New interpretation of runic inscription reveals pricing in Viking age

A new interpretation of the runic inscription on the Forsa Ring (Forsaringen in Swedish), provides fresh insights into the Viking Age monetary system and represents the oldest documented value record in Scandinavia. The inscription describes how the Vikings handled fines in a flexible and practical manner. This is highlighted in research from the Department of Economic History and International Relations at Stockholm University, recently published in the Scandinavian Economic History Review.

"The Forsaringen inscription "uksa … auk aura tua" was previously interpreted to mean that fines had to be paid with both an ox and two ore of silver. This would imply that the guilty party had to pay with two different types of goods, which would have been both impractical and time-consuming," says Rodney Edvinsson, Professor of Economic History at Stockholm University, who conducted the study.

The Forsa Ring is an iron ring from Hälsingland, dated to the 9th or 10th century. The runic inscription on the ring describes fines for a specific offense, where payment was to be made in the form of oxen and silver. The ring is believed to have been used as a door handle and is currently the oldest known preserved legal text in Scandinavia. By changing the translation of the word "auk" from the previous interpretation "and" to the new interpretation "also," the meaning changes so that fines could be paid either with an ox or with two ore of silver. An ore was equivalent to about 25 grams of silver.

"This indicates a much more flexible system, where both oxen and silver could be used as units of payment. If a person had easier access to oxen than to silver, they could pay their fines with an ox. Conversely, if someone had silver but no oxen, they could pay with two ore of silver," says Rodney Edvinsson.

The new interpretation shows that the Vikings had a system where both oxen and silver served as units of payment. This system allowed for multiple types of units of accounts to be used concurrently, reducing transaction complexity and making it easier for people to meet their financial obligations. The new interpretation also aligns better with how the system functioned later according to later regional laws and is, according to Rodney Edvinsson, significant for our understanding of both Scandinavian and European monetary history.

"As an economic historian, I particularly look for historical data to be economically logical, that is, to fit into other contemporary or historical economic systems. The valuation of an ox at two ore, or 50 grams of silver, in 10th-century Sweden resembles contemporary valuations in other parts of Europe, indicating a high degree of integration and exchange between different economies," says Rodney Edvinsson.

He has previously contributed to developing a historical consumer price index extending back to the 13th century, but this new interpretation provides insights into price levels even earlier in history.

"The price level during the Viking Age in silver was much lower than in the early 14th century and late 16th century, but approximately at the same level as in the late 15th century and the 12th century, when there was a silver shortage," says Rodney Edvinsson.

The study highlights the importance of using modern economic theories to interpret historical sources. By combining economic theory with archaeological and historical findings, new opportunities for interdisciplinary research and a deeper understanding of early economic systems are opened up.

What Did Things Cost During the Viking Age?

According to the new interpretation, an ox would cost 2 öre of silver, about 50 grams of silver, during the Viking Age. This corresponds to roughly 100,000 Swedish kronor today, if compared to the value of an hour's work. The Forsa Ring's fine amount was therefore quite high. One öre was likely equivalent to about nine Arabic dirhams, a currency that circulated in large quantities among the Vikings. A common price for a thrall was 12 öre of silver, or approximately 600,000 Swedish kronor today. The wergild for a free man, i.e., the fine paid to the family of the murdered to avoid blood revenge, was much higher, around 5 kilos of silver, which is about 10 million Swedish kronor today. The significant difference in value between a thrall and a free man reflects the power dynamics between free individuals and thralls in a slave society.

The relevant inscription of the Forsa Ring translated to modern English: One ox and [also/or] two öre of silver to the staff for the restoration of a sanctuary in a valid state for the first time; two oxen and [also/or] four öre of silver for the second time; but for the third time four oxen and eight öre of silver.

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Scandinavia's first farmers slaughtered the hunter-gatherer population, study finds

Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden, among others. The results, which are contrary to prevailing opinion, are based on DNA analysis of skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark.

