Overview

The Vikings continue to fascinate us because their compelling stories connect with universal human desires for exploration and adventure. In Age of Wolf and Wind: Voyages through the Viking World, author Davide Zori argues that recent advances in excavation and archaeological science, coupled with a re-evaluation of oral traditions and written sources, inspire the telling of new and engaging stories that further our understanding of the Viking Age. Drawing upon his fieldwork experience across the Viking world, he proposes that the best method for weaving together these narratives is a balanced, interdisciplinary approach that integrates history, archaeology, and new scientific techniques.The book delves into key questions of the Viking Age, such as the motivations of Scandinavians to board open wooden ships to raid England or cross the North Atlantic in search of new worlds beyond Europe. Each chapter offers new conclusions about the Vikings--their views on death, their raiding tactics, their lavish feasts, their forging of powerful medieval states, and many others. In each case, Zori brings together written sources, archaeology, and the natural sciences. The dialogues he creates between these three separate data sets result in an entanglement of confirmation (texts, archaeology, and science affirming the same story), contradiction (texts, archaeology, and science telling incompatible stories) and complementarity (texts, archaeology, and science contributing mutually enriching stories). This optimistic yet critical treatment of the sources allows for a holistic picture of the Viking Age to emerge, one that is accessible to a general audience but simultaneously offers new insights into current key issues of scholarly debate.

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9780190916060

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Reviews

Movement, often of a dangerous and adventurous nature, defines the Viking achievement. The Viking world as we know it was not a contiguous territory or empire, but a far more complex and fleeting phenomenon. Social, cultural and economic networks came together, linking eastern and western Europe, and stretching as far as Central Asia and the Americas. In Davide Zori's new book, the reader will find a thorough, up-to-date and research-informed account of a vivid age of conquest of both land and sea. * David Griffiths, University of Oxford * Drawing on his extensive knowledge of both the written and material record, Davide Zori has crafted a fresh and enlightening account of Scandinavia during the Viking Age. Not only is he an outstanding historian, but also an accomplished archaeologist who seamlessly integrates his own fieldwork into his case studies. By demonstrating how to combine written evidence and data obtained from cutting-edge scientific tools, Zori offers a model of the ideal of interdisciplinary scholarship. * Patrick J. Geary, Institute for Advanced Study * In his highly readable and always interesting book, Davide Zori has presented us with an up-to-date overview of the fascinating Viking phenomenon, a story which, as Zori states, is one of voyages. His methodology is to explore the complexities of weaving together narratives of text and material culture, studying them separately, but checking them against each other to be able to build up a more secure synthesis. No doubt this book will be widely read and discussed in Viking Studies and I will gladly recommend it to anyone interested in the Vikings and their world. * Stefan Brink, University of Cambridge *

Author Information

Davide Zori is Associate Professor of History and Archaeology in the Honors College at Baylor University. His research focuses on the Viking world, particularly the Scandinavian diaspora in the North Atlantic, political economics, and the methodological challenges of combining written sources, archaeology, and new scientific data. He has authored over 30 articles and book chapters on aspects of the Viking Age and co-edited the book Viking Archaeology in Iceland: The Mosfell Archaeological Project. An active field archaeologist, he has conducted over two decades of archaeological fieldwork in Iceland, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Chile, the United States, and Canada, with the support of grants from the National Science Foundation, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Icelandic Centre for Research, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Explorers Club. His research has been covered by NPR, BBC, the Discovery Channel, New York Times, and National Geographic.

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