Proto-Vikings: The Nordic Bronze Age

Transcript

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Speaker 18 Hey guys, I hope you're doing well.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 What we can do, however, is cover the story of their Scandinavian ancestors. And that's what we're doing today.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 Really grateful for his time. And I really do hope you enjoy.
Let's go.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 A culture of rulers, raiders and rock art, of sun chariots, horned helmets and so much more.

Speaker 19 This is the story of the Nordic Bronze Age with our guest, Professor Johan Ling.

Speaker 19 Johan, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Speaker 18 Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 And yet this extraordinary culture, it's central to the story of Europe's wider Bronze Age.

Speaker 18 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 face in... European prehistory.

Speaker 19 And set the scene for us, first of all, Johan. When are we talking with the Nordic Bronze Age?

Speaker 18 Basically, we talk about 1800 BC to 700 BC.

Speaker 19 And in regards to Scandinavia, are there particular parts of Scandinavia where we focus in on with the Nordic Bronze Age?

Speaker 18 We're 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 19 And you mentioned also there how the Nordic Bronze Age begins around 1800 BC.

Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 Already then we have copper alloys, so to speak. But when we get what you call full tin bronze, bronze with about 90% copper and 10% tin, it's about 1800 BC.
Therefore, we coin it that way.

Speaker 18 You are earlier on the British Isles

Speaker 18 in that sense.

Speaker 18 I mean, British Isles are one of the earliest regions in Europe Europe with full tin bronze or what you call already 2000 BC, fascinating enough, because you bump into this grey stuff in Cornwall, probably

Speaker 18 according to colleagues in the UK, when you're looking for gold. And then for some reason, you start to alloy this with copper and

Speaker 18 you get a really high quality metal that you can use for tools, weapons, ornaments. It shines like gold, also, but highly, highly sufficient.

Speaker 18 And in terms of tools and weapons, it does not become replaced until you have iron or actually steel in that sense.

Speaker 19 So, how does tin bronze, and how does the Bronze Age come to Scandinavia? Do we know much about that?

Speaker 18 Well, in a way, we do because it has much to do with how if we, first of all, did we extract copper, we not.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 They do not match the signatures on the artifacts when we analyze those. So it shows, and also we had no evidence of prehistoric mining.

Speaker 18 Therefore, these societies were needed to import copper and also tin. And they do that on a regular basis, but also in a very high basis, so to speak.
We speak about annually that you import

Speaker 18 at least two, maybe three, maybe four tonnage to Scandinavia in order to fulfill the demands that these societies have. And we have new data comes.

Speaker 18 in all the time showing that we have underestimated the consumption of copper and tin. For instance, we have findings of swords only

Speaker 18 that shows that all in all would require true tonnage.

Speaker 18 Also, knowing that a lot of material has, I mean, bronze also vanishes when you use it.

Speaker 18 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

Speaker 18 0.01 percentage of what has been extracted.

Speaker 19 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 decreases.

Speaker 19 So the amount of copper and tin coming to Scandinavia, it only grows in like the tonnage as those centuries progressed.

Speaker 18 Yes, exactly. Due to that you use it A, both for weapons and for tools.
and for ornament. So it's like a multi-tool in that sense.

Speaker 18 And interesting enough, you can see when in the late Bronze Age or transition to the Iron Age, when Scandinavian societies start to use local iron instead, the entire system in Scandinav breaks down.

Speaker 18 A 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.

Speaker 18 Interesting, also, we can say we can make an analogy, for instance, with the Viking Age, where we know that, for instance, Scandavia and specifically some parts of Sweden were able to attract most silver.

Speaker 18 I mean, we have the largest silver hordes in entire Europe. We don't extract silver.

Speaker 18 But in the Viking Age, we then know, we have literature saying that, well, the Vikings, they crew their boats and tried to push as far as possible nearest sources of metal or of the silver, for instance, or the ports.

Speaker 18 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 Age, although not the same scale and not the same details.

Speaker 18 But we cannot understand otherwise how the Scandinavian societies were able to organize or attract all this metal.

Speaker 18 Of course, you could speculate to say, well, you can have like down the line trade of, you know, that, you know go 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 and sweden that match great orum a specific mine that you have in wales in wales okay although you have almost basically nothing in between you have of course you have great or copper in france

Speaker 18 but nothing

Speaker 18 in that sense in the regions between. But then we have very much, I mean, in Scandavia.
Also, Scandavia is the region that has outermost axis of British types from this phase outside Britain.

