Female warriors from the Viking Age is a subject that has been debated and interpreted in many different ways. The modern view on the binary gender roles is one of the reasons why it has been hard for archaeologists to interpret the female warrior graves. The graves are often interpreted in other ways then that the weapons in the graves would belong to the female individuals. Archaeologists rather explain the graves existence because of other reasons than that the female individuals would have been warriors. The issue of the study is whether the female warrior graves from the Viking Age differ from a female gender role, or if the warrior role possibly could be a part of a female gender? Also, why are there so few female warrior graves? The study will be based around three graves, Bj 581 from Birka in Sweden, Mound 50 from Heath Wood in England and T20248 from Nord-Trøndelag in Norway. The analysis and discussion are based on a gender perspective, new ideas will be added to the discussion based on age, gender roles, gender expression and social status. The results may indicate that female gender rolls might be changeable depending on the female individual’s social status, age and life stage.

The purpose of this thesis is to perform a gender study focusing on Viking Age weapon graves. A female weapon burial, a male weapon burial and a female burial are studied in this thesis. It is necessary first to discuss the meaning of a weapon burial. Thereafter the thesis will discuss if it is possible to find any differences in the gender interpretation of weapon burials belonging to men and females. The weapon graves will also be interpreted in relation to a female burial. The research history is primarily based on Conkey & Spector’s (1984) article regarding archaeological androcentrism. The result of the thesis states that a weapon burial must consist of at least one of following weapons: sword, shield, spear, axe, horse equipment or arrowheads. The results also state that the interpretation of a weapon burial depends on the sexual identity of the buried individual. It is easier to state that the buried individual is a warrior if the individual is assumed to be a male. It is also possible to see differences regarding male and female burials in general where the interpretation of rich female graves is questioned due to the absence of a man in the grave. The graves are still interpreted in traditional gender roles, where the gender roles are based on the grave goods.