Bronze Age Vikings? A Comparative Analysis of Deep Historical Structures and their Dynamics

• I have carried out a structural and processual comparison between the Bronze Age and the Viking Age. Deep structural correspondences may be observed. Historical regularities are thus at play and can be summarized in a shared sequence of events/ processes: (1) New maritime technologies allow the expansion of trade networks during the Bronze Age and the Viking Age, as well as the formation of a semiindependent maritime economy; (2) Population pressure and lack of land for young warriors/sons with no inheritance leads to the formation of war-bands that engage in seasonal raiding/trading/piracy using the maritime economy as an outlet; (3) This is followed up by more massive colonizing ventures/seaborne migrations; and thus (4) during both periods the political economy was based on a chiefdom form of society where free farmers were the dominant class, with commoners and slaves as dependent groups. At the end of the Viking Age the structural longue durée came to an end with Christianization and the formation of feudal states.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Bronze Age

Viking Age

raid

trade

chiefdom

maritime economy

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)