You might have read about that Viking warrior found in a grave in Birka, Sweden, who was a woman according to DNA tests. The original article, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is open-access, so you can go read the real deal for yourself. It's titled "A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics" - a rather spectacular title.

There are always issues with gender stuff and archaeology. One of them is the fact that yes, for a long time, if someone was buried with a spindle and beads, it was obviously a woman, and if someone had weapons, it was obviously a man. While this is probably the truth in most graves, in some cases, later anthropological study has shown that there is the occasional exception to this archaeologist's "rule", and has led both archaeologists and anthropologists to the firm conviction that it would be a good thing to take in-depth anthropological data for every skeleton found, and if possible, maybe even DNA checks, instead of just assuming things. That's a pipe dream, though, with the scarcity of both funding and personnel in these disciplines, so we'll have to keep on going as best as possible and be delighted about the occasional opportunity to go deeper.

So, what about the Viking warrior woman? I'm not completely convinced that the person buried in this grave was "a powerful military leader". For that, I'd personally expect definite traces of hard military labour, and possibly also evidence for some healed wounds from battle. We may have an unusual woman there, and possibly also one who fought - but it might also be a woman buried with weapons out of some honorary reason. We actually don't know. History on a whole, after all, was not cut-and-dried at all, but just as colourful and as varied and capricious as human beings are.

And as usual when there's an interesting find, there is discussion, by people who offer very interesting thoughts. One of them is Martin Rundkvist who writes in Aardvarcheology. There's also a critical response to the original article written by Judith Jesch, which you can read on her blog.

It remains... interesting.