Marianne Moen

• Raffield, Ben; Bønding, Sophie; Cooijmans, Christian; Moen, Marianne & Taggart, Declan (2025). Warrior institutions and martial networks in Viking-Age Scandinavia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. ISSN 0278-4165. 78. doi: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101661. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne & Østmo, Mari Arentz (2025). Introducing Telling different stories: Combining perspectives on the Viking Age. Viking - Norsk arkeologisk årbok. ISSN 0332-608X. 3, p. 7–12. doi: 10.5617/vikingsv.12194. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In 2021, the Centre for Viking-Age studies at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo arranged their fifth international conference, under the title The Viking Age as a Foreign Place. Inviting contributions to probe the unfamiliar, exotic and strange in the Viking Age rather than focusing on similarities and trends, the conference included a wide range of papers under three main headings: Viking Age Narratives, Speaking Objects and Human- Environmental interactions. Though these sessions brought different perspectives to the fore, they all spoke to the same core topic, namely the Viking Age as varied through the different narratives told in and about it. The following volume brings together papers that all link into this central topic, be that through examining the objectives hidden in saga storytelling (Griffiths), the power of modern stories about the past (Vohra, Gjerpe), the multiplicity of motivations and stories contained in a monument built through collective action, such as the Oseberg grave (Pedersen), or how human-animal cooperation comes into view in both textual sources and zooarchaeological data from Viking Age Iceland (Evans-Tang & Milek), to name but a few examples.

• Moen, Marianne & Pedersen, Unn (2025). Framing gender in archaeology: Snapshots from a vast and varied field. In Moen, Marianne & Pedersen, Unn (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology. Routledge. ISSN 9781032190648. p. 3–11. doi: 10.4324/9781003257530-2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  We have chosen to introduce this handbook through a few different avenues, none of which follow a typical introduction template. We believe this is fitting and in line with the book to follow, which takes a slightly different path from an orthodox handbook of reviews and chronological overviews. Thus, inspired by Jane Eva Baxter’s chapter (this volume) that foregrounds an attitude of hope and gratitude, we first wish to offer our sincere thanks to our contributors, who together have both shaped our ambition to produce the book by their inspiring scholarship as well as produced the resulting pages. From here, we frame the background and influences that shaped the format of the book, before introducing the volume, with the aim of guiding readers into the text. Overall, the volume can both be read as a reference work in which one can jump into specific topics and equally it can be read as an overview (albeit a partial one) of a large, diverse, and flourishing field of study.

• Pedersen, Unn & Moen, Marianne (2025). Children in Viking-age Worlds: Attempts at Narrating Past Lives. Childhood in the Past. ISSN 1758-5716. p. 13–13. doi: 10.1080/17585716.2025.2585707. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Scandinavian Viking Age maintains an enduring popularity, in popular culture and academic enquiry. It has also retained a tendency to showcase rather limited protagonists: adult male actors typically get the main share of attention. Children often become accessories in stories about adults, or adults-in-training. We challenge this one-sided and narrow story, first by accentuating existing research on Viking-age children, then by trying to fill the gaps by imagining how the world might have looked to children. Acknowledging that social divides created widely different childhood experiences we look to the writing of children’s literature for ways of seeing the world through the eyes of children. The main objective is to encourage attempts to populate the Viking world with more diverse social agents through storytelling and narration, accepting that children formed and acted in the world around them as agents and not just furniture in the lives of adults.

