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Vikingology Podcast · The Art and Science of the Viking Age

Forgotten Vikings

·1 hr 25 min·3 clips
The Viking Age didn't start in 793—that's just when we started noticing them.
The hosts start by explaining how they first met Alex Harvey at a small Viking enthusiast group. He comes to the show as an archaeologist from Yorkshire. He is also a collections manager for Pockington District Heritage Trust. That background keeps the conversation grounded. The episode centers on Forgotten Vikings, while also pointing ahead to Little Kingdoms. The talk keeps circling back to what people even mean by the Viking Age. That question is treated as a real historical problem rather than a settled label. CJ Adrian and Terry Barnes press on the idea of a beginning. They also press on the idea of an ending. Harvey responds by showing why those boundaries are slippery. He treats ambiguity as part of the work, not a failure of it. The hosts and guest spend time on how different readers can work from the same sources and still reach different conclusions. Harvey says each historian or archaeologist brings a distinct lens to the material. The episode makes room for that without pretending the disagreement disappears. It moves from broad period questions into the more ordinary labor of archaeology and interpretation. There is a clear sense that objects, collections, and fieldwork matter as much as big labels. The exchange has the feel of a lively conversation that still wants to be thoughtful. It does not stay solemn for long. One detour lands on Breaking Bad. That kind of turn keeps the conversation human and a little unruly. By the end, the episode settles into a bigger point about how incomplete evidence gets turned into historical meaning. The real subject is not only the Viking Age itself, but the argument over how to read it.

As heard by us

A patient, open-ended discussion of where the Viking Age begins and why the answer remains uncertain.

CJ Adrian and Terry Barnes spend the episode on a question that seems simple only at first: where the Viking Age begins, and where it ends. With archaeologist Alex Harvey in the room, the discussion moves through archaeology, collections work, and the idea that the same evidence…

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