A Burial of a Viking Woman at Adwick-le-Street, South Yorkshire

Abstract

In January 2001, an archaeological watching brief was carried out during the construction of a sewer pipeline at Adwick-le-Street near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. During excavation of a Romano-British trackway ditch, a plough-truncated grave was identified which produced fragmentary skeletal remains and an assemblage of copper-alloy and iron grave goods typical of a female Scandinavian burial of the Viking Period. The grave goods included a plough-damaged copper-alloy bowl, a non-matching pair of oval 'tortoise' brooches and fragments of an iron knife and a key or latch-lifter. Other objects might previously have been removed by ploughing. The oval brooches are typologically the earliest of the four pairs to have been recovered in England from a grave and the first to be excavated under archaeological conditions. The design and condition of the brooches suggest a date for the burial at the end of the 9th century. Isotope analysis of teeth from the skeleton indicates an origin for the woman in either Norway or possibly north-eastern Scotland. Investigation of the grave goods has provided information on manufacturing techniques and costume. No evidence was recovered to suggest why the woman was buried in this location, although a previous discovery of Roman or post-Roman inhumations and cremations nearby and the results of geophysical survey suggest that the excavated grave might form part of a more widely dispersed group of burials.