Speaker 18 Therefore, I mean, direct trade must have been the matter. And therefore, you must have had...

Speaker 18 sufficient boats, you must have had crew, probably crew consisting of slash warriors, traveler, traders, very much similar to what we see in the Viking Age.

Speaker 18 And probably they try to push these boats as close as possible to where the sources are.

Speaker 18 We have, for instance, modeled on basis of the capacity of Bronze Age boats, the Planck boats, how long time it would take to paddle to Great Orme.

Speaker 18 And it would take about 40, 45 days with good weather conditions, something like that.

Speaker 18 But probably you go maybe not that far, you go to other ports, you go to Tanet, a very interesting island, or used to be an island in southeast England, or Isle of Wight, or other places in between, so to speak.

Speaker 19 I 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 become really skilled seafarers and develop these extraordinary boats from some 3,000 years ago.

Speaker 18 Indeed, first of all, and it demands also a very specific social organization to handle this.

Speaker 18 And also what we see is the emergence of the first political economy with institutionalized leadership that are able to organize the trade.

Speaker 18 And therefore, what you coin as chiefdom or chiefdom-like societies, and they are concentrating on wealth flows. These are probably families, elite families that could organize trade.

Speaker 18 They are very much concentrating on these wealth flows, and they do that through bottlenecks. Bottleneck is a boat, for instance.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 We are also pretty much convinced that this system is based on unfree labor, on slaves. As for the Viking Age, I mean,

Speaker 18 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?

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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 and you can see a social strata, so to speak, and probably also, you know, indications what could be unfree labor.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 And of course, it's a very spectacular.

Speaker 18 Oftenly 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

Speaker 18 it has a dark side, I have to say.

Speaker 18 it's probably leaders that utilize other groups and not and also other groups in society in order to achieve the goals.

Speaker 19 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 those rich families that emerge in the Bronze Age, controlling these metal trade routes.

Speaker 19 Those are the ones who are visible in the surviving archaeology with their amazing grave goods and copper and bronze weapons and so on.

Speaker 19 And as you say, the more invisible people, although you pointed out the archaeology is actually revealing, maybe pointed out on free labor.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 18 Yeah, exactly. Briefly, I mean, we have the same situation in Scandinavia with the highly furnished barrels, you know, as you say here, the Kilmarting.

Speaker 18 And then we have people buried in pits with nothing. So

Speaker 18 And all in all,

Speaker 18 slaves must have been a very important commodity also in trade, we think, but also

Speaker 18 due to to be able to organize trade, to fill the labor gaps at the farm, so to speak. And I remember we had a conference back in 2017.

Speaker 18 with one of the leading scholars in anthropology, Timothy Earl Bren Hayden, and they saw some of the papers from, this was also the leading Bronze Age scholars from Europe.

Speaker 18 And they said, Fine, interesting with this trade with amber, gold, and copper, tin, but where are the unfree labor?

Speaker 18 They said, I mean, we can't see any society that are able to organize trade, long-distance trade, they that does not have this.

Speaker 18 And that was a like awakening for us. And then we start to model this with the slave labor.

Speaker 1 Hi, folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 You highlighted how Britain seems to be a source of copper imported into Scandinavia, places like the Great Orme Mine. But do we know just how extensive these trade routes became in the Bronze Age?

Speaker 19 I mean, how far and wide they spread, the various sources of metals that they were importing.

Speaker 18 Well, they were extensive. And I mean, as I said, in terms of Scandinavia, we can then specifically say that

Speaker 18 in the early Bronze Age, we get metal both from the Alpine region

Speaker 18 and but also the British Isles. In a certain phase, interesting enough, when Great Orm is supposedly its most active, 1600 to 1400 BC, the majority of our artifacts match

Speaker 18 that mine. Afterwards, Great Orm is declining and other sources.
Then we turn to Tallinn Alps for a while and then Iberia.

Speaker 18 Iberia comes in like a really strong motor, which is not surprising because Iberia has not only Europe's, but one of the world's largest mineralization of copper. It's crazy.

