What is it about?
This study analysed the chemical remains of food absorbed into sherds of early-medieval pottery from England and Denmark (c. AD 793–1066), to investigate whether the arrival of Scandinavian settlers changed local cooking practices. In testing for chemical biomarkers and carbon isotopes trapped in the ceramics, we found that while nearly 25% of Viking-Age pots from the sites we sampled in Denmark were used to cook fish, these aquatic markers were almost entirely absent from the large sample of Viking-Age pottery we analysed from England. Instead, the English vessels showed a consistent and overwhelming preference for terrestrial animal fats (such as meat and dairy), regardless of whether the sites were located in areas of heavy Scandinavian settlement or those traditionally seen as under Anglo-Saxon control.
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Why is it important?
This is significant because it challenges the long-held assumption that Viking settlers brought their distinct maritime food culture with them to England. The data suggest a process of rapid cultural assimilation wherein Scandinavian migrants pragmatically adopted the existing Anglo-Saxon diet and cooking traditions. This highlights the power of local foodways as a stabilizing force in culture-contact, proving that even when political and linguistic landscapes shift, the fundamental habits of daily life—what people cooked and how they used their tools—can remain remarkably resistant to change.
Perspectives
This was a monumental paper to complete! It's the biggest survey of its kind ifor early-medieval Europe. We thought it important to look for variation using large samples, so that any differences we found between sites, phases, regions, or pot types was robust. What we found surprised us: that is sites in eastern England at least, there was remarkably little variation between different kinds of sites, or in different parts of the country. And the fact that almost noone in Viking-Age York or Lincoln ever seems to have made fish stew!
Dr Steven P Ashby
University of York
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cuisine and culture-contact: lipid residue analysis reveals lack of aquatic products in pottery from Viking Age England, Antiquity, February 2026, Antiquity Publications,
DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2026.10288.
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