21 research outputs found
The Germanic Iron Age and Viking Age in Danish Archaeology: A survey of the literature 1976â1986
The Germanic Iron Age and Viking Age in Danish Archaeology: A survey of the literature 1976â198
Danerne og det danske kongeriges opkomst â Om forskningsprogrammet »Fra Stamme til Stat i Danmark«
The Danes and the Origin of the Danish KingdomOn the Research Programme âFrom Tribe to State in DenmarkâSince the 1970âs, the ethnogenesis of the Danes and the origin of the Danish kingdom have attracted increased interest among Danish archaeologists. Marked changes over time observed in a growing source material form a new basis of interpretation. In written sources, the Danish realm does not appear until the Viking Age. The formation of the kingdom is traditionally placed as late as the 10th century (Jelling and all that). But prehistorians have raised the question whether the formation of the kingdom was not a much longer course. Some scholars believe that we have to study the periods preceding the Viking Age to be able to understand the development, at least from the 3rd century. In Scandinavia, this covers the Late Roman Iron Age, the Migration and Merovingian periods, as well as the early Viking Age. In a Continental perspective, it parallels the Late Antiquity (3rd-6th centuries) and the Early Middle Ages (6th-10th centuries).In 1984, the Danish Research Council launched the research programme âFrom Tribe to State in Denmarkâ which aimed to understand the formation of the Danish kingdom by studying the interaction between economic, social, and political circumstances from the Roman Period to the Viking Age. This paper presents a short synthesis of my work in the programme.Two themes have been brought into focus:1) The ethnogenesis of the Nordic peoples: the formation of the tribes that appear in the few and problematic written sources of the first millennium AD, in casu the Danes;2) The making of the Nordic kingdoms: in this case Denmark.A problem with this kind of long-term research is the inherent teleological perspective, revealed in the programme title. It is essential for me to emphasise that the early Danish kingdom was not a self-evident formation but the result of a series of concrete historical circumstances. There have been alternative possibilities at several occasions.In Scandinavia, the period is prehistoric. However, in South Scandinavia it deserves to be labelled protohistoric. Scandinavian archaeologists often forget or ignore the fact that in large parts of Europe, the first millennium AD is a historical period. The Scandinavian development is too often evaluated in isolation from the rest of Europe, in spite of the fact that the material culture demonstrates that interaction with continental as well as insular powers was continuously influencing Scandinavia. Necessarily, a relevant approach to Scandinavian late prehistory includes a historical dimension and a European perspective. South Scandinavian societies were over time linked to different realms in Europe. The Danish development was certainly part of a common west European trajectory.The best possibility of interpreting the archaeological record of South Scandinavia is by analogy with historiansâ interpretations of other more or less contemporary Germanic peoples, based on descriptions in the written sources. Long-term studies of Scandinavian societies in the first millennium AD has laid new ground on which scholars have to build their image of the making of a Danish kingdom. The paper briefly describes some of the results and focuses on changes in the material that I find significant.Rural settlement: Great progress in the study of Iron Age and Early Mediaeval farming suggests economic growth, a development from subsistence economy to a production of a surplus, from collective forms of farming to individually run farmsteads, from small family farmsteads to large farms and manors. It is the surplus created by this expansion that could carry the late Viking and high medieval Danish kingdom with its administration, military power, church, towns, etc.Trade and exchange: Prestige-goods exchange dominated in the beginning of the period. Goods came from various parts of Europe. The connections to central and east Europe were broken in the sixth century, not to be reopened until the Viking Age. This explains the dominating position held by West European material culture in the development of South Scandinavia. Thus, South Scandinavia became part of the commercial zone of West Europe, certainly an important element in the making of the Danish kingdom. In the Viking Age, the rapid urbanisation demonstrates that Denmark gained great profit from its key position in the North Sea-Baltic trade network.Central places and early towns: Complex settlements appeared already in the Late Roman Iron Age, e.g. Gudme/Lundeborg, Funen. Further central sites appeared, and the number of central places grew rapidly. By the year 700, they are found in virtually every settlement area of South Scandinavia. The sites were not simple trading stations, as most were labelled a few years ago, but many also fulfilled important political, social, and religious functions; some were also manorial residences. The resident elite based their power on the mobilisation of the rural surplus; at the same time, one can say that the stimulus to produce a rural surplus was probably caused by an increasing demand from the elite at the centres.In the Viking Age, urbanisation began, which meant that the old central places lost their position and were replaced by towns like Hedeby, Ribe, and Ă