Speaker 18 And they have, all in all, they have potentially 150 mines that could be from the Bronze Age that hasn't been explored yet.

Speaker 18 But there are at least 40 of these mines match artifacts from Ireland, southern Britain, southern England, France, Scandinavia, Poland in the late Bronze Age.

Speaker 18 So Iberia comes in as a motor in this system.

Speaker 19 So Spain and Portugal, indeed, you know, always always so important in the wider Bronze Age story.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 I mean, we speculate also that these mines, they needed some of these mines, and for instance, Great Worm has very narrow shafts and they argue themselves, it must have been children who has done this undertaking.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 But this is also something we have learned from anthropology and that you, for that reason, you are

Speaker 18 probably focusing on women and children. That's a classical thing in time and space, what you do.
And we think that could be a part of the commodity.

Speaker 19 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 more hostile warfare slant to the gaining of these materials?

Speaker 19 Could there have been groups of Nordic peoples who were sent out to raid places like Britain to gain the materials that they needed?

Speaker 18 Indeed, I think these are very opportunistic ventures. And if they have the chance, I mean they are raiding, slaving,

Speaker 18 probably, and also trading. But classical thing,

Speaker 18 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. Right.
I mean,

Speaker 18 you see a boatload of warriors with

Speaker 18 swords, weaving swords. For a long time, you said, well, that's ritualistic.
And it could be, but that's also like... the scapegoat for all archaeologists when they don't have another answer.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 18 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

Speaker 18 in another turn, you can say.

Speaker 18 But it is fascinating because it show probably how these societies were entering a change and specifically the groups that are on board these boats that do these undertakings.

Speaker 18 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, etc., etc.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 I mean, specific individuals with swords, axes, and then also you see it on the rock art.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 18 Indeed.

Speaker 18 I mean, we can, first of all, we have a site site in norway that shows conflict maybe on a rather low scale maybe 30 40 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 tollens

Speaker 18 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 5,000, some say there are 10,000 that clash.

Speaker 18 I mean they haven't been able to delimit all these bodies that they have found and they are constantly finding more. And this is probably showing the Urnfield expansion up to the north.

Speaker 18 And ultimately, we think they failed. Because after that, you see the expansion of the Nordic Bronze Age.

Speaker 18 And there's also a preprint, a new preprint in Nature that's been submitted showing that we don't find any genetic evidence of the UN field coming up to the north.

Speaker 18 While after this phase, the Nordic Bronze Age expands.

Speaker 18 Interesting, with this Unefield expansion, also we see a shift from Scandavia from the trade we had had with the Italian Alps towards the Atlantic facade.

Speaker 18 indicating that the UN field is cutting off the trade routes and pushing us towards the 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.

Speaker 18 So we find a new,

Speaker 18 and then the copper in Iberia comes in in that phase as well.

Speaker 18 So we see a new, you can see three maritime polities in Atlantic Europe that are pushing Iberia, Britain and Scandavia, manifested by these hairsprung shields, as they're called, that you have found on British Isles, in Scandavia, and then also depicted on the warrior stela in Iberia.

Speaker 19 Johan, it's so fascinating.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 It's fascinating to think whether that extraordinary battle site, Tolens,

Speaker 19 the result of that may well have contributed to

Speaker 19 the transformation, the rise of the Nordic Bronze Age at that time.

Speaker 18 Exactly. And

Speaker 18 I mean, you see a redirection of exchange networks due to that.

Speaker 18 And still this expansion is, I mean, it goes westward, France, northern Iberia. Whilst, you know, Scandavia stays.
We don't get this Unefeld, you know, we never get,

Speaker 18 otherwise, Unefeld culture captures multiple regions, but we're staying and Nordic Bronze Age is expanding southwards.

Speaker 18 In later phase, we are south of Berlin, actually. So it's a little like looking at the penguins atlas from history.
It's almost like seeing that in the Bronze Age, but it's fascinating in that sense.

Speaker 18 So we have underestimated warfare. population, we have underestimated organization of trade, and new data constantly comes in to show that.

Speaker 19 I'd like to now go back to these communities themselves in Scandinavia.

Speaker 19 And you've already mentioned how you 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 I mean, what do we know about, you know, the structure of settlements in the Nordic Bronze Age?

