Scandinavian trade 'triggered' the Viking Age

EurekAlert! ^ | May 7, 2015 (bravo, Cameron!) | David Garner, University of York

[SunkenCiv]

Archaeologists from the University of York have played a key role in Anglo-Danish research which has suggested the dawn of the Viking Age may have been much earlier -- and less violent -- than previously believed.

The study by Dr Steve Ashby, of the Department of Archaeology at York, working with colleagues from York and Aarhus University, identified the first signs of the Viking Age around 70 years before the first raid on England.

Previously, the start of the Viking Age has been dated to a June 793 raid by Norwegian Vikings on Lindisfarne. But the new research published in the European Journal of Archaeology shows that Vikings were travelling from Norway to the vital trading centre in Ribe on Denmark's west coast as early as 725.

The researchers say that long voyages were underway early in the 8th century AD, with the establishment of a marketplace in Ribe. What were to become history's Viking expeditions can be directly linked to the development of Ribe as a town and commercial centre.

Using a biomolecular technique developed at York's BioArCh laboratory, the research team studied bone/antler objects and fragments of manufacturing waste from the archaeological remains of Ribe's old marketplace. A number of samples --including some from very early levels -- turned out to be reindeer antler, which is not local to Denmark, and was probably brought in from Norway. The researchers say that the antlers are proof that Vikings visited Ribe, the oldest town in Scandinavia, well before their infamous pillaging. Those trips gave the Vikings the seafaring skills that would be used some 70 years later to strike England.

Deer antlers were central to one of the key industries of the Viking Age: the manufacture of hair combs.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

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[Smokin' Joe]

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