Viking Origins: The Nordic Iron Age

Tristan Hughes (0:00)

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2,000 years ago, centuries before the Vikings, there was another Scandinavia. An Iron Age world of shifting settlements, changing burial rights, growing hierarchy, and far-reaching contacts was already taking shape long before the long ships ever set sail. The Viking Age was still centuries away, but the societies that would give rise to it were already developing trade connections, maritime skills and warrior ideologies that would later shape the medieval north. So how should we understand this much longer story? What is archaeology revealing about life in Iron Age Scandinavia before the Vikings? To answer that and more, today on The Ancients I'm joined by Dr Marianne Hem Eriksen, Research Professor of Viking Studies at the National Museum of Denmark. Together we're travelling back through the long Nordic Iron Age to explore the societies, beliefs, technologies and networks of Scandinavia's deep past. From Bronze Age legacies and Roman contact, to elite drinking halls, burial customs and the deep roots of the seafaring north.

Marianne, it is great to have you on the podcast. Welcome to the show.

Marianne Hem Eriksen (2:07)

Thank you so much.

Tristan Hughes (2:08)

Now, I'm sorry, I have to start with the word Vikings and the question, who really were the first Vikings?

Marianne Hem Eriksen (2:18)

Interesting question, impossible to answer, obviously. I remember when I was in undergrad, I was lucky enough to have a lecturer called Neil Price. He's a quite prominent Viking archaeologist, some of you may have heard of, and is now a good friend. I remember in one of his first lectures, he had a slide with a picture of a bunch of warriors and a Viking ship, and there was a speech bubble. The speech bubble said, hurry up, lads, or we'll miss the Viking age.

It was a great intro to problematize, that the terms we use for the past, they come from us, it's a retrospective exercise. The Vikings didn't know that they lived in the Viking age, etc. That really goes for all periods. To say who were the first Vikings, it's an impossible exercise. To just problematize further, they also didn't necessarily refer to themselves as the Vikings. But if you want to ask me when do I think the Viking age started, I think the traditional narrative of whatever June 793 with the attack of Lindisfarne is probably not accurate.

It might have been a bit before. We can get into that.

Tristan Hughes (3:32)

793 is a bit too modern for us on The Ancients, I must admit. But can we explore, if we go back into ancient times, learn more about the story about how these so-called Vikings and the Viking age came to be by exploring the archaeology, by exploring what we know about Scandinavia back, let's say roughly some 2,000 years ago, so we can go back into ancient times.

Marianne Hem Eriksen (3:56)

Absolutely, we can.

We often call the Iron Age of Scandinavia the long Nordic Iron Age, because it is a very, very long period after the end of the Bronze Age. We often started at 500 common era CE, and at least in parts of Scandinavian archaeology, we actually include the Viking age in the Iron Age, in the long Iron Age. It's seen as the final period of the Iron Age and it's seen as the final period of prehistory. That's because in Scandinavia, we didn't have the conversion to Christianity, the Romans never made it that far north, so we didn't have writing systems except for the runes, which are runic inscriptions are short and formulaic. So the Iron Age, the long Iron Age, is actually kind of one long continuum, obviously full of transitions and change. It was not static, but it is one kind of deep slice of prehistory and the final part of prehistory in our chronology.

Tristan Hughes (4:57)

So how long roughly, I know you can't give exact dates, but how long roughly, what are the traditional kind of the starts and endpoints that scholars put on the Iron Age in Scandinavia? How large a period of time are we talking?

Marianne Hem Eriksen (5:10)

So about 1500 years, I'd say. So 500 BCE until the end of the Viking Age, I'd say. So let's say 1050 CE.

Tristan Hughes (5:20)

And when we're talking about Iron Age Scandinavia, should we be thinking the same as today, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, that area?