The observations of a 10th century Arab traveller, Ahmad ibn Fadlān ibn al-Abbās ibn Rāšid ibn Hammād, about the hygiene of the Vikings more than a thousand years ago, are being confirmed by new DNA analyses. Ibn Fadlan describes the Eastern Vikings while the new DNA studies are about the Western Vikings, but their living conditions and habits would have been very similar. ScienceNordic reports that a new DNA study “conducted on thousand-year-old parasite eggs recovered from Viking faeces, shows that both the Vikings and their domestic animals were plagued by parasites — which most likely enjoyed excellent living conditions in a dirty world in which domestic animals and humans lived in unhygienically close proximity to each other”.
The paper is published in the Journal of Parasitology:
Study author, post-doc Martin J. Søe from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences and the Centre for Geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen, explains:
“It’s fascinating to be able to examine these extremely old parasite eggs and establish which species they came from,” says Søe. “We can use this to say something about what people suffered from during the Viking age and which domestic animals they kept in one location or another. It can also answer questions about the interaction between humans and animals and how close to each other they lived.”
The new study is part of a large scale project in which Danish scientists are charting the evolutionary, demographic, and health-related stories from the earliest settlements and up to modern times. ……….
….. In the study, Søe examined the content of parasite eggs in soil samples from a Viking settlement near Viborg. The soil samples came from a latrine used during the period 1018-1030.
The scientists began by separating the ancient parasite eggs from the soil and then extracted DNA from them.
By sequencing the DNA, Søe was able to determine which species of parasite the eggs came from and whether the species infected humans.
The study shows that the soil samples contained parasite eggs from roundworm and human whipworm, along with liver fluke from cattle or sheep
“You can’t tell if they come from parasites that infected humans or animals by simply looking at the eggs,” says Søe. “But by examining their DNA, we are able to confirm what we until now have only believed to be the case: that a thousand years ago, humans carried these parasites around.”
Going East the Vikings were seen as “handsome but filthy”
Ibn Fadlān was a 10th-century Arab traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad to the king of the Volga Bulgars. His account is most known for providing a description of the Volga Vikings, including an eyewitness account of a ship burial.
Ibn Fadhlan manuscript
Elements of Ibn Fadlān’s account are used in the novel Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton (adapted to film in The 13th Warrior with Antonio Banderas as Ibn Fadlan), in which the Arab ambassador is taken even further north and is involved in adventures inspired by the Old English epic Beowulf.
Some excerpts from Ahmad ibn Fadlān:
They are the filthiest of all Allah’s creatures: they do not purify themselves after excreting or urinating or wash themselves when in a state of ritual impurity after coitus and do not even wash their hands after food.
I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy; they wear neither tunics nor kaftans, but the men wear a garment which covers one side of the body and leaves a hand free. Each man has an axe, a sword, and aknife, and keeps each by him at all times. Each woman wears on either breast a box of iron, silver,copper, or gold; the value of the box indicates the wealth of the husband. Each box has a ring from which depends a knife. The women wear neck-rings of gold and silver. Their most prized ornaments are green glass beads. They string them as necklaces for their women.
In the case of a rich man, they gather together his possessions and divide them into three portions, one third for his household, one third with which to cut funeral garments for him, and one third with which they ferment alcohol which they drink on the day when his slave-girl kills herself and is burned together with her master.
Tags: Ahmad ibn Fadlān, DNA nalaysis, parasites, Vikings
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January 6, 2015 at 11:00 pm
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