The extensive study has been published as four separate articles in the journal Nature. An international research team, of which Lund University in Sweden is a member, has been able to draw new conclusions about the effects of migration on ancient populations by extracting DNA from skeletal parts and teeth of prehistoric people.

The study shows, among other things, that there have been two almost total population turnovers in Denmark over the past 7,300 years.

The first population change happened 5,900 years ago when a farmer population, with a different origin and appearance, drove out the gatherers, hunters and fishers who had previously populated Scandinavia.

Within a few generations, almost the entire hunter-gatherer population was wiped out.

"This transition has previously been presented as peaceful. However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers," says Anne Birgitte Nielsen, geology researcher and head of the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at Lund University.

A thousand years later, about 4,850 years ago, another population change took place when people with genetic roots in Yamnaya -- a livestock herding people with origins in southern Russia -- came to Scandinavia and wiped out the previous farmer population.

Once again, this could have involved both violence and new pathogens.

These big-boned people pursued a semi-nomadic life on the steppes, tamed animals, kept domestic cattle and moved over large areas using horses and carts.

The people who settled in our climes were a mix between Yamnaya and Eastern European Neolithic people.

This genetic profile is dominant in today's Denmark, whereas the DNA profile of the first farmer population has been essentially erased.

"This time there was also a rapid population turnover, with virtually no descendants from the predecessors. We don't have as much DNA material from Sweden, but what there is points to a similar course of events. In other words, many Swedes are to a great extent also descendants of these semi-nomads," says Anne Birgitte Nielsen, who contributed quantitative pollen data which shows how the vegetation changed in connection with the population changes.

The results do not just overturn previous theories about amorous and peaceful meetings between groups of people.

The study also provides a deepened understanding of historical migration flows, and the interpretation of archaeological finds and changes in vegetation and land use found in palaeoecological data.

"Our results help to enhance our knowledge of our heredity and our understanding of the development of certain diseases. Something that in the long term could be beneficial, for example in medical research," concludes Anne Birgitte Nielsen.

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Ancient 'chewing gum' reveals stone age diet

What did people eat on the west coast of Scandinavia 10,000 years ago? A new study of the DNA in a chewing gum shows that deer, trout and hazelnuts were on the diet. It also shows that one of the individuals had severe problems with her teeth.

Some 9,700 years ago, a group of people were camping on the west coast of Scandinavia, north of what is today Göteborg.

They had been fishing, hunting and collecting resources for food.

And some teenagers, both boys and girls, were chewing resin to produce glue, just after munching on trout and deer, as well as on hazelnuts.

Due to a bad case of periodontitis (severe gum infection that can lead to tooth loss and bone loss), one of the teenagers had problems eating the chewy deer-meat, as well as preparing the resin by chewing it.

We know this because an international research team has been working with the chewed resin from Huseby Klev for some time.

"There is a richness of DNA sequences in the chewed mastic from Huseby-Klev, and in it we find both the bacteria that we know are related to periodontitis, and DNA from plants and animals that they had chewed before," says Dr. Emrah Kırdök, from Mersin University Department of Biotechnology, who coordinated the metagenomic work on the Mesolithic chewing gum.

Emrah Kırdök started to analyse the material when he was a postdoc at the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University, but the study has grown much since then.

The site Huseby Klev on the island Orust was excavated 30 years ago.

Chewed resin was found together with remains of stone tools in a context dated to c. 9700 years ago.

The stone material also indicated a Mesolithic chronology. The chewed material from Huseby Klev has already generated a study on the human genetic data from three individuals, and the DNA in the material that was not of human origin has also been analysed and published.

Identifying the different species present in the kind of mix of DNA that was present in the Mesolithic chewing gum was challenging.

Dr Andrés Aravena, from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Istanbul University spent much time on the computer analysing the data together with Dr. Emrah Kırdök. "We had to apply several computational heavy analytical tools to single out the different species and organisms. All the tools we needed were not ready to be applied to ancient DNA; but much of our time was spent on adjusting them so that we could apply them," concludes Andrés Aravena.

