discussed below, but to introduce the problem it is worth reviewing why it is that such
different interpretations can be founded on the same evidence. Beyond the inevitable
influence of a scholar’s point of view, this problem emerges from a combination of
semantics, superficially conflicting source material and poor chronological resolution.
Each needs to be treated briefly in turn.
The semantic issue is a simple but critical matter of definition. It is often unclear
whether the terms Viking and Scandinavian are used to refer to people or things (Barrett
2004 ). Within each category, the intended meaning also differs and is seldom made
explicit. If people, is one discussing biological ancestry, speech community, ethnicity
or simply those who lived in the Viking Age (variously defined)? If things, is one
considering objects of Scandinavian manufacture, of Scandinavian style or of Viking Age
date? These distinctions are non-trivial. For example, biological ancestry and ethnicity
are of course not the same thing – despite dangerous assumptions to the contrary in
various times and places in human history (Wolf 1994 ).
By ‘superficially conflicting evidence’ I refer to sources that seem to imply divergent
interpretations when of course they must ultimately be reconcilable – either by accept-
ing that they represent different voices from the past (groups of differing status for
example) or by clarifying their divergent chronologies or degrees of historicity.
The examples are too extensive to review in full, but a few will serve to illustrate the
problem. Broadly speaking, they will be considered in reverse chronological order and
from north to south.
One can begin with DNA evidence regarding the genetic ancestry of modern
populations in different regions of Scotland. It implies considerable continuity of the
indigenous female and male populations of these regions (albeit greater in northern and
western mainland Scotland and the Hebrides than in the Northern Isles) (Helgason et al.
2001 ; Wilson et al. 2001 ; Goodacre et al. 2005 ). Superficially interpreted, this pattern
could be mapped onto the Viking Age and read as evidence for considerable continuity
of the indigenous population, greater in the west than in the north. Although possible,
this result also reflects long-term processes such as the migration of Gaelic-speakers into
the Hebrides later in the Middle Ages and the long duration of Scandinavian influence
and rule in the Northern Isles (Goodacre et al. 2005 ). (Stable isotope analysis of teeth
from Viking Age burials may ultimately illuminate the issue of migration with greater
chronological precision, e.g. Montgomery et al. 2003 .)
Turning to the evidence for Scandinavian place names, it is so extensive that in con-
trast with the genetic results it has led to the suggestion that the pre-Norse inhabitants
of Atlantic Scotland were completely replaced by Norse migrants (see below). The place-
name record of the Northern Isles and Outer Hebrides lacks any (or virtually any)
evidence of pre-Norse onomastic survivals (Gammeltoft 2005 ; Jennings and Kruse
2005 ). The situation in the southern Hebrides is more complex, but Norse topographic
names are nevertheless common as far south as the islands of the Firth of Clyde ( Jennings
1996 ). Like the modern genetic evidence, however, the source material for the onomastic
record is much later than the Viking Age – Scotland has no equivalent to the eleventh-
century Domesday survey of England (see Gammeltoft 2000 ). The place names may
thus reflect the duration of Scandinavian influence rather than its character in the ninth
and tenth centuries.
Moving to archaeological evidence for Norse settlements (Figure 30. 1 ), a number of
excavated sites from the Northern Isles have produced late Viking Age and medieval
–– chapter 30 : The Norse in Scotland––