And most other weapon graves in Scandinavia look very different to Birka Bj581 even if we were to accept the latter as a warrior. Taking one case (if a warrior is even what BJ581 is) and extending it to an extremely diverse and variable phenomenon is poor funerary archaeological method

Basically does nothing to deal with them. Just says ‘but my graves don’t have much else in them generally. They’re are still warriors’ which is not what the debate is about.

The question of whether weapon graves can be interpreted as warriors (regardless of sex/gender) is a huge debate in early medieval archaeology more widely. One issue with the reaction to Birka BJ581 was not being aware of that. Skre does cite some of the major objections to such interpretations but

If it’s any consolation I’m also teaching most of the day and thus missing the second day

Or at least, what it can do with any form of certainty.

Like I say, really elaborately and intricately argued in
impressive fashion. Its analyses of broader social impulses: cool stuff. Its extension to precise identifications of psychological and societal organisational systems at the individual level… I fear pushed the evidence beyond what it can do.

The stuff about gift exchange networks, rings etc I’m more comfortable with but the precise identification of ranked social groups is more generally a larger objection I have to scandi archaeology…

Also, weapon graves = warriors is guaranteed to infuriate any archaeologist outside of Scandinavia. 🤣

I felt that the construction of the warrior ethos established from from it along with the other materials it drew upon to establish the latter was insufficiently attentive to other source critical approaches to the text, debates about the text’s still fraught questions of provenance notwithstanding.

The whole thing has been accessible via Zoom!

(I found it difficult to do justice to in 20 minutes and I’ll certainly struggle to do justice to it here, though 🤣)

I was very much not a fan of how it used Beowulf, and use of the aDNA evidence from Szolad and Collegno relied on a reading of it now shown to be plain wrong, for instance (which should prompt reflection on efforts to use it to argue for such things let alone if they can be extended to Scandinavia)

(But I certainly agree that it’s brilliant despite that)

I have to confess that my take was that it was far too bold. Extraordinary vision and ambition but, an elaborate theoretical edifice that rests on too many debatable pillars, some of which I simply did not agree with or think can be proven with the available evidence.

People like this are exactly the reason why those of us who are actually historians like to gatekeep who gets to call themselves a historian…

Wait, Ricky, you're interested in Frisians? Cor blimey, I never would have guessed.

It’s not gate keeping to use adherence to professional standards (and evidence of training in them via means of qualification) to decide who is or isn’t a practitioner of that profession.