• Pedersen, Unn; Moen, Marianne & Skogstrand, Lisbeth (2025). Gendering the Nordic Past. Dialogues Between Perspectives. In Pedersen, Unn; Moen, Marianne & Skogstrand, Lisbeth (Ed.), Gendering the Nordic Past : Dialogues between Perspectives. Brepols. ISSN 9782503608877. p. 11–21. doi: 10.1484/M.WOP-EB.5.144351. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2025). Bodies past and present The political side of embodied approaches to Viking Age lives. In Moen, Marianne & Pedersen, Unn (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology. Routledge. ISSN 9781032190648. doi: 10.4324/9781003257530. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2025). Nordic Gender Ideals and the Viking Age: An Unresolved Legacy. In Ashton, Jenna C. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Heritage and Gender. Routledge. ISSN 9781003258193. doi: 10.4324/9781003258193-36. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2025). The Spaces in between: Exploring the Interpretative Potential of Ungendered Graves. In Pedersen, Unn; Moen, Marianne & Skogstrand, Lisbeth (Ed.), Gendering the Nordic Past : Dialogues between Perspectives. Brepols. ISSN 9782503608877. p. 159–169. doi: 10.1484/M.WOP-EB.5.144361. Full text in Research Archive
• Walsh, Matthew; Moen, Marianne; O`Neill, Sean; Gullbekk, Svein Harald & Willerslev, Rane (2024). Introduction: In the darkest of days: Tracing human sacrifice through Scandinavian prehistory. In Walsh, Matthew; O'Neill, Sean & Sørensen, Lasse (Ed.), In the Darkest of Days: Exploring Human Sacrifice and Value in Southern Scandinavian Prehistory. Oxbow Books. ISSN 9781789258592. Full text in Research Archive
• Walsh, Matthew; Pantmann, Pernille & Moen, Marianne (2024). Thrown stone for flesh and bone? ‘White’ stones in sacrificial context in Iron Age Scandinavia. In Walsh, Matthew; O'Neill, Sean & Sørensen, Lasse (Ed.), In the Darkest of Days: Exploring Human Sacrifice and Value in Southern Scandinavian Prehistory. Oxbow Books. ISSN 9781789258592. Full text in Research Archive
• Gullbekk, Svein Harald; Walsh, Matthew & Moen, Marianne (2024). Standardization of Ritual Offerings: The Eucharist, Human Sacrifice and Monetization. In Engh, Line Cecilie; Gullbekk, Svein Harald & Orning, Hans Jacob (Ed.), Standardization in the Middle Ages. Vol. 1: The North. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110773712. p. 201–228. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2023). In Quest of Glory: Gendered Expectations and Narratives of Past Behaviour. In Price, Neil & Eriksen, Marianne Hem (Ed.), Vikings in the Mediterranean: proceedings of an international Conference Co-Organized by the Norwegian, swedish and Danish institutes at Athens. Norwegian Institute at Athens. ISSN 9786188536043. p. 207–222. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2023). Women and Sacrifice: Roles and Connections. In Gardela, Leszek; Bønding, Sophie & Pentz, Peter (Ed.), The Norse sorceress : Mind and materiality in the Viking world. Oxbow Books. ISSN 9781789259537. p. 161–170. Full text in Research Archive
• Amundsen, Marie D. & Moen, Marianne (2023). Giving mixed signals. On gendered readings of Late Iron Age figurines. Primitive tider. ISSN 1501-0430. Spesialutgave, p. 97–106. doi: 10.5617/pt.10689. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne; Price, Neil S. & Pedersen, Unn (2022). Archaeological knowledge production: Reading mortuary reconstructions. Antiquity. ISSN 0003-598X. 97(391), p. 231–240. doi: 10.15184/aqy.2022.166. Full text in Research Archive
• Gullbekk, Svein Harald; Walsh, Matthew & Moen, Marianne (2022). Cash on legs – Cattle as currency and pecunial sacrificials. In Ween, Gro Birgit & Lundblad, Michael (Ed.), Control: Attempting to Tame the World. Pax Forlag. ISSN 9788253043609. p. 212–218. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne & Walsh, Matthew (2022). Under the Skin: Norwegian Bog Skeletons and Perceptions of Personhood, Value, and Sacrifice. European Journal of Archaeology. ISSN 1461-9571. p. 1–21. doi: 10.1017/eaa.2021.65. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The authors set a relatively small and little-known corpus of human remains recovered from Iron Age wetland contexts in Norway in a wider theoretical framework of sacrifice and personhood. The material studied, fragmentary skeletal remains in wetland contexts, juxtaposed with the better-known bog body tradition of northern Europe, offers a base from which to query constructions and perceptions of personhood. Situating the discussion in a contextual framework and relational underpinnings of ways of being, the authors examine whether or not the assumption that personhood rests in a human body can be implicitly inferred when confronted with ancient human remains, and what this may imply for interpretations of human bodies in votive settings.

