The Vikings and Mediaeval Norway

Abstract

Archaeologists have suggested that the Scandinavian peninsula, after the withdrawal of the ice cap, was occupied by nomadic herdsmen, with a civilization resembling that of the Lapps. A more settled form of life came with the introduction of agriculture, together with sheep and cattle breeding, these phases spreading north during the third and second millennia B.C. Despite this early settlement, the history of the area begins late, and, unlike the rest of Europe, it seems unlikely that there has been any major invasion since the second millennium B.C. Of whatever races the original inhabitants, an Indo-European, or more precisely a Germanic culture came to predominate, largely isolated from the successive phases of European culture. The Bronze Age, a time of great wealth and one in which the chieftain emerges, began in the second millennium B.C., the evidence of the life of the times being found in the graves and the votive offerings of the period. The Iron Age of Scandinavia is said to have begun about 500 B.C., when the use of iron for tools and weapons became general. The early part of it, the Celtic Iron Age, which ended about the beginning of the Christian era, was a period of decline of trade in Scandinavia, together with a sudden severe temperature change which drove out several tribes, the Lombards from Scandinavia, the Burgundians from the Danish Island of Bornholm, the Goths from Sweden and the Cimbri from Jutland. These emigrations earned for Scandinavia the name 'officina nationum' (factory of nations).