rhus. Excavations show that urbanisation started in the 8th century, a little later than the famous emporia Quentovic, Dorestad, Hamwic, and Ipswic.So today, it must be concluded that at the threshold to the Viking Age, South Scandinavian societies had a more advanced economic system and a more complex social organisation than believed only 20 years ago.Warfare: The dated indications of war cluster in two periods, the 3rd to 5th centuries, and the 10th to 11th centuries. The early period could be characterised as one of tribal warfare, in which many polities were forced to join larger confederations through the pressure of endemic warfare and conquests. In the archaeological record, indicators of war seem to disappear after AD 500, not to reappear in large numbers until the Viking Age. Was this period a Pax Danorum? Indeed, the silent archaeological record could indicate that the Danes had won hegemony in South Scandinavia. This phase can be understood as a period of consolidation between an early phase of tribal warfare and a later phase in which the territorial defence of a Danish kingdom becomes visible in the record.Wars with the Carolingian empire in the 9th century are the first wars in Denmark to be mentioned in the written record. However, archaeology demonstrates the presence of serious military threats in the centuries before, e.g. the first dykes at Danevirke. The strategic localisation of the periodâs defence works reveals that threats were met with both navy and army. According to the texts, the 9th century wars are clearly national wars, either wars of conquest on a large scale between kingdoms, or civil wars, which for a large part seem to be triggered by an aggressive Frankish diplomacy.The two phases of warfare mirror two different military political situations: in the Late Roman and Migration Periods they are tribal wars and conflicts over resource control; in the Late Merovingian Period and the Viking Age they concern a Danish kingdomâs territorial defence.Religious changes: The conversion is often considered a major turning point in Scandinavian history; and in a way it was, of course. But the importance of Christianisation is heavily overestimated. The conversion was simply a step in a process that started long before. The paganism of the Scandinavians must not mislead us into believing that they were barbarians.A great change in cult practice took place around AD 500 when the use of bogs and lakes for offerings rapidly decreased. Instead, religious objects are found hoarded in settlement contexts, sometimes in the great halls of the magnates. This indicates that the elite had taken control of religion in a new way. The close link between cult and elite continued uninterrupted after Christianisation; churches were built by the magnates and on their ground. Therefore, we have a kind of cult-site continuity. From the Migration Period, the archaeological material demonstrates a close link between cult and magnates. This is certainly one important element in the formation of a Danish kingdom.Political development: Analyses of material culture reveal that South Scandinavia in the Early Iron Age consisted of many small regions, and based on sources like Tacitus and Ptolemy, one can guess that they correspond to tribal areas. In the Late Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period, the formation of a South Scandinavian super-region can be discerned, but still subdivided into a small number of distinguishable culture zones, and, again, on the basis of written sources (Jordanes and Procopius), one can guess that small tribes had joined into larger confederations precisely as on the Continent. In my opinion, a Danish kingdom appeared not later than the sixth century. Based on the well-studied material culture of the early Merovingian Period, one can assume that it had its core area in Central Denmark - South Jutland, Funen, and Zealand â with a close periphery of North Jutland, South Halland, Scania, Blekinge, and Bornholm. Probably more loosely attached to the Danish hegemony was a more distant periphery in South Sweden.So the Danish kingdom already had a history when it first appeared in the Frankish sources at the end of the 8th century. Danish involvement in European politics is first clearly observable in 777 and again in 782. Obviously, the Danish kingdom was a political and military actor on the North European scene long before the Viking Age.In the light of all these arguments, three phases can be described:â Roman Iron Age: Tribal societies with chieftains or small kings.