Proto-Vikings: The Nordic Bronze Age

Who were the Vikings' ancient ancestors? In this episode Tristan Hughes explores the fascinating maritime culture, sophisticated trade networks and social hierarchies of the Nordic Bronze Age c. 1800–700 BC. Joined by Professor Johan Ling, they shed light on how proto-Viking societies of ancient Scandinavia imported essential metals, crafted stunning rock art using bronze tools and operated complex trade routes extending to Britain, Iberia and beyond. Enigmatic religious practices and the pivotal role played by elite kinship networks are brought to life through remarkable archaeological finds such as horned helmets and a golden sun chariot to reveal the remarkable complex societies that preceded the Viking Age. MORE: The Bronze Age Collapse https://open.spotify.com/episode/4dEddIFS5yfamKqVZd6xAE Mycenae: Cradle of Bronze Age Greece https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Fd3i83dEOiEw6PXHc9pk5 Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

  Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:31Tristan Hughes?

  Hey guys, I hope you're doing well. Now, I've come to terms with the fact that we can't cover the story of the Vikings on the ancients because, let's face it, they're not ancient, they're medieval. What we can do however, is cover the story of their Scandinavian ancestors. And that's what we're doing today. We're going back some 3,000 years to explore the amazing story of the Nordic Bronze Age. These proto-Vikings who loved their seafaring and their raiding, amazing rock art, gold artifacts and so much more. We're covering all of that today. Now, our guest today is Johan Ling. Johan, he is a professor of archaeology at the University of Gothenburg. He dialed in from Sweden for this chat. Really grateful for his time, and I really do hope you enjoy.

• 1:16Tristan Hughes?

  Let's go.

• 1:28Tristan Hughes?

  3,000 years ago, long before the Vikings, wooden boats sailed from Scandinavia to Britain. These Bronze Age vessels were filled with men alongside amber for trading and weapons for raiding. They belonged to a culture where sea voyages were famous and central to life, but also one in constant need of metals imported from overseas. A culture of rulers, raiders and rock art, of sun chariots, horned helmets and so much more. This is the story of the Nordic Bronze Age with our guest, Professor Johan Ling.

• 2:11Tristan Hughes?

  Johan, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.

• 2:16Tristan Hughes?

  Now, I'm very excited for this topic because the Nordic Bronze Age, I mean, it feels lesser known in the UK and the US than it should. And yet, this extraordinary culture, it's central to the story of Europe's wider Bronze Age.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  It is, and it becomes more central recently with the all-new evidence that has come to the fore, so to speak. Just a fascinating phase in European prehistory.

• 2:42Tristan Hughes?

  And set the scene for us, first of all, Johan, when are we talking with the Nordic Bronze Age?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Basically, we talk about 1800 BC to 700 BC.

• 2:54Tristan Hughes?

  And in regards to Scandinavia, are there particular parts of Scandinavia where we focus in on with the Nordic Bronze Age?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  We're a much southern Scandinavia in that sense, but also northern Germany that was part of this sphere during the Bronze Age, or became a part of it, at least in the late Bronze Age. So it's basically southern Sweden, or you can say up to Stockholm in Sweden and somewhat north, and then it's southern Norway, entire Denmark and parts of northern Germany.

• 3:26Tristan Hughes?

  And you mentioned also there how the Nordic Bronze Age begins around 1800 BC. Compared to the likes of Britain, Ireland and so on, does it feel as if the Bronze Age begins a little later in Scandinavia than elsewhere?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  In a way, not. It's just like a take that is very Scandinavian in that sense in terms of chronology. We have what we call our late Neolithic period that is the same as your early Bronze Age.

• 3:51Tristan Hughes?

  Right.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Already then, we have copper loy, so to speak. But when we get what you call full tin bronze, bronze with about 90% copper and 10% tin, it's when about 1800 BC, therefore we coin it that way. You are earlier on the British Isles with that, in that sense. I mean, British Isles are one of the earliest regions in Europe with full tin bronze, or what you call already 2000 BC, fascinating enough, because you bump into this.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Gray stuff in Cornwall, probably according to colleagues in the UK when you're looking for gold. And then for some reason you start to lloy this with copper and you get and you get a really high quality metal that you can use for tools, weapons, ornaments. It shines like gold also, but highly, highly sufficient. And in terms of tools and weapons, it does not become replaced until you have iron or actually steel in that sense.

• 5:00Tristan Hughes?

  So how does tin bronze and how does the Bronze Age come to Scandinavia? Do we know much about that?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Well, in a way we do because it has much to do with how if we first of all, did we extract copper? We did not. We have, I had several projects that look into that matter. Strange enough, on the other hand, Sweden and parts of Norway also has a lot of copper sources, but they were not used in the Bronze Age. They do not match the signatures on the artifacts when we analyze those. So it shows and also we had no evidence of pre-stored mining. Therefore, these societies were needed to import copper and also tin.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  And they do that on a regular basis, but also on in a very high basis, so to speak. We speak about annually that you import at least two, maybe three, maybe four tonnage

• 6:01Tristan Hughes?

