Scientists have discovered in Sweden that Viking women underwent cosmetic surgery 1,000 years ago. A German research team found three elongated skulls that were probably altered in the women’s first year of life when their skulls were still soft and pliable. The researchers said it is possible that the Vikings elongated their skulls as a sign of status and beauty.
Skull deformities were common in the Black Sea region and had previously only been found among Mesoamerican, Native American and Eurasian cultures; this is the first time they have been found among Vikings. “We do not know where these three women grew up and where their heads became deformed,” Matthias Toplak, the expedition’s co-leader, told Atlas Obscura. “Whether their heads became deformed in their early childhood, for example in the Black Sea region, and how they got back to Gotland is unclear,” he added.
The researchers believe the women’s skulls were probably altered in the first year of life when the bones were still soft enough to be altered by wrapping bandages around the infant’s head to lengthen the skull. However, if the Vikings used more serious techniques, such as using weights or harnesses, it could have affected their cognitive development.
The researchers clarified that they could not determine from the skulls whether this was the case, but Jesse Goldstein, the head of the pediatric plastic surgery department, said the more severe approach could have disastrous consequences.
“If this method was used, it could have had negative effects on brain function, especially if it happened in early childhood,” he told Atlas. However, he also added, “It’s hard to say for sure.”
The researchers think it’s more likely that the artificial cranial deformation (ACD) was to distinguish the women from others, to show that they had travelled.
“The human body is and represents a medium of communication,” the researchers wrote in the study, adding that it can produce communication in a functionally complex, structured manner. Although the women may have used ACD as a symbol of beauty, it is much more likely that they were “seen as evidence of extensive trade contacts and thus a sign of influence and success in trade,” Toplak told LiveScience.
Researchers from the Haithabu Viking Museum and the University of Münster in Germany used DNA analysis to prove that the skulls date from the Scandinavian Viking Age on Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea belonging to Sweden.
Comments
0 comment