River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads

by Cat Jarman

That many of the things we thought we knew about the Vikings is wrong was revealed to us in our Five Books interview about the Vikings with medieval historian Eleanor Barraclough in 2016. With our interest in Vikings awakened, it was exciting to see a book called River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads published in February 2021. River Kings is by archaeologist Dr Cat Jarman, who is a senior adviser to the new Museum of the Viking Age in Oslo. Specifically, she is a bioarchaeologist, which means she uses forensic tools—like isotope analysis, carbon dating, and DNA analysis—to try and figure out what happened to bodies buried more than a millennium ago. The book is absolutely mesmerizing, both about the techniques she deploys, and the story she tells about the Viking skeletons she uses those techniques on.

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“I’m always interested in books about the Vikings, this violent group who wreaked havoc around Europe in the medieval period, traded slaves, and had astonishing seafaring skills. Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist, and this book looks at what the latest findings in her field can tell us about them. Her own research focuses on a burial site in Repton, in Derbyshire and many miles from the sea, where nearly 300 bodies were found that were very likely from the Great Viking Army that invaded England. Lots of iron nails used for ships were also found at the site, indicating they got there by river. As the title of the book suggests, even if it’s crossing the Atlantic in a ship that seems more impressive, Vikings were a group who were able to flourish because of their ability to sail down rivers. In particular, they sailed along rivers in Russia, down to Byzantium and traded with the Middle East. I love the texture of the book, the information gleaned from Viking skeletons and objects found at burial sites: lots of playing pieces (Vikings liked playing games, apparently useful for strategy), a ring with Arabic script, beads from India, a coin from Afghanistan—and then the DNA evidence as techniques get more sophisticated. One Viking warrior turned out to be a woman, another one was bald, there was quite a bit of immigration to Scandinavia, even from the Middle East. Also, I found out a fact I never learned in school: Harald Hardrada—who famously invaded England just a few weeks before William of Normandy, another Viking, in 1066—spent time as a bodyguard to the Roman emperor in Constantinople.” Read more...

The Best Nonfiction Books of 2021

Sophie Roell, Journalist