Metagenomics on ancient DNA is an expanding area, but there have yet only been a few studies on this type of chewed material.

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And then there were 6 -- kinds of taste, that is

Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda first proposed umami as a basic taste -- in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter -- in the early 1900s. About eight decades later, the scientific community officially agreed with him.

Now, scientists led by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences have evidence of a sixth basic taste.

In research published Oct. 10 in Nature Communications, USC Dornsife neuroscientist Emily Liman and her team found that the tongue responds to ammonium chloride through the same protein receptor that signals sour taste.

"If you live in a Scandinavian country, you will be familiar with and may like this taste," says Liman, professor of biological sciences. In some northern European countries, salt licorice has been a popular candy at least since the early 20th century. The treat counts among its ingredients salmiak salt, or ammonium chloride.

Scientists have for decades recognized that the tongue responds strongly to ammonium chloride. However, despite extensive research, the specific tongue receptors that react to it remained elusive.

Liman and the research team thought they might have an answer.

In recent years, they uncovered the protein responsible for detecting sour taste. That protein, called OTOP1, sits within cell membranes and forms a channel for hydrogen ions moving into the cell.

Hydrogen ions are the key component of acids, and as foodies everywhere know, the tongue senses acid as sour. That's why lemonade (rich in citric and ascorbic acids), vinegar (acetic acid) and other acidic foods impart a zing of tartness when they hit the tongue. Hydrogen ions from these acidic substances move into taste receptor cells through the OTOP1 channel.

Because ammonium chloride can affect the concentration of acid -- that is, hydrogen ions -- within a cell, the team wondered if it could somehow trigger OTOP1.

To answer this question, they introduced the Otop1 gene into lab-grown human cells so the cells produce the OTOP1 receptor protein. They then exposed the cells to acid or to ammonium chloride and measured the responses.

"We saw that ammonium chloride is a really strong activator of the OTOP1 channel," Liman said. "It activates as well or better than acids."

Ammonium chloride gives off small amounts of ammonia, which moves inside the cell and raises the pH, making it more alkaline, which means fewer hydrogen ions.

"This pH difference drives a proton influx through the OTOP1 channel," explained Ziyu Liang, a PhD student in Liman's lab and first author on the study.

To confirm that their result was more than a laboratory artifact, they turned to a technique that measures electrical conductivity, simulating how nerves conduct a signal. Using taste bud cells from normal mice and from mice the lab previously genetically engineered to not produce OTOP1, they measured how well the taste cells generated electrical responses called action potentials when ammonium chloride is introduced.

Taste bud cells from wildtype mice showed a sharp increase in action potentials after ammonium chloride was added while taste bud cells from the mice lacking OTOP1 failed to respond to the salt. This confirmed their hypothesis that OTOP1 responds to the salt, generating an electrical signal in taste bud cells.

The same was true when another member of the research team, Courtney Wilson, recorded signals from the nerves that innervate the taste cells. She saw the nerves respond to addition of ammonium chloride in normal mice but not in mice lacking OTOP1.

Then the team went one step further and examined how mice react when given a choice to drink either plain water or water laced with ammonium chloride. For these experiments, they disabled the bitter cells that also contribute to the taste of ammonium chloride. Mice with a functional OTOP1 protein found the taste of ammonium chloride unappealing and did not drink the solution, while mice lacking the OTOP1 protein did not mind the alkaline salt, even at very high concentrations.

"This was really the clincher," Liman said. "It shows that the OTOP1 channel is essential for the behavioral response to ammonium."

But the scientists weren't done. They wondered if other animals would also be sensitive to and use their OTOP1 channels to detect ammonium. They found that the OTOP1 channel in some species seems to be more sensitive to ammonium chloride than in other species. And human OTOP1 channels were also sensitive to ammonium chloride.

So, what is the advantage in tasting ammonium chloride and why is it evolutionarily so conserved?

Liman speculates that the ability to taste ammonium chloride might have evolved to help organisms avoid eating harmful biological substances that have high concentrations of ammonium.