  Wow.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  to Scandinavia in order to fulfill the demands that these societies has. And we have new data comes in all the time showing that we have underestimated the consumption of copper and tin. For instance, we have findings of swords only in that that shows that all in all would require two tonnage.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Also knowing that a lot of material has, I mean bronze also vanished when you use it, so the evidence also we have from the mines from this phase in different regions in Europe shows a big, big output. And what we find in the ground is maybe 0.01 percentage of what has been extracted.

• 6:47Tristan Hughes?

  And is it very much a case that as the Bronze Age goes on, that demand for copper and tin from overseas, it just increases and increases? So the amount of copper and tin coming to Scandinavia, it only grows in like the tonnage as those centuries progressed?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Due to that you use it, A, both for weapons and for tools and for ornaments. So it's like a multi-tool in that sense. And interesting enough, you can see when in the late Bronze Age or transition to Iron Age, when Scandinavian societies are start to use local iron instead, the entire system in Scandinavia breaks down. The system that was based on elite families that organized long-distance exchange of copper and tin. And therefore it became more internal for a while. Interesting also, we can say, we

• 7:44Speaker 01

  can make an analogy, for instance, with the Viking Age, where we know that, for instance, Scandinavia and specifically some parts of Sweden were able to attract most silver. I mean, we had the largest silver hordes in entire Europe. We don't extract silver. But in the Viking Age, we then know, we have literature saying that, well, the Vikings, they crewed their boats and tried to push as far as possible nearest sources of metal or of the silver, for instance, or the ports. We believe now that in the Bronze Age, we had a similar system, or actually that the Viking Age system has its roots in the Bronze

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Age. Although not the same scale and not the same details, but, but we cannot understand otherwise how the Scandinavian societies were able to organize or attract all this metal. Of course, you could speculate to say, well, you can have like down the line trade of, you know, that, you know, over from region to region. That would be highly costly. It wouldn't work. And also, the metal analysis we have done on the artifacts show, for instance, that we have a lot of artifacts in Denmark, in Sweden, that match Great Orme, a specific mine that you have in Wales.

• 9:04Tristan Hughes?

  In Wales, okay.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Although you have almost basically nothing in between. You have, of course, you have Great Orme copper in France, but nothing in that sense in the regions between. But then we have very much, I mean, in Scandinavia. Also Scandinavia is the region that has utmost access of British types from this face, outside Britain. Therefore, I mean, direct trade must have been the matter. And therefore, you must have had sufficient boats, you must have have crew, probably crew consistent of slash warriors, traveler, traders, very much similar to what we see in the Viking Age.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  And probably they tried to push these boats as close as possible to where the sources are. We have, for instance, modeled on basis of the capacity of Bronze Age boats, the plank boats, how long time it would take to paddle to Great Orme. And it would take about forty, forty-five days with good weather conditions, something like that. But probably you go, maybe not that far, you go to other ports. You go to Tanit, very interesting island, or used to be an island in southeast England, or Isle of Wight, or other places in between, so to speak.

• 10:31Tristan Hughes?

  Guess it makes sense, doesn't it, Johan, that if during the Bronze Age, you know, these people are importing copper and tin, and I'm presuming also like gold and gold from overseas places like Britain, then it makes sense that they become really skilled seafarers and develop these extraordinary boats from some three thousand years ago.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Indeed, first of all. And it demands also a very specific social organization to handle this. And also what we see is the emergence of the first political economy with institutionalized leadership.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  That are able to organize the trade. And therefore, what you coin as chieftain or chieftain-like societies. And they are concentrating on wealth flows. These are probably families, elite families, that can organize trade. They are very much concentrating on these wealth flows and they do that through bottlenecks. Bottleneck is a boat, for instance. It's expensive to have a boat, to have the crew and all the details and launch long-distance exchange. Also, other bottlenecks could be like certain passes, points, animals.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  We are also pretty much convinced that this system is based on unfree labor, on slaves. As for the Viking Age, I mean, if you move people from the house unit to the boat, who is taking care of the animals? Who's taking care of the corpse? Who's taking care of the land? So, for instance, the Vikings, they made sure that they had slaves doing that, otherwise the system wouldn't work. We think that this is also the case in Scandinavia in the Bronze Age. And we have indications of it in terms of, I mean, in the funeral, we can see that some individuals are just thrown in pits while you have also these highly furnished graves.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  And you can see a social strata, so to speak. And probably also, you know, indications what could be unfree labor. We see it in rock art and also, all in all, in... Some scholars argue that we can see it in the house constructions, that certain sections in the house are for the unfree labor. And of course, it's the word spectacular. Often, people want to have a happy picture of the Bronze Age. And gold and amber was traded and everybody was happy and it was shining. But it has a dark side, I have to say. And it's probably leaders that utilize other groups and also other groups in society in order to achieve their goals.

