a more complicated bone structure (women's hip bones different, or something)

Click to expand...

I imagine that back then the original excavators just assumed that it was a man, after all, in their minds a mere woman couldn't be a warrior. And even if they suspected ... Horrors, if a woman could fight, well, they might even want to vote, we can't tell people that there was a real live woman warrior, that would lead to other abominations, women in the army, there might even be a woman prime minister.

49greg said:

I imagine that back then the original excavators just assumed that it was a man, after all, in their minds a mere woman couldn't be a warrior. And even if they suspected ... Horrors, if a woman could fight, well, they might even want to vote, we can't tell people that there was a real live woman warrior, that would lead to other abominations, women in the army, there might even be a woman prime minister.

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In England until the Victorian era, women could be, and were tradespeople, members of guilds and property owners. It was the Victorians that decided that women shouldn't bother their fluffy little heads about business.

In Roman Britain, the Iceni tribe led by Boadicea and her daughters showed that women could and would fight very effectively.

Later Empress Matilda, fighting King Stephen, nearly conquered England. Later England had Queens Mary, Elizabeth 1, Mary II (with William), and Anne.