What specifically characterizes an equestrian grave and what equipment do the equestrian graves from the Vendel period and early Viking Age contain? This study deals with the differences and contrasts that exist in horse equipment between Vendel period and early Viking Age times in Vendel and Valsgärde and how the horse equipment changes over time. The study deals with what are called equestrian graves and this is also where the differences in the grave material are the biggest. The contrasts that have been read shows a change in the grave material between the Vendel period and Viking Age, it goes from being an equestrian and warrior ideal where horse and riding have been a large part of the social structure with among other things like stirrups, spurs, and saddles to turn into what could be likened to a development of agriculture and the need for horses as draft and working animals. The latter grave material contains equipment such as towhooks, “rangles” and driving equipment. This material also contains other points of departure that are relevant to this thesis, including the role of the horse in human history, looting of boat graves and its disturbed context, and how it has affected the boat graves of this study and the deposition of horse equipment. The horse was of great importance in the lives of the living and in the land of the dead, but it also received both its riding equipment and working equipment in order to continue to have a centered role, even in the afterlife.

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Horses have played a large part in many cultures across the world, the Scandinavian Viking Age included. They are frequently found in graves and sacrificial sites, meant to denote, or represent the status and social caste of the humans they served. More and more studies and research projects are now taking place where the horses are allowed to take center stage, but these rarely touch on the subject of the horse’s agency. Were the abilities of the horses themselves what determined whether they be brutally sacrificed, or whether they keep serving the living? This is an area of study which hopes to introduce new perspectives into a complicated, lengthy debate over horses in sacrificial contexts, and shift focus away from the anthropocentric perspective that has dominated the subject. This study will discuss the archaeological and osteological finds in Scandinavia through a social zooarchaeological perspective, in an effort to offer a different perspective and to give agency to one animal that helped to shape our world.