archaeologicalnews:

The Vikings may have been robust types, feared throughout much of Europe, but being a Viking wasn’t always much fun and according to a new study the fierce warriors were heavily plagued by intestinal worms.

The study, conducted on thousand-year-old parasite eggs recovered from Viking faeces, shows that both the Vikings and their domestic animals were plagued by parasites – which most likely enjoyed excellent living conditions in a dirty world in which domestic animals and humans lived in unhygienically close proximity to each other.

Study author, post-doc Martin J. Søe from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences and the Centre for Geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen, explains: "It’s fascinating to be able to examine these extremely old parasite eggs and establish which species they came from,” says Søe. Read more.