Science Nordic
After the Danish defeat at Dybbøl in 1864, Danes needed to remember the
former glory days of the Vikings. The Viking Age represents a time when
the Danes were notorious warriors. (Photo: Shutterstock)
The Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age… All follow the most
widely recognised method of categorising historical cultural
development.
It was Christian Jürgensen Thomsen who developed the
three term system at the start of the 19th century and in doing so,
created order out of a chaotic pre-Christian chronology in the Nordics.
One
hundred years later, one of his students, J. J. A. Worsaae, placed the
Viking Age in between the Iron Age and the Middle Ages.
The Viking
Age however, was not a methodical tool, but an intermediate period of
time between the other two--a political manifestation from 1864.
Back then, Danes embraced the nostalgia of the Viking Age heyday. And they still do today.
The Viking Age teases archaeologists
We still celebrate the
Vikings with Viking markets, games, and festivals, and it has become
quite an economically lucrative slice of the tourism industry.
Perhaps
the Viking Age appeals to us today, because it is perceived as a time
in which Denmark, as we know it today, took shape, with borders, written
language, cities, a monetary economy, and the spread of Christianity.
So
when it comes to the Viking Age, archaeologists are biased in a
completely different way than if it was one of the three preceding ages.
The very word Viking gets in the way.
Generally speaking, all
Danes know about the Vikings and the Viking Age, but on an academic
level, it is difficult to penetrate deeper into the period. And
archaeologists often find it difficult to answer even relatively simple
questions about the Vikings.
Plundering, conquest, and colonisation
A historian would
immediately say that the Viking Age began with the looting of the
monastery on Lindisfarne in 793 CE and ended with the Battle of Stamford
Bridge in 1066. But archaeologists ask how cultural development in
Denmark can be defined by events in the British Isles, and whether
activities outside Scandinavia had any significance for the
cultural-historical development of Scandinavia.
All would agree
that looting, conquests, and colonisation were important to the people
who actively participated in it, and to the powerful elite who organised
and profited from it.
But were the Viking raids important for the population as a whole or to ordinary farmers?
Or
more precisely: can we separate plundering in the 800, 900 and early
1000s from plundering in other periods? Or were they just a continuation
of a certain practice with improved technology?
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Makes sense.
Viking Smiths weren't just pouring liquid iron into molds for swords.
