Vikings’ Teeth: 3000 Of Them Tell Us Dental Stories

There’s something about the Viking age. But Vikings’ teeth? There’s even more …

Somehow it seems more alluring than other archaeology which is odd; it was such a short period of time – between the 8th and 12th centuries – and there are far more discoveries from other periods. But it’s always Viking findings that garner the attention of those who are not even particularly interested in history.

It’s not just the jewellery that gets us in with its gold, silver, bronze and iron; its amber and animal bones fashioned into rings, armbands, necklaces and charms for men and women both. What they achieved was extraordinary: the first people to simultaneously operate across four continents, and bring so much of the world together. Successfully crossing the Atlantic to reach North America, they permanently settled Iceland, lived in Greenland for centuries, and briefly called Newfoundland home to breed a new dog. (Even though they already had Norwegian Buhunds. Sometimes, one dog is just not enough.)

We like Viking symbols, we like to read their runes and tattoo their tokens. We like to claim their ancestry if we’re tall and like boats.

At its height, seafaring Scandinavians reigned supreme in northern Europe and beyond. They didn’t call themselves Vikings – to each other they were ‘Ostmen’. Depending on whom you asked, they were Norse, Northmen, Danes, Rus, Varangians. ‘Viking’, essentially ‘raider’ came centuries later, regardless of the fact that many were peaceful craftsmen and farmers.

Apparently scrupulous about grooming – however that’s defined – they were reportedly very attractive to women. Who’s to say it wasn’t their untamed attitude rather than their tamed dreadlocks and braids, that had such appeal.

Think James Dean, arriving on a longship. And giving us the names for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. (Although the original Frigg’s Day seems much more befitting.)

We generally have such a romanticised view of Vikings.

Pirates too, for that matter. (Why not, really. We romanticise bad relationships, bad jobs, parenthood, and unbalanced people wanting to be President.) We love the idea of swashbuckling even if we don’t know what it is, and Captain Jack Sparrow certainly didn’t hurt the cause.

German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) created his celebrated operas ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ (The Ring Cycle – with not a washing machine in sight) from his Norse obsession. In the Victorian era, Viking was vogue. (Maybe to take the heat off parkesine billiard balls and spontaneously exploding toilets.)

It was a musical masterpiece (The Ring Cycle, not the exploding toilets; although they could certainly go hand-in-hand). The costumes were lavish, with plenty of horned helmets which have nothing whatsoever to Vikings, but would have looked great on stage.

It was Carl Emil Doepler who forever stuck that image in our heads.

Though they won their biggest battle at Stamford Bridge (1066), Vikings were losing the war against oral bacteria.

We have paleopathologist and osteologist Caroline Arcini, of the National Historical Museums Sweden, to thank for altering the idea that these old Scandi salts were so meticulous with their personal hygiene. Their teeth tell a rather different story. As it turns out, many Vikings suffered chronic plaque and tartar build-up, cavities and oral and jaw infections.

Arcini published the results of 557 Viking skulls she examined, in 2006. Aside from the cavities and infections, 24 had a series of horizontal lines filed across their teeth.

Although this is a known practice of Viking men, it’s not clear whether it was as a mark of social standing, identification, purely decorative or as a means to ease the pain of infected teeth. It’s theorised that it’s possibly the result of contact with Native American tribes that have extremely similar tooth modifications.

Whatever its origin, it’s believed to have taken some serious skill to do, and despite the early findings, Vikings weren’t too bad at dentistry.

A much later examination of more than 2,000 Viking teeth offered a more comprehensive view of their oral health and habits.

Dental abrasions most likely from toothpicks could be seen, along with traces of tooth manipulation; assumed to have been for pain relief caused by cavities.

No wonder they were berserkers; those Viking warriors who fought in a trance-like state, who went into battle not wearing armour, just a wolf or bear pelt. Like turning up for a gridiron game in your undies.

The very latest study on the dental health of these ancient mariners was published in December 2023, lead by Carolina Bertilsson, a practicing dentist and associate researcher at the University of Gothenburg.

More than 3,000 teeth were examined from the skeletal remains of 171 adult and juvenile Vikings found near Varnhem Abbey, Sweden’s oldest stone church.

What was most surprising is that not a single cavity was found in the teeth of the children.

Sixty percent of the adult dentition had caries, with one female in her 30s having had died from a severe tooth infection.

There is evidence that rotten teeth had been extracted; and two instances of the pulpal chamber having been widened, probably to relieve a painful infection. It would’ve. Digging into the neurovascular bundle of your tooth would have wiped out the pain of the infection with jolts of utter agony.

As brutal as they were in many ways (their dentistry included) Vikings were fond of dogs and cats.

Which is not particularly unusual, other than the practice of taking them on raids. (No such thing as a pet sitter then.) Dogs understandably; but cats? Feral would make sense – they’d do more damage than a vicious dog, with the smell enough to kill anyone.

And now to the bears. Vikings would raid bear dens and take the cubs home. They’d raise them, and when they killed neighbouring livestock or family members, the owners would be fined.

If you think that’s crazy, take a look at how the modern world deals with global corporate crime.

Why are we so enamoured by Vikings? Because few of us have souls so adventurous that we don’t dream of upending our desk and going completely berserkers.

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