Haircare in the Viking Age

A Norse comb from the Middle Ages unearthed in southern Greenland. The comb was found in a trash pile, what the archeologists call a midden, not far above the sea and just outside the remains of a longhouse. From the sit of the house and the site of the midden we know it was an easy toss: you could practically step outside and hurl food scraps, bits of wood, leather or whatever onto the pile. And so the ancient homesteaders did: Ashes from the hearth, bones from meals of seal, a tiny wooden horse with braids carved into its mane. And this curved comb, held together with rivets that still shine in the right light. The people who lived beside the midden more than 500 years ago, along the edge of fjord in southern Greenland, are generally called Norse, though they are often called Vikings, too. What we know is that they arrived in Greenland around the first millennium and survived up into the 15th century. Then they vanished, somewhat abruptly, and more or less without a trace. This is…