Diffusionism and Viking Culture - A Look at Ibn Fadlan's Account

Hey, this is Nicole, and I’m sad to announce that this is our final blog post, everyone. It’s been a good run. To end the semester, I actually want to go back to the very beginning, to Ibn Fadlan’s piece, where we talked about Vikings as explorers and traders. There’s this really cool anthropological theory I want to introduce today to help us examine Viking culture and see how it was capable of changing so rapidly. Last time, we talked about syncretism regarding Iceland’s abrupt conversion to Christianity, and today’s topic kind of fits in with that. You’ll see how pretty soon.

So, as I did in my first blog post, I’ll introduce our scholar first. Alfred Kroeber (1876 – 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist who studied under Franz Boas (also known as Papa Boas, as he’s widely considered to be the founder of American anthropology as we know it). He was involved in quite a few works, but the theory I’d like to look at today is called cultural diffusion. This is, essentially, the idea that cultures shape and bleed into each other. Kroeber studied this through archaeological means, looking largely at the items within cultural groups that were passed between, and influenced by, surrounding cultures.

Vikings, as we know, traveled and raided all over Europe. They weren’t even confined to one continent—they also reached North Africa, Russia, the Middle East, etc. Along their journeys, they traded and stole many cultural items from such places and brought them back home. This is the perfect example of cultural diffusion—the Vikings are undoubtedly affected by every culture they encountered in some way, shape, or form, and we can track this best with the material culture they introduced to their homes. But, also, Vikings shaped other cultures in their travels, too. We can see this clearly in Ibn Fadlan’s piece.

Ibn Fadlan was an Arab Muslim traveler who met and observed a group of Vikings on the Volga River. His written account of what he saw is famous as well as it is historic. Before Ibn Fadlan met this group, Vikings in general had established trade routes along this area and had been present for at least a century. This account was not written without bias. He clearly states that these Vikings are “the filthiest of God’s creatures” and “are like wandering asses.” This speaks to the differences in cultures—just as much as encounters such as these influenced both cultural groups, it also reified norms within each culture.

Through firsthand witness accounts like Ibn Fadlan’s, we can already see how Vikings are shaped by, and help shape, other cultures. Despite their filth, they brought their culture with them—Ibn Fadlan was even able to witness a ship burial—and intermingled with the people in these new lands. They brought things to trade with, and they took things back to their home countries.

As a last note, if we think about syncretism using this theory, it can be really useful here, too. Christianity didn’t spring up out of nowhere. It was adapted by Vikings and Icelanders from other cultures which were already practicing the religion. You could even say it diffused into Viking culture.

Anyway, it’s been fun. I hope to continue writing blog posts similar to this in the future—this was actually a great exercise for me. Learning and teaching about anthropology is one of my passions, after all!