Viking skulls inspected with CT scans expose critical morbidity

The skulls of Viking-era folks have been tested with trendy computed tomography, within the seek for infections, inflammations and different sicknesses. Credit score: Carolina Bertilsson

Sweden’s Viking Age inhabitants seems to have suffered from critical oral and maxillofacial illness, sinus and ear infections, osteoarthritis, and a lot more. That is proven in a learn about from the College of Gothenburg by which Viking skulls have been tested the usage of trendy X-ray ways.

A few 12 months in the past, researchers printed a document according to the exam of numerous tooth from the Viking Age inhabitants of Varnhem within the Swedish province of Västergötland. Varnhem is understood for its 1000’s of historical graves and excavations of well-preserved skeletons.
Now, odontologists on the College of Gothenburg have taken this analysis additional, having a look at now not handiest tooth but additionally complete skulls, by way of the usage of trendy computed tomography, sometimes called CT scans.
Detailed symbol research
The consequences, introduced in BDJ Open, counsel that the 15 folks whose skulls have been tested suffered from a wide vary of sicknesses. The CT scans display pathological bone growths within the skull and jawbone, revealing infections and different stipulations.
A number of folks confirmed indicators of getting suffered from sinus or ear infections that left lines within the adjoining bone buildings. Indicators of osteoarthritis and more than a few dental sicknesses have been additionally discovered. The entire skulls got here from adults who died between 20 and 60 years of age.
The learn about lead, Carolina Bertilsson, is an assistant researcher on the College of Gothenburg and a dentist inside of Sweden’s Public Dental Provider. The learn about was once carried out with experts in dental radiology on the College of Gothenburg and an archaeologist from Västergötlands museum.
In combination, they carried out the examinations and analyzed the pictures. CT scans supply three-d pictures that permit researchers to check intimately the more than a few sorts of skeletal harm, layer by way of layer, within the other portions of the cranium.

Larger figuring out
“There was once a lot to have a look at. We discovered many indicators of illness in those folks. Precisely why we do not know. Whilst we will be able to’t learn about the wear and tear within the comfortable tissue as a result of it is now not there, we will be able to see the lines left within the skeletal buildings,” says Bertilsson.
“The result of the learn about supply a better figuring out of those folks’s well being and well-being. We all know what it is love to have ache someplace, you’ll be able to get fairly determined for lend a hand. However again then, they did not have the scientific and dental care we do, or the type of ache reduction—and antibiotics—we have now. In the event you evolved an an infection, it would stick round for a very long time.”
The learn about is described as a pilot learn about. One vital facet was once to check CT as a technique for long run and extra intensive research.
“Very lots of nowadays’s archaeological strategies are invasive, with the want to take away bone or different tissue for research. This fashion, we will be able to stay the stays utterly intact but nonetheless extract an excessive amount of data,” says Bertilsson.

Additional information:
Carolina Bertilsson et al, Findings from computed tomography examinations of Viking age skulls, BDJ Open (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41405-025-00309-9

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