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The Undercurrent of Female Power in the North Atlantic 
 
MICHÈLE HAYEUR SMITH, 2020, The Valkyries’ Loom: The Archaeology of Cloth 
Production and Female Power in the North Atlantic, Florida: University Press of Florida, 236 
pp., ISBN 9780813066622 
 

Throughout The Valkyries’ Loom, Smith discusses how textiles (which were largely 

produced by women) “encode information” about the societies in which they were created, 

particularly the Scandinavian societies of the North Atlantic. Smith also emphasizes the role of 

women in cloth production as one of the foundations of Norse society and aims to shed light 

on the importance of women in the North Atlantic throughout history and the textiles recovered 

from the region, both topics that have so far remained largely understudied. 

Smith organizes her chapters both chronologically and thematically. The book begins 

with an overview of the terminology used for textile analysis.  The first chapter after the book’s 

introduction provides an overview of early cloth production in the North Atlantic and the 

archaeological themes surrounding the subject matter, such as the ways in which researchers 

study recovered textile fragments, ideas related to weaving as strictly women’s work, and 

evidence suggesting that men showcased a “fear of cloth” because of the exclusivity of its 

production (23).  The remaining chapters follow the evolution of the North Atlantic’s societies 

and economies from the Viking Age to the Early Modern Period through the archaeological 

and historical analysis of cloth production in the region. One of the most notable concepts 

discussed throughout the work is that of vaðmál, which is a term that has been used historically 

to describe cloth that was used as a form of currency between the eleventh and seventeenth 

centuries (172). 

The Valkyries’ Loom concisely and cohesively covers over a millennium of history and 

archaeology regarding textiles and the practice of weaving in the North Atlantic. Smith 

manages much ground while also providing an in-depth analysis of material discussed 

throughout the book, from the entire Norse settlement in Greenland to individual textile 

samples discovered across the North Atlantic. Smith’s discussion provides an excellent 



 
 

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jumping-off point for readers who wish to expand their knowledge of weaving in the North 

Atlantic.  Additionally, her extensive bibliography provides numerous avenues for further 

research and even incudes a glossary in the back for quick reference of the many Norse words 

and weaving-related technical jargon. 

Smith grounds her analysis and interpretation with a strong theoretical framework, 

which she cleverly weaves throughout the book rather than consolidating it into a single section 

dedicated to a theoretical background.  Furthermore, she draws heavily on socio-cultural 

anthropology.  For example, while discussing the burial of a woman from Ketilsstaðir, Smith 

(47-8) introduces the term cultural authentication, a term originally coined by Erekosima 

(1979).  Smith uses this term to describe the process through which a culture will incorporate 

and adopt aspects of another culture into its own, especially regarding fashion.  She then applies 

it to the mix of styles found with the woman from Ketilsstaðir’s funeral costume, explaining 

that the combination of cultural traditions exhibited by the woman’s dress and adornment has 

resulted in the cultural authentication of the textiles into a hybrid style often referred to as 

Hiberno-Norse (48).  She later cites Terence Turner’s (1993) work regarding the “social skin” 

to affirm that the production of cloth played an integral role in the socialization process for the 

people of the North Atlantic (165). 

In addition, Smith (85) references multiple studies that involve the scientific analysis 

of surviving textile samples.  For instance, she often cites textile studies conducted by Walton 

Rogers (1998) and Østergård (2004), who notably analyzed textile remains from Greenland.  

These researchers discovered that many arctic species other than sheep were used to make 

cloth, which provides insight into the ways Greenlandic settlers adapted to their environment.  

Smith’s focus on the social aspects of cloth and weaving combined with her usage of more 

empirical archaeological studies allows her to produce a dynamic, well-rounded analysis of 

weaving and the textiles produced across the North Atlantic over the last millennium.  

The body of The Valkyries’ Loom focuses more on the social aspects of cloth production 

in the North Atlantic as a whole rather than cloth production’s relationship with female power 

in the region. Throughout most of this book, the reader is left to make his or her own 

connections to the topic of female power in the North Atlantic, and Smith saves her in-depth 

discussion of female power for the book’s conclusion.  This approach was likely taken because 

of the sheer amount of ground she covers throughout the book, especially regarding her 

comparative analysis of the (until now) severely understudied textile collections in Iceland, 

Greenland, Denmark, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands.   



 
 

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The Valkyries’ Loom would appeal to a wide audience – academics and lay people alike.  

One does not need to be a textile expert to use and enjoy this highly informative work.  It is an 

excellent resource for researchers at any stage in their careers looking for an updated overview 

of the archaeological study of textiles from the North Atlantic.   

 

Works Cited: 
 
Erekosima, T.V. 1979. The Tartans of Buguma Women: Cultural Authentication. Paper  

Presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles. 
 
Smith, M. 2020. The Valkyries’ Loom: The Archaeology of Cloth Production and  

Female Power in the North Atlantic. Florida: University Press of Florida. 
 
Østergård, E. 2004. Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland. Aarhus: Aarhus  

University Press. 
 
Turner, T.S. 1993. “The Social Skin.” In Reading the Body Social, edited by Jeffery David  

Ehrenreich and Catherine B. Burroughs. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. 
 
Walton Rogers, P. 1998. “The Raw Materials of Textiles from GUS – with a Note on Fragments  

of Fleece and Animal Pelts from the Same Site.” In Man, Culture, and Environment in 
Ancient Greenland: Report in a Research Programme, edited by J. Arneborg and H.C. 
Gulløv, 66-73. Copenhagen: Danish National Museum and Danish Polar Center. 

 
Olivia Russell is a recent graduate of Newcastle University where she received her MA in 
Archaeology: Artefacts and Technologies.  She currently works as a field archaeologist at R. 
Christopher Goodwin and Associates, Inc., a commercial archaeology firm based in New 
Orleans, LA, USA.  Her primary research interests include early medieval England, early 
medieval objects (especially items of adornment), and applications of the biographical 
approach to archaeological study.  Olivia hopes to return to England to pursue a PhD that 
tackles these topics in the coming years. 

 

 

©2021 Olivia Russell 


