Archaeologists from an international research team, led by academics at Lund University, Sweden, have uncovered Viking-era trade deals with the Indigenous People of the Arctic.

The team set out to understand the origins of ivory products sold and collected in Europe during Medieval times. Whilst ivory is largely banned in the twenty-first century, due to the cruelty associated with the ivory trade, in Medieval Europe it was a luxury product. The rich and elite people in Medieval society – as in many societies thereafter – would proudly collect and display expensive ivory items.

While we usually associate ivory with elephant tusks, there are other sources of the material. As the researchers discovered, many of the European ivory products were actually obtained from walrus tusks.

With this knowledge in mind, the researchers were able to extract DNA from the ivory and use genetic fingerprinting techniques to determine where exactly the walruses who were killed for their tusks had once lived. The findings determined that the walrus tusks had been obtained from the Arctic.

In a statement from Lund University, Professor of Archaeology Peter Jordan explained their shock when uncovering this geographical data:

“What really surprised us was that much of the walrus ivory exported back to Europe was originating in very remote hunting grounds located deep into the High Arctic. Previously, it has always been assumed that the Norse simply hunted walrus close to their main settlements in southwest Greenland.”

With the Vikings known ivory traders, this led the researchers to a further line of inquiry. The next step in their project was determining exactly how and where they obtained the Arctic walrus ivory.

This was most curious, since the team’s prior knowledge of the Vikings didn’t support the idea of them venturing deep into the arctic and killing walruses.

To address this uncertainty, doctoral researcher Greer Jarrett set sail on traditional Norwegian boats, following reconstructed Viking trade and shipping routes.

Jarrett’s oceanic exploration shed light on the conditions faced by Norse sailors and traders, particularly the harshness of the task at hand. In the statement, Jarrett explains the very specific conditions in which the Vikings were able to trade and hunt walruses:

“Walrus hunters probably departed from the Norse settlements as soon as the sea ice retreated. Those aiming for the far north had a very tight seasonal window within which to travel up the coast, hunt walrus, process and store the hides and ivory onboard their vessels, and return home before the seas froze again.”

Though the Vikings didn’t completely rely on Indigenous Arctic peoples for the supply of walruses, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the Norse people frequently encountered the Arctic locals on their voyages. In their study, published in Science Advances, the researchers note North Water Polyna as a key site for communication between the two groups.

Though evidence of friendship between the Europeans and the Arctic Indigenous has not yet been discovered, what is certain is a kind of harmony between them that enabled the Vikings to collect and trade walrus ivory for many generations.

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