• 13:18Tristan Hughes?

  It's interesting, having done a few projects over the years in Ireland and also in Kilmartin Glen, looking at those extraordinary Bronze Age burials that survive, but people saying how they are associated with, you know, those rich families that emerge in the Bronze Age controlling these metal trade routes. Those are the ones who are visible in the surviving archaeology with their amazing grave goods and copper and bronze weapons and so on. And as you say, the more invisible people, although you pointed out the archaeology is actually revealing, maybe pointed that on free labour, but usually the invisible people, you know, those are the people who were working for those figures when they were building these extensive trade routes, which allowed the importing of so much metal to Scandinavia at that time.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Briefly, I mean, we have the same situation in Scandinavia with the highly furnished barrels, you know, as you say, here at Kilmartin, and then then we have people buried in pits with nothing. So they, and all in all, we were slaves must have been a very important commodity also in trade, we think, but also in due to to be able to organise trade, to fill the labour gaps at the farm, so to speak. And I remember we had a conference back in 2017 with one of the leading scholars in anthropology,

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Timothy Earl, Bryn Hayden, and they saw some of the papers from, this was also leading, the leading Bronze Age scholars from Europe. And they said, fine, interesting with this trade with amber, gold and copper tin, but where are the unfree labour? They said, I mean, we can't see any society that are able to organise trade, long distance trade, they, that does not have this. And that was a like awakening for us. And then we start to model this with the slave labour.

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• 15:51Speaker 03

  What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America?

• 16:03Speaker 03

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• 16:52Tristan Hughes?

  I'd like to ask a bit more about the structure of these Nordic Bronze Age societies in a moment, but before that, I'd like to revisit these trade networks that we've mentioned earlier. You highlighted how Britain seems to be a source of copper imported into Scandinavia, places like the Great Orme. But do we know just how extensive these trade routes became in the Bronze Age? I mean, how far and wide they spread to the various sources of metals that they were importing?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Well, they are very extensive. And I mean, as I said, in terms of Scandinavia, we can then specifically say that that in early Bronze Age, we get metal both from the Alpine region and but also the British Isles. In a certain phase, interesting enough, when Great Orms supposedly is most active, 1600 to 1400 B.C., the majority of our artefacts match that mine. Afterwards, Great Orms declining, and other sources. Then we turn to Talin Alps for a while, and then Iberia. Iberia comes in like a really strong motor,

• 17:59Speaker 01

  which is not surprising because Iberia has not only Europe's, but one of the world's largest mineralisation of copper. It's crazy. And they have, all in all, they have potentially 150 mines that could be from the Bronze Age that hasn't been explored yet. But there are at least 40 of these mines match artefacts from Ireland, southern Britain, southern England, France, Scandinavia, Poland in the late Bronze Age. So Iberia comes in as a motor in this system.

• 18:34Tristan Hughes?

  So Spain and Portugal indeed, you know, always so important in the wider Bronze Age story. And of course, we've been focusing on what these Nordic Bronze Age communities were importing in regards to these various metals. But what were they exporting in return? You mentioned amber earlier.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Amber is probably one commodity. And fascinating enough, we can see that in all these mine-bearing regions that Baltic amber comes in, to some extent at least. So that is at least something that points to what had been traded. But then, I mean, there could also be very much organic material and we think also humans.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  I mean, we speculate also that these mines, they needed, some of these mines, and for instance, Great Orme has very narrow shafts, and they argue themselves, it must be in children who has done this undertaking. So we think also captives is a part of this exchange that could have been used in parallel to amber and other features as well. But this is also something we are learned from anthropology, and that you, for that reason, you are you probably focusing on women and children. That's the classical thing in time and space, what you do. And we think that could be a part of the commodity.

• 19:56Tristan Hughes?

  And do we think the importance of boats for these Nordic Bronze Age communities and the development of them, and the mention of captives just then, could there also therefore be a more hostile warfare slants to the gaining of these materials? Could there have been groups of Nordic peoples who were sent out to raid places like Britain to gain the materials that they needed?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Indeed. I think these are very opportunistic ventures, and they, if they have the chance, they, I mean, they are raiding, slaving, probably, and also trading. But classical thing, if, if, I mean, they have a, if you have a weaker opponent, you take the chance. And so we think that's a very important feature also in this system. Basically, this is what you see on the rock art.

• 20:43Tristan Hughes?

