The Viking Age (c. 800 -1050 AD) is widely recognised as a pivotal episode of cultural expansion in Eurasia, yet its origins remain poorly understood. At present, the Viking Age is seen as ‘starting’ in the West with the famous raid on Lindisfarne in 793 AD. In this talk, I will discuss the findings of a recent research project (University of Oxford), in which we aimed to challenge this view through the large-scale geochemical analysis of Viking silver.

We analysed over 300 Scandinavian silver rings and ingots, capturing their lead isotopes and trace elements. This enabled us to quantify the relative amounts of eastern, Islamic and western European silver in use during the eighth and ninth centuries.  We found a predominance of trade-related Islamic silver in most regions and, for this silver, an earlier import date than the extant coin record suggests. Together, these results provide strong grounds for situating the origins of the Viking Age not in western Europe as normally assumed, but across the Baltic, in Eastern markets. It was ties with the Islamic Caliphate that held the key to Viking origins.