Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XII

[Galloglaich]

Speaking of Vikings, they found a really significant pre-Viking grave in the Baltic, on an Island near Estonia. Multiple heavily armed warriors, apparently killed in battle, buried in two ships.

If you look at the photo's on page 4 of the article they show an arm bone severed by a blade.

http://archaeology.org/issues/95-130...vendel-oseberg

"Allmae has ample reason to think the men were felled in a fierce battle. Lying on a steel lab table is a humerus, or upper arm bone. Lining it up against her own arm, she demonstrates how the man probably raised his right hand over his head to ward off sword blows—to no avail. Deep chop marks cut clean through the bone. Another warrior’s skull was cut straight through. “Somebody chopped off the top of his head,” Allmae says. “I also suppose it was done with a sword—two strokes.” Only five of the 40 skeletons have clear cut marks on their bones, which she says isn’t unusual for mass graves—there are lots of ways to die in battle, after all. “There were also arrowheads in the body or in the pelvic area that could have been deadly but not touched the bones,” Allmae adds. Bloody flesh wounds that didn’t connect with bone could also have felled the men without leaving a lasting trace"

(snip)

also some more archeological support for the idea that people in the pre-industrial world were not the undernourished wimps some people from the 'nasty brutish and short' school tend to claim:

"Allmae’s analysis shows that this would have been an intimidating crew, especially in eighth-century Europe. The average height was 5’10”, and several of the men might have been well over six feet tall. Some of the bones bear signs of old wounds, suggesting these were veterans of more than one scrap. Based on the style of the swords, arrowheads, and other weapons, in addition to the objects found in the graves and especially the boats themselves, Peets and Konsa are already certain that the men were from Scandinavia."

G