Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas - Fringe 2023 Did the Vikings exist?

Take one top academic, some dangerous ideas, add one comedian and it’s the force of nature that is the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas (CODI).

Hosted by comedian Susan Morrison, and now in its eleventh year, CODI is sixty minutes of rapid-fire research from some of the finest minds in the country.

We can all picture a Viking. But the Vikings that archaeologists dig up look rather different. Those Vikings adopted fashions from wherever they settled, and even changed religions when needed. They traded and married as much as they raided and harried. Their ships carried men, women, children and even pets. And now, new scientific techniques show that many people buried in so-called Viking graves were not from Scandinavia at all.  Dr Adrian Maldonado (National Museum of Scotland) asks who are we calling Vikings anyway? And is it time to ditch the concept altogether?