Professor Davide Marco Zori, Baylor University

The Viking experience in the North Atlantic differs significantly from the popular image of violent raids and destruction that characterized the Viking Age in Britain and France. In Iceland, Scandinavian seafarers discovered and settled a vast uninhabited land, where they adapted to their environment and built a new society. This lecture examines the Viking Age in Iceland through the discoveries and excavations of the Mosfell Archaeological Project (MAP) in the Mosfell Valley of western Iceland. Dr. Zori’s decade-long research in the Mosfell Valley has led to discovery of an incredibly well-preserved Viking chieftain’s farmstead that includes a longhouse, a pagan cremation grave, a conversion era church, and a Christian graveyard. The lecture will present this work as well as the recent discovery of a Viking Age harbor that linked the valley’s chieftain and Iceland with the wider Viking World.

"Excavating a Viking Chieftain's Manor in Iceland", Main Lecture, November 11, 7:30pm in the Wilson Hall Theatre

"Vikings: Myths and Realities", earlier on the same day at 11:20am in Wilson Hall 168

AIA - North Alabama Society Lecture Series - Free and open to the public

*Masks Required*