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/* Discussion */
* Iceland. 81 spearheads have been found dating from the Viking Age. They have been found in 56 graves and 22 spearheads have been registered as stray finds. 40 spearheads belong to type K, 3 to type G, 2 to type H, 3 to type I and 1 to type E. The remainder are probably of local manufacture and do not sit easily within Petersen’s typology.[ANDROSHCHUK and TRAUSTADOTTIR 2004]
===== Discussion =====
If one ignores Oakeshott’s [Oakeshott OAKESHOTT 1960] rather short and glib analysis of spears in his seminal work ‘The Archaeology of Weapons’ then you quickly realise that spears follow fashion changes by time and region in much the same way as swords. Although not as glamorous as the sword, the spear was in every sense the definitive weapon of the Viking Age and used as the primary weapon of combat by almost every warrior. Decorated spearheads inlaid with precious metals prove that in the Viking Age spears were not seen as the poor man’s choice and one has only to look at the representations of warriors from the illuminated manuscripts of the era to quickly come to the conclusion that the use of the spear was ubiquitous. Many of the Anglo-Saxon phrases used to describe both battle and warrior help to underline the importance of the spear.<br>
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'''The Typologies'''<br>
Petersen created the first and still the most used typology of spearheads for the Viking Age in 1919 [Petersen 1919]. His typology is based on finds from Norway and includes some types that are rare or nonexistent in Britain. It must be remembered that Petersen was working on dates derived from associated items found along with his spear-heads in Norwegian pagan burials and that he often commented on the difficulty of precisely dating a specific burial find. <br>
Thålin working on Swedish finds radically simplified Pertersen’s typology into 3 groups based on the method of manufacture. Thålin’s groups are refered to in Graham-Campbell [GrahamGRAHAM-Campbell CAMPBELL 1980: P.67, P.72] and explained in Fuglesang [FUGLESANG 1980: P.137].<br>
Swanton [SWANTON 1973] presents us with an in depth analysis of spearheads found in pagan Saxon graves in England. Unfortunately this only takes us up to around the time of the Christian conversion, about 700AD. After this our burial record in England disappears with the Christian’s practice of burying their dead with no grave goods.
Solberg re-evaluated Petersen’s work as his 1985 Phd thesis, again working from Norwegian finds. Solberg’s work is discussed in Halpin [HALPIN 2008].<br>
Two settlements from Europe can be used to help corroborate Petersen’s typological dating, Iceland and the town of Birka in Sweden. Both have clear datable horizons that help us to place spearheads into clearly dated periods.
Iceland was probably settled c.874AD and out of the 81 spearheads dated to the Viking Age from Iceland only one falls into Thalin’s group 1. All of the others are from his groups 2 and 3 (K x40, G x3, H x2, I x2, E x1, Unclassified x33) [Androshchuk ANDROSHCHUK and Traustadóttir TRAUSTADOTTIR 2004: P.6]. <br>
The settlement at Birka came to an end around c.960AD. No spearheads of K/M or M types were found there, which would help confirm a late dating for these sometimes decorated spearheads. [FUGLESANG 1980: P.33] <br>
Both of these settlement horizons help confirm Petersen’s original typological dating.<br>