• Moen, Marianne & Walsh, Matthew (2021). Agents of Death: Reassessing Social Agency and Gendered Narratives of Human Sacrifice in the Viking Age. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. ISSN 0959-7743. 31(4), p. 1–15. doi: 10.1017/S0959774321000111. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article seeks to approach the famous tenth-century account of the burial of a chieftain of the Rus, narrated by the Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan, in a new light. Placing focus on how gendered expectations have coloured the interpretation and subsequent archaeological use of this source, we argue that a new focus on the social agency of some of the central actors can open up alternative interpretations. Viewing the source in light of theories of human sacrifice in the Viking Age, we examine the promotion of culturally appropriate gendered roles, where women are often depicted as victims of male violence. In light of recent trends in theoretical approaches where gender is foregrounded, we perceive that a new focus on agency in such narratives can renew and rejuvenate important debates.

• Moen, Marianne (2021). No Man’s Land or Neutral Ground: Perceived Gendered Differences in Ideologies of War. Viking - Norsk arkeologisk årbok. ISSN 0332-608X. 84(1), p. 43–62. doi: 10.5617/viking.9049. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article approaches gender in the Viking Age as a fluid social category, to be understood through an intersectional lens alongside other cultural variables. Using material from the Vestfold region, the article argues that the perceived genders encountered in mortuary remains from the area display a significant amount of social similarities. It therefore proposes to explore the expression of social roles across, rather than within gendered lines. The approach challenges the traditional tendency of dividing gendered archaeological remains based on a few, select categories singled out from the grave goods. It suggests that a more open approach would avoid overlooking real and tangible levels of shared expressions between graves assigned different gender in many mortuary contexts. The article challenges the idea of a Viking Age instigated by male violence and the interlinked belief that women are naturally less inclined to violence and more disposed to be nurturing and caring. These concepts are examined as modern constructs and as such they are not applicable to the past without scrutiny. I argue that the idea of a Viking Age warriorideology, which leaves no room for women, is culturally ingrained and needs to be questioned in light of both archaeological material and written sources. By critically examining the ideas mentioned above, wider discussions can be created, where gender does not necessarily play a limiting role in the enactment of certain social ideologies. Hence, this article does not seek to detail the specifics of female involvement in war, but rather to explore the cultural contexts that have influenced perceptions of such participation.

• Moen, Marianne (2021). Mette Løvschal, Rasmus Birch Iversen and Mads Kähler Holst (eds.) 2019: De dræbte krigere i Alken Enge. Efterkrigsritualer i ældre jernalder. Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, Højbjerg. 289 p. ISBN: 978-87-93423-45-9. Primitive tider. ISSN 1501-0430. 23, p. 99–102. doi: 10.5617/pt.9265. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir. Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Journal of British Studies. ISSN 0021-9371. 61(1), p. 195–196. doi: 10.1017/jbr.2021.139. Full text in Research Archive
• Walsh, Matthew; Moen, Marianne; O'Neill, Sean; Gullbekk, Svein Harald & Willerslev, Rane (2020). Who’s Afraid of the S-word? Deviants’ Burials and Human Sacrifice. Norwegian Archaeological Review. ISSN 0029-3652. doi: 10.1080/00293652.2020.1850853. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2020). Familiarity breeds remembrance: on the reiterative power of cemeteries. World archaeology. ISSN 0043-8243. 52(1), p. 35–48. doi: 10.1080/00438243.2019.1736137. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Based on mortuary evidence from the Norwegian Viking Age (AD 750–1050), this article seeks to present an argument for cemeteries as key components of social memory and collective experience. Rather than focusing on cemeteries as arenas for ritual and funerary drama, it is proposed that cemeteries can also be seen as lived landscapes that are featured as landmarks in people’s everyday lives. This interpretation does not detract from cemeteries as potent ritual places, but instead recognizes that they can carry multiple levels of meaning. Aspects such as accessibility, opportunities for regular interaction with the sites, and cemeteries as active and regularly used components of a landscape will be addressed.

