The bone/antler hair-comb is a quantitatively important artefact of the period between the end of the Roman era and the High Middle Ages (c. AD 1050-1200). In addition, as we will see, it affords significant potential for the high-resolution investigation of temporal and spatial patterning.
Given this potential, it is unsurprising that a number of detailed comb classifications have been constructed for particular sites or regions (e.g. Winter 1907; Thomas 1960; Tempel 1969; Ulbricht 1980; Ambrosiani 1981; Flodin 1989; Luik 1998; Smirnova 2005). However, to date there have been few attempts to synthesise the Viking-Age and medieval European corpus. Indeed, in a relatively recent survey of early medieval northern European combs, Callmer (1998, 474) noted the absence of a 'comprehensive treatment of the Continental comb material'. The same may be said for large areas of northern Europe.
Such is the aim of the present article: the chief interest is the UK corpus, though some attempt is made to place this within a broader north European context. While a comprehensive coverage is unattainable, the identification of broad regional patterning is desirable. Such an understanding not only enhances knowledge of comb production, distribution and use, and how this varied across this particular transect through the continent, but also elucidates trade, population movement, and culture contact in more general terms, while facilitating and informing future, more focused, locally and regionally based investigations.
It is important to note that the use of composite combs was not limited to northern Europe. On the contrary, examples are known from central (e.g. Becker 1989; Piekalskiego and Wachowskiego 2004) southern (e.g. Coutts et al. 2001, 415), and south-eastern Europe (e.g. Curta 2009, fig. 10.9; Petkovic 2006), and even reached Iceland and the islands of the North Atlantic (Amorosi 1992, figs 7-9). Nonetheless, in the Viking Age their manufacture and use is probably best evidenced in Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the coasts of the Baltic and North Sea; consequently these regions are the focus of this article. Moreover, the collections from northern England (Ashby in press b; Ashby 2006), Scotland (Ashby 2009; Ashby in press a; Ashby 2006), and western Russia (Smirnova 2005, 86-92) have been dealt with elsewhere, and their treatment in this atlas is accordingly brief. While it is intended that the survey will be of interest to scholars across northern Europe, it should be noted that first-hand study of material evidence is largely limited to collections held within UK-based institutions. Nonetheless, this contribution aims to place the comb collections of the British Isles within their European context. To this end, a number of Scandinavian collections were studied at first hand (Birka, Sigtuna and Trondheim in detail; others, including Kaupang and Bergen, more summarily). In all other cases, information provided here is based on published data and details kindly provided in advance of publication. The study considers material published in a range of languages and academic traditions, but it is anticipated that material published in Russian will be less well represented here than that written in English, German, Polish, or the Scandinavian languages, and in this context the article owes a certain debt to Lyuba Smirnova's excellent survey (Smirnova 2005, 86-92). This is, unfortunately, inevitable, as is the omission of certain unpublished reports, since at the time of writing the author was unaware of their existence.
This review has the potential to impact upon a number of important debates. It has particular implications for the characterisation of the pre-Viking/Viking-Age transition (e.g. Ashby 2009; Barrett 2004; Curle 1982), discussions surrounding traffic in the North Sea prior to AD 795 (Carver 1990; Gaut 2002; Hines 1984; 1992; Myhre 1993; Smith 2000; Weber 1992), and the nature of local and long-range trade in the Viking Age (see Ambrosiani 1981; cf. Sindbaek 2007a; 2007b) and the succeeding centuries (see Spufford 2006). It is hoped that it will also find a role as a reference tool for the field archaeologist and curator of collections.
Comments
While this article aims for an accurate characterisation of comb distributions as they are known today, it is not comprehensive, and it is of course likely that further discoveries will be made over the coming decades. The comments facility allows users to communicate (to the author and other readers) information relating to excavated material omitted from the original survey.
The comments facility has now been turned off.
| A most useful article | Leif Jonsson |
| Thanks for this. I'll try to keep it updated with new material I come across, and hope others will too! | Steve Ashby |
| This is great stuff - very useful indeed. Combs remain and will grow as a crucial aspect of research in early medieval Europe. | Howard Williams |
| As discussed in my email Steve, I would like to use this information as the basis for a network analysis, based on commonalities of the comb types between sites. This looks to be a useful collection of information for this kind of analysis. | Keith Scholes |
| Hi Steve - rather late in the day, I've had a trawl through the paper and think it is great - valuable for research and a very interesting model which could be taken up with other materials. One question that occurs is how the atlas might be built or extended, The comments facility is something that has great potential, but I wondered about the options that existed for adding new data, shifting to closer scales of resolution, and the linking of the atlas to other sources etc... The comments section makes it a forum; are there ways in which the use of that forum might be extended? | Mark Edmonds |
| Mark, really interesting idea regarding extending/adding data. The comments facility is very useful for the discussion of analysis and interpretations held within the paper, but contributions will always be coupled to the context of the original analysis and article. A new model would be required for the attribution and citation of reader generated comments, but that all depends on whether we expect these comments to build on and become part of the article or are merely transient supplements of the article meant to inform current/future research.
A better mechanism for associating multiple or evolving interpretations of objects would be via the linked data model. Linked data is still relatively new and is therefore somewhat less accessible than traditional "articles". However, multiple interpretations, resolutions, and sources could all be easily represented as linked data, so it would certainly be a good implementation of the ideas you suggested. Distilling article content into linked data would still potentially be a challenge though. Tools for creating linked data (or distilling it from articles for that matter) are also in need, but there are already good examples of how the linked data model can work within archaeology (the PELAGIOS project for example). |
Michael Charno |
| Well done, Steve! A great port-of-call whenever I next have to deal with a comb, and a good model for presenting other corpora to the world. I am sure that the dedicatee would have loved it. | Tania Dickinson |
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