Culture, Environment and Adaptation in the North – serie

The Viking Age was a period of profound change in Scandinavia. As kingdoms were established, Christianity became the encompassing ideological and cosmological framework and towns were formed. This book examines a central backdrop to these changes: the economic transformation of West Scandinavia. With a focus on the development of intensive and organized use of woodlands and alpine regions and domestic raw materials, together with the increasing standardization of products intended for long-distance trade, the volume sheds light on the emergence of a strong interconnectedness between remote rural areas and central markets. Viking-Age Transformations explores the connection between legal and economic practice, as the rural economy and monetary system developed in conjunction with nascent state power and the legal system. Thematically, the book is organized into sections addressing the nature and extent of trade in both marginal and centralized areas; production and the social, legal and economic aspects of exploiting natural resources and distributing products; and the various markets and sites of trade and consumption. A theoretically informed and empirically grounded collection that reveals the manner in which relationships of production and consumption transformed Scandinavian society with their influence on the legal and fiscal division of the landscape, this volume will appeal to scholars of archaeology, the history of trade and Viking studies.

This volume explores the changes that occurred during the Viking Age, as Scandinavian societies fell in line with the larger forces that dominated the Insular world and Continental Europe, absorbing the powerful symbiosis of Christianity and monarchy, adapting to the idea of royal lineage and supremacy, and developing a buzzing urbanism coupled with large-scale trade networks. Presenting research on the grand context of the Viking Age alongside localised studies, it contributes to the furthering of collaborations between local and ‘outsider’ research on the Viking Age. Through a diversity of approaches on the Viking homelands and the wider world of the Vikings, it offers studies of a range of phenomena, including urban and rural settlements; continuity in the use of places as well as new types of places specific to the Viking Age; the social significance of change; the construction and maintenance of social identity both within the ‘homelands’ and across large territories; ethnicity; and ideas of identity and the creation and recreation of identity both at home and abroad. As such, it will appeal to historians and archaeologists with interests in Viking-Age studies, as well as scholars of Scandinavian studies.

This volume explores the changes that occurred during the Viking Age, as Scandinavian societies fell in line with the larger forces that dominated the Insular world and Continental Europe, absorbing the powerful symbiosis of Christianity and monarchy, adapting to the idea of royal lineage and supremacy, and developing a buzzing urbanism coupled with large-scale trade networks. Presenting research on the grand context of the Viking Age alongside localised studies, it contributes to the furthering of collaborations between local and ‘outsider’ research on the Viking Age. Through a diversity of approaches on the Viking homelands and the wider world of the Vikings, it offers studies of a range of phenomena, including urban and rural settlements; continuity in the use of places as well as new types of places specific to the Viking Age; the social significance of change; the construction and maintenance of social identity both within the ‘homelands’ and across large territories; ethnicity; and ideas of identity and the creation and recreation of identity both at home and abroad. As such, it will appeal to historians and archaeologists with interests in Viking-Age studies, as well as scholars of Scandinavian studies.