  Right.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  I mean, you see, you see a boatload of warriors with, with, you know, swords, weaving swords. For a long time, you said, well, that's ritualistic, and, and it could be, but that's also like the scapegoat for all archaeologists when they don't have another answer. Well, it's a ritual feature, you say. Okay, then it's over. But I mean, thinking of what you literally see on the rock art, I mean, warriors, boats, metals, and, and we are hammering in 20,000 boats on the rocks in Scandinavia during this phase. After the Bronze Age is gone, comes back in the Viking Age in another, in another turn, you can say.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  But it is fascinating because it it show probably it how these societies were entering a change and specifically the groups that are on board these boats that do these undertakings. And I mean, in this system, you have elites, but warriors are instrumental for this system, instrumental to for controlling the trade, executing the trade, for raiding, for slaving, et cetera, et cetera. And we have also what is fascinating with the Nordic Bronze Age, we have the evidence in terms of rock art, in terms of graves of the first warrior class in the Nordic communities.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  I mean, specific individuals with swords, axes, and then also you see it on the rock art.

• 22:16Tristan Hughes?

  I'll ask a bit more about the rock art in a moment because I know that's something you've done a lot of work around. But do we have any direct evidence for battles, for fighting at this period as well alongside, I guess, the indirect evidence of weapons and battle scenes on rock art and so on?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Indeed, I mean, we can, first of all, we have a site in Norway that shows conflict, maybe on a rather low scale, maybe thirty, forty group, and also we can see worn out swords and axes. However, we have the biggest battle recorded, at least in Northern Europe, taking place, the Tullens, that would require people from the north and they couldn't, I mean, there there are big troops coming in from Central Europe. And you speak about maybe some scholars say there are thousands, some say there are five thousand, some say there are ten thousand that clash. I mean, they haven't been able to delimit all these bodies that they have found and

• 23:16Speaker 01

  they are constantly finding more. And this is probably showing the Urnfield expansion up to the north. And ultimately, we think they failed because after that you see the expansion of the Nordic Bronze Age. And there is also pre-print, a new pre-print in nature that's been submitted, showing that we don't find any genetic evidence of Urnfield coming up to the north. While after this phase, the Nordic Bronze Age expands. Interesting with this unifield expansion, also we see a shift from Scandinavia from the trade we had had with the Italian Alps towards Atlantic facade, indicating that

• 24:01Speaker 01

  the unifield is cutting off the trade routes and pushing us towards Atlantic facade, where we then see the similarities between, for instance, I mean, the shields in Britain and Scandinavia, the rock art to some extent, but also the rock art in Iberia. So we find a new, and then the copper in Iberia comes in in that phase as well. So we see a new, you can see three maritime polities in Atlantic Europe, they're pushing Iberia, Britain and Scandinavia, manifested by these Hasbroom shields, as they're called, that you have found on British Isles in Scandinavia, and then also depicted on the Warrior's Stela in Iberia.

• 24:47Tristan Hughes?

  Johan, it's so fascinating. So potentially hostile powers in, you know, what is today Germany, cutting off that land trade route that had been with the Alps and then, you know, as you say, leading to the expansion of the Nordic Bronze Age culture with these great maritime trade routes. It's fascinating to think whether that extraordinary battle sites, talends, you know, the result of that may well have contributed to, you know, the transformation, the rise of the Nordic Bronze Age at that time.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, and I mean, you see a redirection of exchange networks due to that. And still this expansion is, I mean, it goes westward, France, northern Iberia, whilst, you know, Scandinavia stays. We don't get this unifield, you know, we never get, otherwise unifield culture captures most of the regions, but we're, we're staying and Nordic Bronze Age is expanding southwards. In later phase, you're, we are south of Berlin, actually. So it's, it's a little like looking at the Penguin's Atlas from history. It's, it's almost like seeing that in the Bronze Age, but it's fascinating in that sense. So.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  We have underestimated warfare population, we have underestimated organisation of trade, and new data constantly comes in to show that.

• 26:08Tristan Hughes?

  I'd like to now go back to these communities themselves in Scandinavia. And you've already mentioned how you can see the rise of these elites who control the metal trades and this kind of the emergence of these social hierarchies in the Nordic Bronze Age. But do we have any idea about settlement structure? Should we be thinking the equivalent of hill forts or fortified settlements where these chieftains were ruling? I mean, what do we know about, you know, the structure of settlements in the Nordic Bronze Age?

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Well, they are, these are highly decentralised social settings, which is interesting. Not, you know, surrounded by hill fort or fortified as for the Unifield, which is coined as a corporative chieftain based on what you call staple finance. These societies are based on wealth finance and they're typical decentralised. But in this decentralised society, you have what you call decentralised complexity. You have some farmsteads that are really have much power and they expand all the time. Of course, this society, I mean, you have different societies.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Some are more orientated to cooperation and the others are more cohesive, you can say. But in order to organise long-distance exchange, you have to have alliances. So you see probably a mosaic of different types of societies, ranging from more egalitarian to more stratified.

