Prone Burials and Modified Teeth at the Viking Age Cemetery of Kopparsvik: The Changing of Social Identities at the Threshold of the Christian Middle Ages

Abstract

The article is a short summary of the author’s PhD thesis, analysing the late Viking Age cemetery of Kopparsvik on the island of Gotland, Sweden. The cemetery of Kopparsvik has to be seen in close relation to an early emporium as predecessor of present-day Visby, and its evaluation and publication will give new insights into the establishment and function of an early trading community. Furthermore, many burials at Kopparsvik show unusual features – namely, an astonishingly high number of prone burials and tooth modification, that demonstrate the consolidation of new social and religious ideologies at the threshold between the heathen Scandinavian Viking Age and the Christian European Middle Ages.