Photogrammetry and Reflective Transformational Imaging models of traumatic injuries from Iron and Viking-Age Scandinavia: A BODY-POLITICS Dataset

The dataset consists of photogrammetric models and Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) datafiles of the skeletal remains of four individuals, dating to the Pre-Roman Iron Age (500-0 BCE) and the Viking Age (750-1050 CE) respectively. The human remains were recorded between September 2023 and June 2024 as part of the ERC Starting Grant BODY-POLITICS.

The key objective was to document and empirically interrogate traumatic injuries and indications of interpersonal violence among a dataset of individuals who did not receive typical inhumation or cremation burial rites, but instead were deposited as disarticulated single elements, postcranial bodies or near-complete skeletons across settlement contexts from Iron and Viking-Age Scandinavia. Photogrammetric and/or RTI models were generated for four selected individuals with evidence of traumatic injury(-ies), in these specific cases all interpreted as related to interpersonal violence [1].

The data consist of three photogrammetric models and seven RTI files, stored in the EU Open Research Repository on the open-access repository Zenodo. The data are among exceptionally few such digital models of skeletal remains from Iron and Viking-Age Scandinavia [e.g. 2]. The aim of this paper is thus to describe the generation of the digital imaging datasets; discuss the potential of these methods for aiding trauma documentation, as well as to outline data reuse.

The following article is linked with the dataset:

Eriksen, MH, V. Tamorri, V. Louka, E. Tollefsen, K. Kay, J. Appleby. Broken bodies in Domestic Spaces: Direct and Structural Violence in an Atypical Mortuary Dataset from Iron and Viking Age Scandinavia. J Archaeol Method Theory 34, 26 (2027). Published online 2026: 1–39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09817-w.