Northmen: The Viking Saga AD 793-1241 Read Online Free Page A
Author: John Haywood
Pytheas says that Abalus was a day’s sail from the lands of the Goths, who at that time lived on the Baltic coast. Pytheas explored the Baltic at least as far east as the Vistula, before returning to Massalia by a round-about route, following the River Tanais (Don) south to the Black Sea, where he would have had little difficulty finding a ship to take him home at one of the many Greek colonies there.
Brief though it is, Strabo’s extract from Pytheas, quoted above, is the earliest eyewitness account of the lives of the Vikings’ ancestors that we have, but beyond telling us that they enjoyed drinking mead and ale and had to dry their grain indoors, it doesn’t tell us much. If Pytheas did have more to say about the languages, customs and social institutions of the people of Thule, his readers did not think it worth preserving. To learn anything meaningful about the Vikings’ earliest ancestors we have to turn to archaeology.
Scandinavia in the Stone and Bronze Ages
The ancestors of the Vikings were most likely Stone Age farmers who began to colonise Scandinavia around 6,000 years ago, displacing or assimilating hunter-gatherers whose own ancestors had arrived at the end of the last Ice Age some 6,000 years earlier. These pioneer farmers belonged to the Corded Ware Culture (named for the way its pottery was decorated by pressing twisted cords into the wet clay), which originated on the north German plain. Although the connection will probably never be proven beyond doubt, this culture is associated with the early spread of the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic languages. If true, the settlers probably already spoke an early form of the modern Scandinavian languages, which all belong, with modern German, English, Dutch and Frisian, to the Germanic language family. The close genetic similarity between modern Danes, Norwegians and Swedes on the one hand, and modern north Germans on the other, strengthens rather than weakens this conclusion. No convincing evidence exists for any further substantial migration into Scandinavia before the later twentieth century. Scandinavia would make its mark on history as an exporter of population.
About 1800 BC bronze artefacts began to appear in Scandinavia. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, neither of which were available in Scandinavia at that time (Sweden’s rich copper reserves were not discovered until the Middle Ages). Scandinavians were, therefore, completely dependent on imported bronze. At first, finished bronze artefacts were imported, but after Scandinavian smiths mastered the skills of bronze casting they probably relied on imported bronze ingots, which were widely traded around Europe. This was the period when amber first began to be traded widely in Europe, so it was probably the commodity the early Scandinavians used to pay for their bronze. The high value placed on amber ensured that bronze was never in short supply in the north. The increase in long distance trade helped stimulate the development of a more hierarchical society, as demonstrated by the appearance of small numbers of richly furnished elite burials marked by earth barrows. Stone suitable for toolmaking is widespread but bronze’s exotic origins, and the specialised skills needed to make and cast it, allowed its distribution to be monopolised by a small elite whose power and status were thereby greatly enhanced. In the more fertile areas of southern Scandinavia, farms began to cluster in small villages. The typical dwelling was a longhouse – a long narrow building in which the family and its livestock lived under one roof, the people at one end, the animals in a byre at the other. The livestock helped keep the house warm in winter. The presence of a single large dwelling among otherwise smaller dwellings indicates that villages were dominated by a single headman or chief. In Norway and much of Sweden, dispersed settlement remained the norm until the end of the Viking Age.
Bronze tools were a great
Brief though it is, Strabo’s extract from Pytheas, quoted above, is the earliest eyewitness account of the lives of the Vikings’ ancestors that we have, but beyond telling us that they enjoyed drinking mead and ale and had to dry their grain indoors, it doesn’t tell us much. If Pytheas did have more to say about the languages, customs and social institutions of the people of Thule, his readers did not think it worth preserving. To learn anything meaningful about the Vikings’ earliest ancestors we have to turn to archaeology.
Scandinavia in the Stone and Bronze Ages
The ancestors of the Vikings were most likely Stone Age farmers who began to colonise Scandinavia around 6,000 years ago, displacing or assimilating hunter-gatherers whose own ancestors had arrived at the end of the last Ice Age some 6,000 years earlier. These pioneer farmers belonged to the Corded Ware Culture (named for the way its pottery was decorated by pressing twisted cords into the wet clay), which originated on the north German plain. Although the connection will probably never be proven beyond doubt, this culture is associated with the early spread of the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic languages. If true, the settlers probably already spoke an early form of the modern Scandinavian languages, which all belong, with modern German, English, Dutch and Frisian, to the Germanic language family. The close genetic similarity between modern Danes, Norwegians and Swedes on the one hand, and modern north Germans on the other, strengthens rather than weakens this conclusion. No convincing evidence exists for any further substantial migration into Scandinavia before the later twentieth century. Scandinavia would make its mark on history as an exporter of population.
About 1800 BC bronze artefacts began to appear in Scandinavia. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, neither of which were available in Scandinavia at that time (Sweden’s rich copper reserves were not discovered until the Middle Ages). Scandinavians were, therefore, completely dependent on imported bronze. At first, finished bronze artefacts were imported, but after Scandinavian smiths mastered the skills of bronze casting they probably relied on imported bronze ingots, which were widely traded around Europe. This was the period when amber first began to be traded widely in Europe, so it was probably the commodity the early Scandinavians used to pay for their bronze. The high value placed on amber ensured that bronze was never in short supply in the north. The increase in long distance trade helped stimulate the development of a more hierarchical society, as demonstrated by the appearance of small numbers of richly furnished elite burials marked by earth barrows. Stone suitable for toolmaking is widespread but bronze’s exotic origins, and the specialised skills needed to make and cast it, allowed its distribution to be monopolised by a small elite whose power and status were thereby greatly enhanced. In the more fertile areas of southern Scandinavia, farms began to cluster in small villages. The typical dwelling was a longhouse – a long narrow building in which the family and its livestock lived under one roof, the people at one end, the animals in a byre at the other. The livestock helped keep the house warm in winter. The presence of a single large dwelling among otherwise smaller dwellings indicates that villages were dominated by a single headman or chief. In Norway and much of Sweden, dispersed settlement remained the norm until the end of the Viking Age.
Bronze tools were a great
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