Changes

If one ignores Oakeshott’s [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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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 [GRAHAM-CAMPBELL 1980: P.67, P.72] and explained in Fuglesang [FUGLESANG 1980: P.137].<br>

Both of these settlement horizons help confirm Petersen’s original typological dating.<br>

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Most spearhead finds dated from 800AD to 1100AD in Britain are single discoveries often from rivers and are dated by their form against Petersen’s typology. <br>

We do however have a few graves in Scotland, the Isle of Man and northern England. Unfortunately most of these were excavated in the 19th Century with only basic notes about the burials being recorded. To make things even worse many of the spearheads from this era have ended up in private collections or have become ‘lost’. Haakon Shetelig [SHETELIG 1940] has helped us here by compiling a series of books of Viking Age finds from England and Scotland. These books list all of the known finds up to 1940 including some that are now lost.<br>

Wheeler used the spear socket to determine the origin of the spearhead. He classed all spears with a split ‘open’ socket as being English in manufacture and those with overlapped ‘closed’ socket as Scandinavian [WHEELER 1935: p.170]. This convention has continued in use to the present day.

== Spearhead styles ==

Leaf shaped heads, Petersen types A(B), C(D1) and E, seem to go out of fashion by 950AD [PETERSEN 1919]. Other people have suggested that a few leaf shaped heads may have continued throughout the period [*Citation Needed].

== Decorated spearheads ==

1025 – 1100AD

== Spear shafts ==