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Hebedy is located in what is now the Schleswig-Holstein region of Germany, but was once part of Denmark. The site was one of the largest urban settlements in Viking Age Scandinavia and an important trading centre, making it an ideal focus for studies of the networks that extended across early medieval northern Europe. Previous research has explored evidence of long-distance trade in the form of objects like whetstones and steatite vessels, which appear to have been imported from other regions – including northern Scandinavia – hundreds of kilometres away. However, excavations at Hedeby have revealed a highly complex stratigraphy that has so far made it difficult to date finds accurately, so the timing and development of this trade remained unclear.
A new study, led by researchers from the University of York in the UK, turned its attention to hair combs because these objects can be reliably stylistically dated thanks to typological sequences based on material from other sites. Hedeby is known to have been a centre of antler-working, and excavations have produced a significant quantity of waste material from the production of hair combs, but until recently it has not been possible to analyse this material scientifically. The combs that were the focus of this study were a type dated to the 9th century. Researchers analysed 49 combs, which offered a good reflection of the repertoire of 9th-century combs from the site. Small samples were taken from each of the combs and subjected to Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS). This is a cost-effective and minimally destructive method, which is especially useful for studying bone and antler that cannot be identified using traditional zooarchaeological methods. ZooMS analyses the peptides in the collagen of the antler in each sample, and compares this to a database of known species in order to identify the material’s origin.
The ZooMS analysis revealed that of the 49 samples, 44 (90%) were made of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) antler, while the remainder could not be identified to species level. This is a significant discovery, because reindeer herds inhabited only central and northern Scandinavia; they were not found at all in the area near Hedeby, indicating that either the combs themselves or the raw materials used to make them were imported from some distance away. Among the evidence of antler-working at Hedeby, only 0.5% of the waste has been identified as possible reindeer antler; the assemblage is dominated almost entirely by red deer (Cervus elaphus), a species that is still found in southern Scandinavia today. Furthermore, there is no manufacturing evidence from the earliest phase at the site (that is, the 9th century), when the combs in question were made. Therefore, it looks like these early combs were produced somewhere else, either in northern Scandinavia where the reindeer antler originated, or at another town along the way, like Ribe or Kaupang. Either way, the findings indicate that the earliest combs to arrive in Hedeby, during the first century of the settlement’s existence, were either imported or owned by people who had travelled here from more distant regions. Later on, in the 10th century, combs began to be produced in Hedeby itself, using locally available red-deer antler.
The results of this research confirm the presence of long-distance, large-scale contact between Hedeby – a central gateway to continental Europe – and the mountains of upland or arctic Scandinavia as early as AD 800, with a window in the 9th century when these connections were especially strong. The discovery answers important questions about the chronology of resource-extraction, artefact-production, travel, and trade in early medieval Europe. Future studies of combs at other sites could help to piece together a larger picture of this industry through the Viking Age. The research was funded by Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Framework for Research and Innovations, and has been published in Antiquity (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.118).
Text: Amy Brunskill / Images: Mariana Muñoz-Rodriguez