"Ammonium is found in waste products -- think of fertilizer -- and is somewhat toxic," she explained, "so it makes sense we evolved taste mechanisms to detect it. Chicken OTOP1 is much more sensitive to ammonium than zebra fish." Liman speculates that these variations may reflect differences in the ecological niches of different animals. "Fish may simply not encounter much ammonium in the water, while chicken coops are filled with ammonium that needs to be avoided and not eaten."

But she cautions that this is very early research and further study is needed to understand species differences in sensitivity to ammonium and what makes OTOP1 channels from some species sensitive and some less sensitive to ammonium.

Towards this end, they have made a start. "We identified a particular part of the OTOP1 channel -- a specific amino acid -- that's necessary for it to respond to ammonium," Liman said. "If we mutate this one residue, the channel is not nearly as sensitive to ammonium, but it still responds to acid."

Moreover, because this one amino acid is conserved across different species, there must have been selective pressure to maintain it, she says. In other words, the OTOP1 channel's ability to respond to ammonium must have been important to the animals' survival.

Read more at Science Daily

DNA from archaeological remains shows that immigration to Scandinavia was exceptional during the Viking period

A new study based on 297 ancient Scandinavian genomes analysed together with the genomic data of 16,638 present day Scandinavians resolve the complex relations between geography, ancestry, and gene flow in Scandinavia -- encompassing the Roman Age, the Viking Age and later periods. A surprising increase of variation during the Viking period indicates that gene flow into Scandinavia was especially intense during this period.

An international study coordinated from Stockholm and Reykjavik investigates the development of the Scandinavian gene pool over the latest 2000 years. In this effort the scientists relied on historic and prehistoric genomes, and from material excavated in Scandinavia. These ancient genomes were compared with genomic data from 16,638 contemporary Scandinavians. As the geographical origin and the datings were known for all these individuals, it was possible to resolve the development of the gene pool to a level never realised previously.

Dr Ricardo Rodríguez Varela at the Centre for Palaeogenetics*, who analysed all the data and extracted some of the ancient DNA used in the study, explains: "With this level of resolution we not only confirm the Viking Age migration. We are also able to trace it to the east Baltic region, the British-Irish Isles and southern Europe. But not all parts of Scandinavia received the same amounts of gene flow from these areas. For example, while British-Irish ancestry became widespread in Scandinavia the eastern-Baltic ancestry mainly reached Gotland and central Sweden."

The gene pool bounced back after the Viking period

Another new discovery in this study was what happened to the gene pool after the Viking period. The scientists were surprised to find that it bounced back in the direction of what it looked like before the Viking period migration.

Professor Anders Götherström at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, who is a senior scientist on the study, is intrigued: "Interestingly, the non-local ancestry peaks during the Viking period while being lower before and after. The drop in current levels of external ancestry suggests that the Viking-period migrants got less children, or somehow contributed proportionally less to the gene pool than the people who were already in Scandinavia."

Yet a new discovery was the history of the northern Scandinavian gene pool. There is a genetic component in northern Scandinavia that is rare in central and western Europe, and the scientists were able to track this component in northern Scandinavia through the latest 1000 years.

Dr Ricardo Rodríguez Varela comments, "We suspected that there was a chronology to the northern Scandinavian gene pool, and it did indeed prove that a more recent influx of Uralic ancestry into Scandinavia define much of the northern gene pool. But if it is recent, it is comparatively so. For example, we know that this Uralic ancestry was present in northern Scandinavia as early as during the late Viking period."

Based on well-known Swedish archaeological sites

The study is based on a number of well-known Swedish archaeological sites. For example, there are genomes from the 17th century warship Kronan, from the Viking and Vendel period boat burials in the lake Mälaren Valley, and from the migration period ring fortress Sandby borg on Öland.

Anders Götherström conclude: "We were working on a number of smaller studies on different archaeological sites. And at some point it just made sense to combine them into a larger study on the development of the Scandinavian gene pool.

Read more at Science Daily