With no passports, Vikings filed grooves into their teeth for ID
Archaeologists may have solved the mystery of why Vikings filed fancy grooves into their teeth – as a slightly weird initiation and a form of ID.
Throughout history, humans have modified their bodies through tattoos, skull shapes and piercings, but understanding why has been difficult.
But archaeologists studying Viking remains suggest in this case, the teeth grooves could have been used to help members of the same social group identify each other.
Dr Matthias Toplak and Lukas Kerk investigated grooves filed into the teeth of remains of individuals who lived in Scandinavia, most of whom lived in the Baltic isle of Gotland.
They identified around 130 remains of men in current research from Scandinavia and beyond and found teeth modification in the form of horizontal furrows.
While some times teeth are found to be worn in particular ways due to being used as tools, in this case they appear to have been deliberately filed, although it isn’t know what the Vikings used to create the groovy style.
The researchers also noted that the remains were all found in places that are thought to support trading, and those with filed teeth appear to be adult men.
This could mean the bizarre filing habit used as a sign of identification for a closed group of merchants – so basically a club badge – but say that more research is needed to look at Viking expressions of identification and their social impacts.
The authors wrote: ‘We [suggest] that the custom of tooth filing might have been linked to trading activities of larger groups of professional merchants.
‘According to this theory, they might have functioned as a rite of initiation and sign of identification for a closed group of merchants, as some kind of precursor to the later guilds.’
Individuals who were found in the Gotland cemetery were all found in one spot, many of them were faced down, suggesting that the area was a burial place for non-local individuals who stayed in the town.
However, even though the tooth filing could be an identifying feature of Gotland merchants, it was not limited to one location.
The researchers found a difference in the number of teeth filed and the number of lines per tooth, suggesting tooth filing could have had different purposes in different parts of Viking Age Sweden and Denmark.
‘The society of Viking Age Gotland utilised the custom of tooth filings as an internal sign system in their social communication,’ the researchers said.
‘As a conscious and actively chosen embodiment of adults, predominantly male, we have argued that tooth filings were primarily intended for endogenous interpersonal communication – [so] members of a certain social group could identify each other.’
Body modification has been uncovered throughout Scandinavia, including those not associated with cultures in the region, such as three women in Gotland found to have elongated skulls.
The research was published in the journal Current Swedish Archaeology.