Scientists Discover First DNA Evidence of Female Viking Warriors
The researchers don’t believe their findings will revolutionize the way scholars conceptualize Viking military history. However, the paper raises new questions about the exact role of women in Viking society, and casts some doubt on previously unearthed Viking remains that were assumed to be male.
The paper concludes with a fitting war poem:
Then the high-born lady saw them play the wounding game, she resolved on a hard course and flung off her cloak; she took a naked sword and fought for her kinsmen’s lives she was handy at fighting, wherever she aimed her blows — The Greenlandic Poem of Atli
More: Scientists Discover First DNA Evidence of Female Viking Warriors