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Before the Vikings

THERE WAS a flourishing civilisation in Northern Europe long before the Viking era. This video shows some archaeological artefacts from England and Sweden dating from the Nordic Bronze Age, the Migration era and the Vendel era.

I also have some footage of the living history group Wulfheodenas whose replicas of the Vendel and Valsgärde helmets are without equal. They came to visit the pagan burial mounds at Gamla Uppsala which was a fitting place for a photo shoot. I also had ago at making one of the foils by hammering a pressblech with the help of the Smith David Roper.

stockbat2The Viking Era has received a lot of attention in recent years because of the Millennium.

The Vikings were farmers, fishermen, craftsmen and traders as well as raiders. They were master ship builders, but they didn’t become so overnight. Boats and ships were important for transportation, travel and fishing for thousands of years before the Vikings.

stockbatThe first boats were hollowed out tree trunks (right and left). These boats were used in Scandinavia during a period called the Hunter Stone Age, more than 5000 years before the Viking era.

The boats in the pictures are reconstructions located in the Stone Age Village at Höör in southern Sweden.

Later, boats were made of planks.
Later, boats were made of planks.

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Petroglyphs of boats can be found on flat rocks. These pictures from the Bronze age (1800 – 500 B.C.) were carved on a rock at Simris in southern Sweden more than 2,500 years ago, about 1,500 years before the Vikings.

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Source: Survive the Jive and Skandland

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