â Late Roman Iron Age, Migration Period, and early Merovingian Period: A process of amalgamation started and warfare characterises the period. The result is the formation of tribal confederations. Written sources speak in favour of the Danes as the people who eventually won hegemony over South Scandinavia.â Late Merovingian Period and Viking Age: A process began in which royal agents replaced local chieftains. The last area to be integrated under direct Danish royal rule, in the reign of Sven Forkbeard, was probably Scania. Thus Medieval Denmark appeared.Final remarks: As a result of archaeological achievements in the last decades, a number of traditional views about Scandinavian late prehistory appear less likely, or rather erroneous. It is an underestimation that the pagans were unable of organisation and that a formation of a Danish kingdom is unthinkable before the late Viking Age. Unfortunately, the ethnogenesis of the Danes is beyond the reach of study, but a rough hypothesis may be formulated. The Danes were once one of several tribes somewhere in South Scandinavia. Events outside the Scandinavian scene were of fundamental importance for the possibility of the Danish gens to grow in power in the Late Roman and Migration Periods. Already before the Merovingian Period, the Danes won hegemony between the Baltic and the North Sea. A Danish kingdom could probably be based on this key position. Its survival was by no means a matter of course. In their continued efforts to secure the Danish position, capable kings established the borders of high medieval Denmark in the course of the Viking Age.Ulf NĂ€smanInstitutionen för humaniora och ÂsamhĂ€llsvetenskap Högskolan i Kalma
Aspects on Realizing House Reconstructions: a Scandinavian Perspective
Experiments are an integrated part of archaeological research, a tool used to analyse and understand archaeological phenomena. It is a method as legitimate and as problematic as so many others. The reconstruction of wooden buildings is a main branch of experimental archaeology. As Herschend (1987) has pointed out, house reconstruction is of interest in the development of archaeological theory because interpretation appears, by this approach, as a very conspicuous element of the research process
Ornaments found in Eketorp-II
Ornaments found in Eketorp-II
Of the rich artefact material found at the excavation of the ring-fort of Eketorp on Ăland, Sweden (3), two hoards (figs. 1 and 2-4) are published here and their contents discussed in relation to some new publications on Montelius' period VII (c. 550-800 A. D.) (2,7). The open-work pendant (fig. 3) shows connections with similar pendants from Alemannic areas in South Germany (8), but it is suggested that it is of Nordic manufacture. Pendants of obviously Nordic type are not infrequent in The Baltic area (10, 11). The coiled bracelet Ărsnes type Q1 (= Ă:Q1) (fig. 4) is of a type with sparse distribution in South Scandinavia (13, 14) and can by find combinations be dated to Ărsnes phase 2 (c. 650-725) and Nerman's periods VII:2 and 3 (c. 600-650, 650-700) (15, 16 ). Glass beads can be used in dating according to the proportion of different beads in necklaces with many beads, and the two necklaces (figs. 1 and 2) can by the presence of many red and orange opaque glass beads, Ă:R1, be assigned to Ărsnes' phases 1b-2a and Nerman's period VI:2 (19, 22, 23, 24 ). A special variant of this bead has a bronze tube through the string-hole and bronze mountings (fig. 2). It occurs in few finds from early period VII. Wooden beads with iron- or bronze-tubed string-holes are a similar type, Ă:R4, previously known only from Bornholm (25) and SmĂ„land (26 ), datable to Ărsnes' phases 1 b-2a,b. The two beads of this type from Eketorp II (fig. 1) are well preserved and earlier observations can now be better explained. The Eketorp wooden beads have triangular and square cross-sections and sides plated with animal tooth enamel. The amethyst bead (Ă: R3) (fig. 1) is another type characteristic of this period (30, 31, 32). The absence of amethysts on Bornholm and Gotland is, in view of these islands' richly furnished inhumation graves, striking. The disc-shaped shell beads are a neglected bead type, but probably typical of and not so uncommon in period VII (33, 34, 35, 36, 37). The known finds date this bead to Ărsnes' phase 2.
The parallels to the beads, the pendant and the bracelet date the two Eketorp hoards to Ărsnes' phases 1b-2a,b (c. 600 (575)-700) and to Nerman's periods VII:2-3 (c. 600-700).
The brooches recovered from Eketorp II are presented as a foundation for dating the occupation and for placing the two hoards in the Eketorp chronology. The oldest occupation layers are dated by solid cross-bow brooches (fig. 6) and a sheet brooch (fig. 7) to period VI (c. 400-550) (41,42). Both types are colmmon on Ăland (38,39) and the material from the ring-fort in this respect reflects Ălandic material, but the effect of chance in archaeological material is demonstrated by the lack in Eketorp II of a very common Ălandic brooch with plates at head and foot (40).
