Age of Wolf and Wind Voyages through the Viking World

The Vikings continue to fascinate us because their compelling stories connect with universal human desires for exploration and adventure. In Age of Wolf and Wind: Voyages through the Viking World, author Davide Zori argues that recent advances in excavation and archaeological science, coupled with a re-evaluation of oral traditions and written sources, inspire the telling of new and engaging stories that further our understanding of the Viking Age. Drawing upon his fieldwork experience across the Viking world, he proposes that the best method for weaving together these narratives is a balanced, interdisciplinary approach that integrates history, archaeology, and new scientific techniques.

The book delves into key questions of the Viking Age, such as the motivations of Scandinavians to board open wooden ships to raid England or cross the North Atlantic in search of new worlds beyond Europe. Each chapter offers new conclusions about the Vikings--their views on death, their raiding tactics, their lavish feasts, their forging of powerful medieval states, and many others. In each case, Zori brings together written sources, archaeology, and the natural sciences. The dialogues he creates between these three separate data sets result in an entanglement of confirmation (texts, archaeology, and science affirming the same story), contradiction (texts, archaeology, and science telling incompatible stories) and complementarity (texts, archaeology, and science contributing mutually enriching stories). This optimistic yet critical treatment of the sources allows for a holistic picture of the Viking Age to emerge, one that is accessible to a general audience but simultaneously offers new insights into current key issues of scholarly debate.

Davide Zori is Associate Professor of History and Archaeology at Baylor University.

List of Figures
A Note on Spelling and Pronunciation

1 Introduction: Viking Voyages through History and Archaeology
2 Raiding, Conquering, and Settling Down in Britain: Viking Ways
3 From Subsistence Economy to Political Order: Viking Feasts
4 From Paganism to Christianization: Viking Death and Burial
5 Political Centralization in Denmark: The Viking State
6 Into Marginal North Atlantic Environments: Viking Colonization of Iceland
7 Stories of Vínland: The End of the Viking Horizon
8 Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index