The Norm and the Subaltern: Identifying Slaves in an Early Medieval Scandinavian Society

It has been acknowledged that the transnational economic system in the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages was to a large extent based on slave trade. The duties of the unfree intersected all aspects of everyday life and slavery is believed to have significantly contributed to the economy. From a Swedish perspective, although these ideas are accepted by the scholars, there is little scientific archaeological evidence to substantiate them. How can this subaltern group, excluded from hegemonic power, be identified? Few written sources deal with the life of the unfree and the material culture is ambiguous. Only in a few burials does the archaeological context suggest the presence of unfree individuals, but recognising the thralls is difficult since their hierarchical position could vary greatly. This paper approaches the subject through bioarchaeological research. In the last years, it has been demonstrated that the arrangement of the body, the morphological features of the skeleton, and the results of stable isotope analysis and, in some cases, aDNA, do not only help to recognize buried thralls but also add to the debate regarding the different social roles of the unfree in the medieval society.