In the service of man? : a study of the relationship between humans and animal sacrifices in graves from late Iron Age

By examine cremated remains from graves dated to late Iron Age I wanted to find out what sorts of animals were placed in the graves. But also to see if the animal sacrifices had any connection to the Old Norse religion. The osteological material that were analysed were from both cremated humans and animals and had been dated to Viking Age. The material is from burial ground 59 at Laxare, Boge parish on Gotland. In addition to the human remains, the material contains bones from horse, cattle, sheep/goat, pig, dog, cat, bear, birds and fish. The combination between the species seems to be common all over Scandinavia during the late Iron Age. Except from analysing the material from Laxare I also studied litterature written by other scientist on the subject of animals in Old Norse religion. This was made to understand as much as possible about the religion and how people looked upon animals before Christianity. It seemed that animals were very important in religion during the Viking Age in this area on Gotland. Some of the species that were sacrifices in the graves had big importance in peoples daily life but also in myths. The world needed humans, animals and gods to survive and everything were depending on the harmony between them. The horse was clearly a religious animal, and it shows both in the archaeological material and in the written stories from this time. Even cattle, goat and pig are other animals that describe to be important for the religion. The dog seems to be important in the archaeological material but is not mentioned very much in the written myths. It is rather clear that the animal sacrificed in graves from the late Iron Age in Sweden is not only for food in the afterlife but also has a very important meaning for the religion and peoples understanding about Cosmos