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Some human remains from Iron Age and Viking Age Scandinavian settlements were placed in or beside houses, and a study published in 2026 documents this in detail. It does not show that households routinely kept victims’ bones at home. The open-access paper, “Broken bodies in Domestic Spaces: Direct and Structural Violence in an Atypical Mortuary Dataset from Iron and Viking Age Scandinavia,” appeared online on 28 September 2026 in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. Its authors, led by first author Marianne Hem Eriksen of the National Museum of Denmark, analysed 192 individuals from domestic contexts in what are now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Twelve of them show traumatic injuries.
What the study examined
The dataset is unusual because it is made of remains found in settlement spaces rather than in ordinary cemeteries. The features include longhouses, yards, feasting halls, postholes, pits, hearths, house floors, and wells. The authors place the broad period at approximately 500 BCE to 1050 CE. The dataset is selected by context, so it is not a representative sample of everyone who lived in Scandinavia during those centuries, and the figures below should be read on that basis.
The team combined osteological, biomolecular, imaging, archaeological, and contextual analysis. Their key figures are summarised below.
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|---|---|---|
| Individuals in the domestic-context dataset | 192 | Selected settlement deposits from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Not a population count. |
| Individuals with traumatic injuries | 12, with 19 ante- and perimortem injuries | Injuries recorded before and around the time of death, in this dataset only. |
| Observed trauma share | 6.25% (12 of 192) | A share within this selected sample. It is not an estimate of violence across society. |
| Injuries interpreted as deliberate violence | At least 8 individuals | The authors’ interpretation of the skeletal evidence, not a proven motive in each case. |
| Injuries with less certain causes | 4 individuals | Cause not settled from the remains. |
| Chronological frame | Approximately 500 BCE to 1050 CE | A broad frame for the whole study, not the date of every deposit. |
The 6.25% figure is likely an undercount. Bone records only injuries that reached the skeleton, so wounds to soft tissue that left no mark on bone cannot appear in the count. The authors note that the true frequency of violence in this dataset may therefore be higher than the identifiable cases.
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Why “around the house” needs qualifying
The headline phrase compresses several different settings. Some remains were in house floors, some were in wells, and others were in pits, postholes, or yards. Calling all of them “in the house” or “around the house” flattens real differences in how and where they were placed. The most accurate short description is that human remains were sometimes deposited in houses and in nearby settlement features.
The placement also does not reveal how the remains were handled before they reached the ground. The study’s argument is that some bodies or body parts were deliberately processed and then integrated into settlement spaces, sometimes with architectural features or other objects. That is an interpretation of the context, and the authors present it as one line of evidence among several.
Two illustrative cases
A child’s skull fragment in an Iron Age house floor
A frontal bone from a child aged about two to four years was found in an Iron Age house in Denmark dated to 500 BCE to 1 CE. The analysis reported a sword cut on the bone. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the fragment could be as much as two centuries older than the house. That gap suggests the bone may have been kept for a time before it was placed, but the length of that period and the circumstances of any curation are not known.
Eriksen, in a translated statement quoted by Live Science, put the human side of the find this way: “The child’s skull was placed on the floor of a house where people continued to live. This means that someone has walked over a child’s skull day after day.” The quote is a translation, so the wording may differ slightly from the original Danish.
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A young woman’s skull in a Viking Age well
A skull showing traces of blows came from a well beside four small houses at a Viking Age site dated to approximately 750 to 1050 CE. The authors suggest that, like the child’s fragment, the remains may have been kept for a period before deposition. That is a possibility the evidence allows, not a measured duration, and it is not shown to be a general practice.
Possible explanations, and how the authors weigh them
The study describes several overlapping contexts rather than one motive. Each is a hypothesis to be tested against the evidence in a particular case.
Conflict between communities
Injuries consistent with fighting may reflect violence between groups. This would fit some of the deliberate-violence cases, but the skeletal evidence alone does not show which group the victims belonged to or how they died in relation to any wider conflict.
Interpersonal or domestic violence
Some injuries may come from violence within a community or household. Remains from living spaces make this a natural hypothesis, but placement inside a house does not on its own prove that the violence happened there.
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Ritual violence
The authors consider ritual explanations, including forms of sacrifice. A ritual reading cannot be confirmed from bone alone. Where the study uses a deliberate-placement argument, it is an interpretation of the setting, and the wording “sacrifice” should not be treated as an established conclusion for any individual case.
Structural vulnerability across a life
The study also looks at how a person’s life shaped their risk, including exposure to hardship and dependence. Structural vulnerability can help explain why some people were more likely to be injured or deposited differently, though it is hard to separate from the other explanations using skeletal evidence.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the evidence does not establish
- That households routinely kept victims’ bones inside their homes.
- That every deposited bone was a trophy, memorial, or sacrifice.
- That the 6.25% share describes violence across Iron and Viking Age society.
- How long any remains were kept before burial or deposition, beyond the single case dated against its house.
- Who handled the remains, or why a particular person was chosen for placement.
The study’s authors make a further point that is worth keeping in view. Their conclusion, quoted by Live Science, is that “not all lives were equally grieved and commemorated in the Iron and Viking Ages of Scandinavia.” That line concerns unequal treatment of the dead rather than a settled account of any single deposit.
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How to describe the finding accurately
When you repeat this story, the accurate version is narrower than the headline. Human remains, some with traumatic injuries, were deposited in and around Iron and Viking Age Scandinavian settlements, including in house floors and nearby wells, yards, and pits. Some of those remains may have been kept for a time before placement. The motives behind them are open, and the sample is selected rather than representative.
Live Science’s report by Kristina Killgrove, published on 6 October 2026, is a useful companion to the paper for the translated quotations and the case details. The primary source for the numbers and interpretation is the study itself in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.
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