Vikings in Cinema - a Case Study of How to Train Your Dragon

Aug 26, 2026

The paper examines the dialectical relationship between cinema and archaeology through a close reading of the 3-D animated film How to Train Your Dragon. It argues that archaeological meaning is not only produced by excavations or distant past narratives, but also by the “meta-stories” audiences construct, which shape social and political relevance. Hollywood’s portrayals create both interpretations and misconceptions of archaeological practice, and overlapping story/meta-story structures are treated as ideologically loaded.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Archaeology and meta-stories

Archaeological stories as sequenced plots

Meta-stories and existential dilemmas

Overlap of archaeological stories and meta-stories

ISSN 1751-8229 Volume Seven, Number Four Vikings in Cinema: a Case Study of How to Train Your Dragon Dawid Kobiałka, Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University Introduction If there is any lesson to be learnt from Slavoj Žižek, it is that cinema is the “royal road” to the unconscious, so to speak; a place where social fantasies and dreams are staged (e.g. Žižek 2001) . Although archaeology is usually perceived as dealing only with the distant past as well as being a way of unearthing prehistoric artefacts through excavations (Thomas 2004), there are close – and why not – dialectical relations between cinema and archaeology. Two of the most famous archaeologists in the world are Indiana Jones and Lara Croft; both of whom are products of Hollywood. This is one of the ways in which cinema shapes archaeology and how it is perceived by society (Holtorf 2007) . This process might likewise work in reverse: archaeology may offer a theoretical framework for understanding films, especially those which are about the distant past. Archaeologists have invariably been interested in how Hollywood perceives (e.g. Holtorf 2007), or maybe more accurately, misperceives the practice of archaeology (e.g. Fowler 2007) . A far rarer perspective has been to use films with no clear references to archaeology and the past to discuss both archaeology itself and archaeological finds. Here two exceptions worth mentioning are Michael Shanks’(Shanks & Pearson, 2001) interpretations of Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1991) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) as well as a fascinating analysis of Wall-E (2008) by Ben Marwick (2010) . This paper combines archaeological attention to the past (the Vikings and their material culture, beliefs and so on anda Žižekian fascination with Hollywood films to examine How to Train Your Dragon (2010), a 3-D animated film about Vikings for children. Archaeology and meta-stories In the contemporary world archaeology matters not so much because of the stories it tells about the past but rather, as Cornelius Holtorf (2010: 391) recently pointed out: ‘archaeology matters when its meta-stories matter’. By the same token, the German archaeologist claims that archaeology today needs more careful reflection upon how archeological discoveries, interpretations, etc. evoke more general dilemmas of humanity. In other words, the relevance of archaeology might lie in making itself meaningful existentially, socially, and politically for presentday society. That is why an epistemological level of archaeological research (e.g. how can one gain reliable knowledge about the past?) seems to be of less social importance. Archaeological stories may be considered in different ways (Pluciennik 1999) . For example, an archaeological story can be defined as ‘an account of one of more characters acting out plots in a sequence of events that contain a distinctive beginning, middle and end’(Holtorf 2010: 381; see also Pluciennik 1999: 654-5) . Such stories are usually about archaeologists and their profession (e.g. conducting excavations) . Analysing this kind of archaeological story means to scrutinise its explicit messages e.g.: how the past and archaeology in documentaries screened on the Discovery Channel are presented. Without any doubt, archaeological stories do not only include those produced or supervised by archaeologists. Such kind of stories also include Hollywood films about archaeology and different visions of the past for example, 10.000 B. C. (2008) directed by Roland Emmerich. That is why meta-stories of archaeology should be perceived as underlining aspects of archaeological stories where ‘contemporary audiences feature themselves as characters, engulfed in a plot about archaeology or the past that gives meaning and perspective to their lives’(Holtorf 2010: 383) . These stories touch upon such almost eternal dilemmas of humanity as e.g.: a) what it means to be human, b) who we are as members of

FAQs

How does the paper relate cinema to archaeology?

It treats cinema and archaeology as closely connected through dialectical relations, where films can shape how archaeology and the past are understood and where archaeology can offer frameworks for film interpretation.

What does the paper mean by “archaeology matters when its meta-stories matter”?

It emphasizes that archaeology’s social relevance depends less on distant-past facts and more on how interpretations raise broader human dilemmas and existential, social, and political meanings.

Why does the paper call some cinema portrayals “meta-films” or ideologically loaded?

When an archaeological story overlaps with its own meta-story—such as the fight between good and evil—it becomes more than an entertainment narrative and requires careful ideological analysis.

Aug 26, 2026

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