A typical solid cross-bow brooch found in layers belonging to the earlier ringÂfort Eketorp I indicates that Eketorp II was constructed shortly after 400 A. D.
The development of Eketorp II is stratigraphically and planographically continuous from period VI to period VII (43), but among the brooches transition forms cannot be found. The dominating brooch in early period VII is the small equalÂarmed brooch, Ă:F: 4 examples are found in Eketorp II (fig. 8) and 11 on Ăland ( 44 ). Find combinations show that this brooch marks the transition from period VI to VII (45, 46). The animal-head brooch from Eketorp II (fig. 9) is common on Gotland in precisely this form, VzG 23. Three combinations date it to Nerman's period Vll:1. Five early animal-head brooches are known from Ăland (47). Beaked brooches, Ă:G, are represented by one brooch in Eketorp (fig. 7) and four on Ăland (48). In South Scandinavia they can by association with inter alia coiled bracelets of types Ă:Q1/Q3 be dated to Ărsnes' phases 2a-b. According to Nerman, they appear on Gotland in period VII:2 and disappear again after period VII:3. The display brooch of the period, the disc-on-bow garnet brooch, Ă:E, is found in nine early examples on Ăland (49). In Eketorp II only an empty disc was found (fig. 11). Another fragment comes from a so-called looped serpent brooch, Ă:L2 (fig. 12). Only one such brooch was previously known from Ăland (51).
It seems probable that the phase 1 equal-armed brooch in Ărsnes' phase 2 is followed in Eketorp II by the so-called »quatrefoil« brooch, 3 examples of which were found (fig. 13). This is not known on Ăland outside the ring-fort and not in the South Scandinavian area treated by Ărsnes. It is distributed over SmĂ„land, Gotland, MĂ€larsweden, Finland and Norway, and the dating combinations span Ărsnes' phases 1b-2a and Nerman's periods VII:2-3 (52, 53, 54, 55). Only one example of early style II is found in Eketorp II, namely an equiform pendant (fig. 14). Similar pendants, Ă: L4, are known from Ăland and datable to c. 700 A.D. (56). Three contemporary brooch types with good representation on Ăland but not found in Eketorp II ought to be mentioned: small oval brooches (Ă:N), 5 examples; round brooches (Ă:1), 7 examples; and bird-shaped brooches (Ă:D), 10 examples (57, 58, 59). As there are no indications that Eketorp II held an exceptional cultural position on the island, this phenomenon reveals the dangers when small fortuitous archaeological materials are interpreted, especially from areas without investigations of rich cemeteries or settlements.
The stray finds from Eketorp II can be connected to a varied find milieu of ornaments, weapons, tools, pottery etc. Ălandic connections with the other local cultures can thus be more easily studied.
Ărsnes points out some types of probable local Ălandic manufacture (60), but Ăland has not so well defined a local culture as Ărsnes' South Scandinavia or Gotland. Objects with different distributions overlap on Ăland (61) and this fact shows the good communications of the island in period VII (62, 63).
In period VI the brooches on Ăland are closely related to the material from Gotland and Bornholm, but the connections with Scania, the Danish Isles and Jutland are less obvious (64) and the relation to the Malar valley seems unimportant (65 ), Contacts towards the east and south-east coasts of the Baltic area are characteristic of this period; the solidicoin found on the three islands show the importance of the Vistula route (66). In period VII these contacts decrease markedly (67). The openÂwork pendant and the amethyst beads from Eketorp II are good exponents for the now dominant western influences in Scandinavian art and society (68). It is obvious that these simple glass beads were manufactured in Scandinavia during period VII and the know-how was probably imported from the West (69).
The relatively meagre find material from Ăland in periods VI and VII compared to finds from the previous period has by Aberg been explained as the result of new burial customs (70) and by Stenberger as the results of severe pillage of the island c. 500 A. D. (71). The rich finds from Eketorp II show that there is no reason to maintain the view of a cultural depression in late period VI and period VII. The ring-forts are massive evidence of hostilities, but it is suggested that a failure of agriculture to feed the population is the main reason for the changes in the Ălandic settlement pattern from the Early to the Late Iron Age. The artefacts found in Eketorp II probably mirror a socially and economically elevated class of landowners, in whose interest the new regulations of the land in the Late Iron Age were performed (73).
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