• 27:38Tristan Hughes?

  And being allied together, allied together for the trade.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Whilst the ones that are organising trade, these are the elites, no doubt. And that we very much, I mean, we can see close to the larger farmsteads we find, specifically in Denmark, these large barrows that indicates, you know, this institutionalised, formalised leadership that are related to these farmsteads. And that we have clearly a stratified society during this phase, able to organise long-distance trade.

• 28:13Tristan Hughes?

  And then would they almost have, I don't want to do it almost as like a, the rung down, I think that's the wrong terminology. But would you then have within these societies specialists who would be working in, in the equivalent, I guess, of blacksmiths or workshops, basically the people who would be, you know, they get the tin and the copper and then they're crafting it into the certain bronze objects, or do the objects come fully formed?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  No, that's a fascinating thing with the Nordic Bronze Age that we, I mean, in the, in the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age, you import certain objects, but we can see in, in the early Bronze Age, the Nordic industry starts, showing that we are casting everything ourselves up here, doing it in a Nordic fashion. And we can find workshops for that. Some are, seems to be integrated in, in certain households. Others are, seems to be more specialist. Interesting enough, most data on that from Sweden. I think we have, although missed some, I mean, Denmark has the, is a region without the most bronzes.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  And, and they haven't been able to actually find all these workshops yet. Because there should be considerable, you know, sites where, or sites showing the bronze casting, knowing that you annually import one to two tonnage. That's a little phenomena, but we have some theories about it. In any case, in terms of your question, yes, you have specialists indeed that, that are casting bronze. And you have some probably integrated in the household, some for the elites. And then some in the house, or you maybe have somebody that's concentrated on, on the axes, on this common artifacts for everyday life, so to speak.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  And then these were specific for weapons and ornaments.

• 30:10Tristan Hughes?

  So you get the weapons and ornaments. That was really interesting, what you highlighted there about, you know, kind of artifacts for everyday life. So do we get a sense that, you know, these Bronze Age artifacts are being created, let's say, like axes? And then could they almost be spread across the community to like an everyday farmer so that they would have access to a new kind of metal axe that they could go about doing their work? Or was it very much a case, do we think that even these axes were kept to the highest in society?

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Well, I think the key here is that, I mean, you have elites that control the flow of metal, that control the flow of copper and tin that comes in. But they want this out in the system. They want these farmers, these herders or everybody to use this artifact. So, or this metal. So therefore, it's widely distributed to some sense for tools and other things. But what we can see is that the tools has a wider spread than, for instance, weapons and ornaments that are more kept held in graves

• 31:22Speaker 01

  or confined in the areas with best agro-pastoral production, which is very important here. That, I mean, the agro-pastoral production is the foundation for these families to have surplus from and thereby organize trade. And, you know, pay for the boats, pay for the crew. Or, I mean, to be simple. While they are keen also on to see that this material comes out in the society as a whole. So therefore, you see a spread of these, you know, these common or practical tools much more than the weapons are spreading or ornaments.

• 32:03Tristan Hughes?

  Really interesting what you mentioned there about, you know, kind of paying for the boats or the crews. Given how important, you know, those boats were for the bringing in of materials. Johan, do we have any idea from the surviving archaeology what these Nordic Bronze Age ports would have looked like?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Well, they are probably natural ports, knowing that the boats we are dealing with here are more or less canal-like boats. We are basing that on probably, you know, the Jøt spring boat in Denmark that are very indeed similar, although dated to the early Iron Age or transition of our Bronze Age or early Iron Age. It's very similar indeed to the boats depicted on the rock art. And it's so complex composite boat, plankbill boat, that it couldn't be, you know, it didn't erect in a day. It has a long history. And it has very much similarities to the plankbill boat on the British Isles, that are indeed earlier, that are found, I mean, the ferrybee boats, et cetera, and all those.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  But still, it seems to be more seaworthy in a sense. We have modeled that boat and using both in a simulation, we have made a 3D reconstruction of it and also model it against data from wind, currents, depth, et cetera, what you call ocean modeling. And therefore, we can very specifically show its capacity. That in good weather condition, you're with 18, 16 paddlers, you can go about 100 and even more kilometers a day. But then in bad weather conditions, it's less. And then all in all,

• 33:44Speaker 01

  I mean, therefore, you could probably keep and all in all paddling eight hours a day, about 80 kilometers or so.

• 33:52Tristan Hughes?

  Right.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  The ones on these boats, they are like the hockey team, they are the soccer team, they are the, I mean, they are the warriors, they're the one that, and they have a chance then to come out, see other people, interact. In a way, it's a sort of academy also. You have to qualify, you have to be initiated. And this is something probably that was a driver in this society. Instead of sitting home with your mother and the goat in the farmstead, you would rather be on the boat with these other trained colleagues, so to speak.

