Philip Parker was born in Liverpool in 1965. He studied history at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and International Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Bologna, Italy before working in the British Diplomatic Service. He has a particular interest in ancient and medieval political and military systems. He is the author of The Northmen's Fury: A History of the Viking World (2014), The Empire Stops Here: A Journey Around the Frontiers of the Roman World (2009) and the DK Eyewitness Companion Guide to World History (2010).

Dr Shane McLeod is an Associate Investigator (2013), an Honorary Staff Member in the School of Humanities at the University of Tasmania, and was an Impact Research Fellow in the Division of History and Politics at the University of Stirling, UK. He has a BA and PhD from The University of Western Australia and a Master of Viking and Early Medieval Studies from Uppsala University, Sweden. His research focuses upon migration, ethnicity and identity and performative aspects of ritual within historic landscape settings during the Viking Age, particularly in Britain.