• Moen, Marianne (2020). Ideas of Continuity: Gender and the Illusion of the Viking Age as familiar. In Pedersen, Anne & Sindbæk, Søren M. (Ed.), Viking encounters. Proceedings of the Eighteen Viking Congress. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788771842654. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2020). Introducing Vikings Across Boundaries. In Aannestad, Hanne Lovise; Pedersen, Unn; Moen, Marianne; Naumann, Elise & Berg, Heidi Lund (Ed.), Vikings Across Boundaries Viking-Age Transformations – Volume II. Routledge. ISSN 9780367364526. doi: 10.4324/9780429346194. Full text in Research Archive
• Lund, Julie & Moen, Marianne (2019). Hunting Identities: Intersectional Perspectives on Viking Age Mortuary Expressions. Fennoscandia Archaeologica. ISSN 0781-7126. XXXVI, p. 142–155. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2019). Gender and archaeology: Where are we now? Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress. ISSN 1555-8622. 15(2), p. 206–226. doi: 10.1007/s11759-019-09371-w. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2015). Kommunikasjonslandskapet i Viken. In Pedersen, Anne & Sindbæk, Søren Michael (Ed.), Et fælles hav - Skagerrak og Kattegat i vikingetiden. Seminar på Nationalmuseet, København, 19.-20. september 2012. Nationalmuseet. ISSN 9788776023249. p. 72–86. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2014). Women in the Landscape. In Coleman, Nancy L. & Løkka, Nanna (Ed.), Kvinner i vikingtid : Vikingatidens kvinnor. Scandinavian Academic Press. ISSN 9788230401293. p. 121–148. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

• Østmo, Mari Arentz; Kristoffersen, Astrid Kristine Tvedte & Moen, Marianne (2025). Vol. 3 (2025): Viking Special Volume 3 – Telling different stories: Combining perspectives on the Viking Age | Viking Special Volumes. Norsk Arkeologisk Selskap. doi: https:/journals.uio.no/vikingspecialvolumes/issue/view/964. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne & Pedersen, Unn (2025). The Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology. Routledge. ISBN 9781032190648. 466 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Pedersen, Unn; Moen, Marianne & Skogstrand, Lisbeth (2025). Gendering the Nordic Past : Dialogues between Perspectives. Brepols. ISBN 9782503608877. 261 p. doi: 10.1484/M.WOP-EB.5.135552. Full text in Research Archive
• Walsh, Matthew; O'Neill, Sean; Moen, Marianne & Gullbekk, Svein Harald (2023). Human Sacrifice and Value: Revisiting the Limits of Sacred Violence from an Anthropological and Archaeological Perspective. Routledge. ISBN 9781032134864. 423 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Aannestad, Hanne Lovise; Pedersen, Unn; Moen, Marianne; Naumann, Elise & Berg, Heidi Lund (2020). Vikings Across Boundaries Viking-Age Transformations – Volume II. Routledge. ISBN 9780367364526. 328 p. doi: 10.4324/9780429346194. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

• Moen, Marianne (2025). Viking death, gender and human sacrifice, an ArcheoDeath interview. [Internet]. YouTube. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2022). Need we still talk about suttee in the Viking Age? Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2022). A new wave? Gendering the Nordic Past in perspective. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2022). The Ungendered Vikings? How Gender Identities in the Viking Age Reaffirm Ideals of Binary Gender. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2022). Workshop: Decolonising Sacrifice. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Narratives of human sacrifice are fraught with colonial heritage in multiple ways, from the ways in which accusations of human sacrifice and cannibalism was used as a legitimating tool by colonialist powers to the Eurocentric frameworks of knowledge production which upholds traditional assumed meanings of acts interpreted as sacrifice. The workshop seeks to approach this complex topic from varied viewpoints and materials, to create an environment for open discussion about how we can decolonise the study of multifaceted forms of sanctioned violence and expressions thereof. We will discuss the influence of political and strategic desires to Other those to whom such practices were ascribed, and the residual effects of colonialist frameworks on current knowledge, along with other angles and questions.