• 34:29Tristan Hughes?

  I guess you could imagine like a Nordic Bronze Age equivalents of boat races as well between communities.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Indeed. And I think that is what we very much see on the rock. I mean, similar that you have in other maritime societies in the Pacific, Maori or or also Hawaii or Solomon Islands. We can take it also with British Columbia, with the Haida Indians that, interesting enough, had boats that are similar in length and width, although done with a dugout, you know, they have these large cedar trees. But they are, they have the same proportion as the Otriums boat. They took these boats. Two thousand kilometers, sometimes east season, to trade, raid and intimidate.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  They had a slave economy, so they were going to both Alaska and all the way, actually, to Southern California to intimidate, trade and raid. When the ethnographers came, this is late, though, in history, but they call them the Vikings from the West Coast. But fascinating and also important to compare to other American cultures in time and space.

• 35:41Tristan Hughes?

  And the building of a boat, how important that could be to a community, like with the ancient Polynesians, learning about how central it is, the building of the boat together.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that was probably also, you know, in parallel with rituals, you know, all the way. And therefore, we think maybe the parts of the rock art could have done in partly when you actually built the boat as a magical counterpart to enrich the boat with magic, so to speak. Because we see rock art on high ground, favorable for where you have a lot, had a lot of forests, and then they drip down to the seashore, so to speak. We think it goes from, you know, cutting down the trees, carving out of the boats, and then finally launching the boat in a highly ritualistic manner.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  What started the civil war? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America?

• 36:52Speaker 03

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• 37:41Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, you read what my next question was going to be, which was, I mean, whereabouts in Scandinavia do we find large concentrations of rock art dating to this time? Well, answer that and then kind of explain to us what we should be envisaging with this rock art and how it's created.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, we find them in coastal areas. I mean, the most dense area, the one, the west coast in Sweden, but also in that sense, the east coast of Norway that merged there also, but all coastal area, coastal Skania area, the region close to Stockholm and, and also the region in, in the Baltic, the Swedish region where coastal area. So they're a majority are, are made in this coastal regions. They're dominated by ships, warriors, metals, and also cosmopolitan codes, you can say. Fascinating enough, we can see a peak in the rock art production when we have a peak in metal circulation.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Therefore, we strongly believe that this is a praxis related to long distance exchange of metal and more specifically, the groups that executed this trade that do this, probably to initiate, to learn, to discuss also how to do these undertakings. It's, you can say in ancient Greece, you had this rhetorics that you learned and you're supposed to, okay, what do you do if this happens? And, and only like looking at an image of a boat. If you have bad weather, how do you act? And just point to a boat on the rock art to say, okay,

• 39:21Speaker 01

  I will do this and this. So I think they are, they are, they are preparing these journeys and rock art is a part of that, partly initiate the crew, but partly to, to prepare, mentally prepare these journeys that are A, dangerous, you're meeting the sea and, and different weather, but even worse, you're meeting other human groups.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  And how to handle that, how to communicate with them, how to fight with them. Again, looking at British Columbia, I I know that, you know, they had really hostile chiefdoms, maritime chiefdoms that were constantly at war. And they, instead of coastal hug, these groups were were moving out as far to the sea in in order to not encounter other groups. Because that's the most difficult part. Therefore, rock art is probably very close to what you call magic in that sense. Magic for for, you know, making sure that you can realize these journeys.

• 40:29Tristan Hughes?

  I was also going to say, they sound almost like, um, you know, the equivalent of training manuals, as you say, for people learning the scenes and what to do if they were going on one of these voyages. And those artistic depictions of those various events. Do we know much about how they created the rock art? Because if someone mentions rock art to me, I do think of the Stone Age. I do think of someone or a whole community taking hours, days, weeks out of their routine with a small hammer stone in hand and just bashing it against a rock again and again. Do we have any idea what the Nordic Bronze Age styled was, I guess, how they did it?

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Well, interestingly enough, we have new data on that. We have a new project, tracing the carvers, it's called, where we have been able to forward that. And as you said, for a long time, we have argued that you have done it with a direct technique with with stone, right? And therefore, a stone type, I mean, most of the rock art are made in granite in in the West Coast, and therefore you need a stone that is harder than that, amphabolite or corset or quartz, so to speak. But there are some details in the rock art. I mean, some of the crew strokes you do are millimeters from each other. And we can now show also that.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  And with experiments, but also with laser scanning and other things that you must have outlined the rock art with bronze.

• 41:58Tristan Hughes?

  Ah.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  And we have made experiments on it. And instead of taking like 10 hours to make a boat, we come down in half an hour or less than that with bronze. Of course, this this shows that bronze bronze is vanishing when you do this. Little depending on the techniques you have, but if you heat up parts of the rock, drain it and then put water on it and then use bronze, then you can do it in a much faster way. And then we find also, we can detect details in the outline of the rock art that could not be made by, they're so specific and sharp, so they made a sharp tool. So this qualifies stone or bone.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  We have a professor in granite who has said it must be metal. So it's interesting that you use metal to make the rock art in this space. And it's almost like conceptual consumption or what you call potlash, probably also that, okay, we can afford, we can, we have bronze, we can, they can be used for this as well to show also that these are, you know, groups that are on a higher rank than others in society.

• 43:13Tristan Hughes?

  Amazing, isn't it? And just, I mean, such a rich concentration and I can see it, pictures of birds, obviously boats, men and women, animals and ships, snakes and whales and everything like that. It really epitomizes, doesn't it? That great variety of artistic designs that they made in this rock art over centuries.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. And and another analogy for the type of organization that does this, I mean, are organizing trade or the ones on board are what you call secret societies that you find in time, in space, in the world, and they are most probably, they are oftenly making rock art. They are controlling trade, they have networks of trade, and they use power symbols and magic. And also they control religion and magic in society. It's one of the control to show that we have the control of religion and magic. You do not have that.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  This makes us exclusive. We can do these long-distance journeys. We can meet other people aboard. We can learn. You don't have that. You don't qualify. Which was very much the case in North America. You have examples of societies making rock art in accordance with long-distance exchange, with dangerous undertakings, with warfare. For instance, Sitting Bull made rock art before the Battle of

• 44:38Tristan Hughes?

  Little Bokhun.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:40Tristan Hughes?

  I'm glad you mentioned religion, Johan, because I feel I need to ask about that now, as we haven't covered it too much so far. Do we have much idea then, alongside the rock art, from the surviving artifacts that we have and the settlement structures and the importance of metals, do we have any idea what spiritual beliefs these Nordic Bronze Age communities had?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Well, there are two theories about it. Some scholars argue that you don't depict gods. Others say they do. It's a big debate. I mean, basically, between, probably you know Fleming Cowell, who has written an entire book of Bronze Age religion versus Christian Christians, and that argue that you have personified gods, you have the twin rulers depicted on the rock art. And then in between, we have Timur Earl, who say that, well, these are elite societies, they don't flesh out gods on the panels. This is nothing you control. And it's an interesting topic in that sense. But otherwise, I mean, religion has been the one you have made most speculation on

• 45:47Speaker 01

  in terms of Bronze Age Northern Europe, but not so much to the other features. Again, this is so typical archaeology when you don't have a answer. Well, it's religion. You say it's ritual. But all in all, we can say that the religion is probably, is related to, in general, to Indo-European aspects of religion from that phase, where you have certain strands that are denoted, both in the rock art and also in the funerals and other phenomena, so to speak.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  But the important thing here is that the religion is controlled by the elites.

• 46:27Tristan Hughes?

  Right.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  And therefore, you know, the debate is wherever you flash them out on the panels and on the rock or not, or if there is other symbols, specifically maybe this ornamentation that you see on on the bronzes, that they are more elitistic, they are more secret. And interesting enough, you never see these on the rocks.

• 46:48Tristan Hughes?

  Because I've also heard a lot when it comes to Nordic Bronze Age religion, and also, I guess, aligning with what people see in other Bronze Age cultures, the importance of the sun in religion and whether there was a sun cult. And I've also got in my notes this this amazing artifact called the Trundhelm chariot, which I must ask about.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Indeed, I mean, you can say celestial orientated, the sun, the moon and other features. And that and and you can see it as you see in both the bronze artifacts, but also on the rock art. So therefore, some scholars, as Fleming Cowell and others, argue that this is what you flash out, not personified gods, rather the ones that that try to position the self in society in relation to these celestial symbols, as for the sun. And it's very clear, as you say, that it seems like the religion is sun orientated. And it has, I mean, symbolic reasons, but also practical reasons.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Because you it's fascinating to see oftenly with these depiction of boats, that you see a sun symbol or sometimes a cup mark, you think a sun symbol.

• 48:01Tristan Hughes?

  Ah.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Most probably, or we can say logically, these societies, they use sun for navigation. This is something when you navigate during the day, that also the Vikings did. That you take, that you use. So the sun is not only a symbol for the religious realm, it also has a practical function in that sense.

• 48:25Tristan Hughes?

  Because I would always think, you know, the sun, obviously the importance for growing crops and so on. But once again, you bring it back, Johan, to that other key aspect of the Nordic Bronze Age, which we go back to again and again, which is the maritime part of it and the seafaring and navigation and all that, of course.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  I won't deny this with the corpse and the seasons, but still it could have other interesting functions as well.

• 48:49Tristan Hughes?