• Moen, Marianne (2021). Was there such a thing as a female Viking warrior? ScienceNordic.com. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Narratives of Sacrifice in and about the Viking Age. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Innslag om menneskeoffer på Verdibørsen (lederoffer). [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Intervjuet på podcasten Gone Medieval med Cat Jarman om offer i Vikingtid. [Radio]. Gone Medieval. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Innslag om menneskeoffer på Verdibørsen (offer i moderne tid). [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Myrtveit, Aase Cathrine & Moen, Marianne (2021). Innslag om menneskeoffring på Verdibørsen (Inkaoffer). [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Body parts in the bog: perceptions of personhood, value and sacrifice. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Innslag om menneskeofring på Verdibørsen (korsfestelsen). [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Innslag om menneskeofring på Verdibørsen (Kristningen og offer). [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2021). Innslag om menneskeoffer på Verdibørsen (Vikingene og offerskikk). [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Myrtveit, Aase Cathrine & Moen, Marianne (2021). Innslag på Verdibørsen om menneskeoffer (Tema: Myrlik). [Radio]. P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2020). «Menneske»-ofring: et spørsmål om definisjoner. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2020). Putting them in their place: On gendered behaviour, roles and assumptions thereon in Viking Age scholarship. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2019). Across gendered divides. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2019). Gendered differences, or social similarities? Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2018). Gendered differences, or social similarities? Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2018). Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox. [TV]. Travel Channel. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2018). Gendering the Viking’s Mortuary Context. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2018). Vikingtidens kvinner og menn. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2018). But were they really people? Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2018). Challenging Gender. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2017). Beyond Binary: Gender Ideologies and realities in the Norwegian Viking Age. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2017). The Vikings - our ancestors: The role of the Viking Age in legitimising modern gender ideology. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2017). The present in the past: why gender representations in archaeology matter. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2017). "Our customs are not yours": understanding Viking Age burial monuments as statements of otherness. Full text in Research Archive
• Austvoll, Knut Ivar & Moen, Marianne (2016). Erfaring med å skrive PhD-prosjekt. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2016). Gender and Burial. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2016). Kjønn og landskap: en undersøkelse av kjønnsroller med utgangspunkt i vikingtidens graver. Full text in Research Archive
• Moen, Marianne (2019). Challenging Gender - a reconsideration of gender in the Viking Age using the mortuary landscape. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The thesis titled Challenging Gender: a reconsideration of gender in the Viking Age using the mortuary landscape aims to test the generally accepted belief that gender in the Viking Age was a strictly observed segregation between male and female binary roles and ideologies. Using selected mortuary evidence from the Norwegian county of Vestfold, the thesis seeks to examine the potential support in the material record for a more fluid and contextual understanding of gender. The questions asked include whether or not the burial evidence examined supports a model of gender as binary and absolute and whether it supports a social model where men were more socially prominent than women. Founded in feminist theory which seeks to critically examine knowledge production and accepted dogmas, the thesis uses two different approaches in its analysis: a multivariate analysis of the internal aspects of the burials followed by a landscape analysis of the burial’s external aspects and placements in the landscape. The results from the analysis are further set in context with an overview of scholarship on gender in the Viking Age, with written sources and with comparative archaeological material. Overall, the thesis concludes there is ample support for a theory in which gender is perceived as fluid and contextual, and therefore different from the current western two-sex model. It must be noted that the conclusions drawn in the thesis are from elite material, and can thus be argued to relate to one section of society only. The adherence to familiar models when seeking to understand gender in the past which is prevalent within archaeology is called into question, not least through the perceived inevitability and naturalization which this can lend to modern gender roles. It is argued the thesis provides grounds to question the way in which we assign gender roles in the Viking Age, but also that the way in which archaeology in general perceives gender in the past needs a re-evaluation.

• Moen, Marianne (2010). The gendered landscape : a discussion on gender, status and power expressed in the Viking Age mortuary landscape. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Den grunnleggende ideen bak denne oppgaven er å undersøke forholdet mellom landskap, grav og kjønn i vikingtidens graver. Målet var å undersøke om denne tilnærmingen kunne bidra til en dypere forståelse av vikingtidens kjønnsrelasjoner. Oppgaven fokuserte på Vestfold fylke, nærmere beskrevet på to berømte arkeologiske lokaliteter: Oseberg graven, og gravene på Kaupang. Det ble lagt vekt på aspekter som inkluderer gravers posisjon i landskapet, relative forhold til andre lignende monumenter, og andre markører i landskapet. Videre ble gravenes innhold diskutert, og også forskjeller i kjønnede graver. Oppgaven inneholder også diskusjoner omkring hva som er kjent om vikingtidens kjønnsmønster, og hvordan dette kan knyttes til empirien som er framlagt i denne oppgaven. Min konklusjon, basert på det materialet jeg har arbeidet med, er at temaet kjønn og landskap er et fruktbart område for videre undersøkelser som ønsker å oppnå en dypere forståelse av vikingenes kjønnsrelasjoner og ideologier. Ut i fra det materialet jeg har jobbet med, har jeg ikke kunnet trekke tydelige forskjeller mellom manns og kvinne graver, noe som kan indikere ett mindre kjønnssegregert samfunn enn det som ofte er hentydet.

View all works in NVA