  Could you also mention to us what this stunning artifact is, the Trundhelm chariot? Because it seems if anyone types in the Nordic Bronze Age, they will probably see this striking artifact first and foremost.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Well, it's fascinating. You can say it's a chariot with two horses pulling a disc that on the one side has gold and the one side bronze. And you think it represents the travel of the sun and the moon in a circuit, so to speak. Fascinating. I heard the story how it was found. It was found by a farmer's son and he played with it in his bathtub.

• 49:29Tristan Hughes?

  Amazing.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  And then somebody reported to some antique scholars and said, well, look. But it's very fascinating. It also shows how driven the bronze craft is. How driven you are to, you can make these very detailed features. And looking at the horse's eyes and other things, it's probably a manifesto of this sun-oriented religion that you have in the Bronze Age. And we see other related phenomena to that as well.

• 50:00Tristan Hughes?

  We could talk about so many other amazing examples of splendid artifacts from the Nordic Bronze Age. I will ask about one other, which kind of brings us back to the military, but at the same time, maybe not. It's an extraordinary artifact. I saw like kind of this gold helmet, but it almost has horns on it. Naturally with the Vikings, there's that big factoid of that the Vikings didn't have horned helmets. But you seem to have evidence of a horned helmet in this pre-Viking Bronze Age society.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, indeed. I mean, here's one example, the Vixxer helmets, but also on the rock art. So therefore, again, it's this old notion that is the Viking, starting with the Bronze Age.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Fascinating with these Vixxer helmets, there are two pairs and therefore people are arguing that this could also symbolize the twin rulers, the Indo-European notion of two leaders, one more ritualistic and one more politic, so to speak. And that we see other features also on the rock art that could be related to that phenomenon. But these helmets are extraordinary and they are about 1000 B.C. You see them also depicted in the Iberian Bronze Age on the warrior stele. Helmets with horns also on Sardinia on these figurines, but the most similar analogy of

• 51:26Speaker 01

  the Iberian warrior stele, so to speak. And they show also how, I mean, there's also typical feature for what you call secret societies using, you know, that there are groups that has ritual perplania that show that they're in contact with the supernatural world. They control that contact. They travel, they meet other groups that also elites that has this contact and that travels are a part of showing that they're exclusive and they're in contact with both the supernatural and other things that qualify them to this position.

• 52:05Tristan Hughes?

  Johan, this has all been so, so interesting. I wish I had time to ask so many more questions. Next up was going to be burial and examples like the, is it the Egthved girl? Or, you know, extraordinary case, I just don't think we quite have time to do it today, but it can be a topic for another episode in the future. I think to wrap this all up, obviously we talked about like these amazing Bronze Age societies, what we know, but do we know much about like the coming of iron and the end of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia, in these Nordic societies?

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Well, we know that when iron comes in to play, so to speak, this entire system cracks up. Before, you have had a system based on elite families that organized long-distance trade of copper and tin. Here, you have it locally. So for a while, it becomes more internal and in a way also more equal in that sense. But then it starts to evolve again. And in the Viking Age, you have other domains. For instance, you have the silver then, of course, and also other exotica. But iron replaces this, I mean, forged metal, I mean bronze for tools and weapons.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Specifically, when you're able to do what you call steel, actually, or it's like you mix carcoal with iron. Iron per se is less effective than bronze, but when you do steel, that's the deal. But bronze is close to steel, which is fascinating. It's a fascinating material.

• 53:44Tristan Hughes?

  Well, Johan, you have given us a wonderful overview of the Nordic Bronze Age. And of course, we can talk about so much more if we had the time, but sadly, we do not. Lastly, you've done so many projects around this over the years. What are you working on currently?

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Currently, I have one major project, the Merit of Encounters, where we try to look at the trade exchange and warfare along the Atlantic facade. And specifically, we try to forward aspects on mobility, on sourcing of copper. We are excavating mines in Iberia. We are looking in more closely to the Great Orme. We are looking at the tin, which is a key thing here and that you on the British Isles are sitting on, that everybody would need. I mean, we speak about... Here we speak about, you know, all this copper that they imported, but think about the 10% was tin.

• 54:37Tristan Hughes?

  Yes, yes.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Well, there are also tonnage, tonnage, tonnage of tin. And now later analyses have shown that the tin is going all the way to the East Mediterranean world. And fascinating enough is where you find most artefacts of tin. You have the Ullaburn, for instance, that has at least one tonnage of tin that match sources in Cornwall. So showing again how important long distance exchange were in the Bronze Age and also the tin in this.

• 55:05Tristan Hughes?

  Britain certainly got lucky with tin in the Bronze Age, didn't they? Johan, this has been absolutely great. It just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 55:18Tristan Hughes?

  Well, there you go. There was Professor Johan Ling talking you through the story of the Nordic Bronze Age. An amazing story. It deserves to be better known, so I really do hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for listening. Please follow The Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, we'd really appreciate that. Now, don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.