Speaker 18 Well,

Speaker 18 these are highly decentralized social settings, which is interesting. Not

Speaker 18 surrounded by hill fort or fortified, as for the Unefeld,

Speaker 18 which is coined as a corporative shiftum based on what you call staple finance. These societies are based on wealth finance.

Speaker 18 and they're typical decentralized but in this decentralized society you have what you call decentralized complexity you have some farm states that are really

Speaker 18 have much power and they expand all the time. Of course, this society, I mean, you have different societies.
Some are more orientated to cooperation and others are more coercive, you can say.

Speaker 18 But in order to organize long distance exchange, you have to have alliances. So you see probably a

Speaker 18 mosaic of different types of societies ranging from more egalitarian to more stratified.

Speaker 19 And being allied together, allied together for the trade.

Speaker 18 Whilst the ones that are organizing trade, these are the elites, no doubt.

Speaker 18 And that we very much, I mean, we can see close to the larger farmsteads, we find, specifically in Denmark, these large barrels that indicate, you know, this institutionalized, formalized leadership that are related to these farmsteads.

Speaker 18 And that we have clearly a stratified society during this phase able to organize long distance trade.

Speaker 19 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 the equivalent, I guess, of blacksmiths or workshops, basically the people who would be...

Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 18 No, that's a fascinating thing with the Nordic Bronze Age.

Speaker 18 That we, I mean, in the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age, you import certain objects, but we can see in the early Bronze Age, the Nordic industry starts showing that we are casting everything ourselves up here, doing it in a Nordic fashion.

Speaker 18 And we can find workshops for that. Some seems to be integrated in certain households, other Others seem to be more specialist.
Interesting enough, most data on that from Sweden.

Speaker 18 I think we have although missed some. I mean, Denmark

Speaker 18 is a region without the most bronzes.

Speaker 18 And they haven't been able to actually find all these workshops yet, because there should be considerable

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 In any case, in terms of your question, yes, you have specialists indeed that are casting bronze. And you have some probably integrated in the household, some for the elites.

Speaker 18 And then some in the household, you maybe have somebody that concentrated on the axis on this common artifacts for everyday life, so to speak. And then these were specific for weapons and ornaments.

Speaker 19 So you get the weapons and ornaments, but that was really interesting what you highlighted there about, you know, kind of artifacts for everyday life. So do we get a sense that

Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 19 Or was it very much a case, do we think that even these axes were kept to the highest in society?

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 They want these farmers, these herders, or everybody to use this artifact.

Speaker 18 So, so, or this metal. So, therefore,

Speaker 18 it's widely distributed to some sense for tools and other things.

Speaker 18 But what we can see is that the tools have a wider spread than, for instance, weapons and ornaments that are more kept held in graves or confined in the areas with best agro-pastoral production, which is very important here.

Speaker 18 That, I mean, the the the agro-pastoral product 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.

Speaker 18 So therefore you see a spread of these

Speaker 18 common or practical tools much more than the weapons are spreading or ornaments.

Speaker 19 Really interesting what you mentioned there about

Speaker 19 paying for the boats or the the crews. Given how important, you know, those boats were for the bringing in of materials.

Speaker 19 Johan, do we have any idea from the surviving archaeology what these Nordic Bronze Age ports would have looked like?

Speaker 18 Well, they are probably natural ports, knowing that the boats we are dealing with here are more or less canoe-like boats.

Speaker 18 We are basing that on probably, you know, the Jutspring boat in Denmark that are very indeed similar, although dated to the early Iron Age or transition of our Bronze Age, early Iron Age, it's very similar indeed to the boats depicted on the rock art.

Speaker 18 And it's so complex, composite boat, plankbuilt boat, that it couldn't be, you know, it didn't erect in a day.

Speaker 19 It has a long history.

Speaker 18 And it has very much similarities to the Plankbuild boat on the British Isles that are indeed earlier that are found, I mean, the ferryby boats, etc. and all those.

Speaker 18 But still, it seems to be more seaworthy in a sense.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 And therefore, we can very specifically show its capacity. that in good weather condition,

Speaker 18 with 18, 16 paddlers, you can go about 100 and even more kilometers a day. But then in bad weather conditions, it's less.

Speaker 18 And then all in all, I mean, therefore, you could probably keep an all-in-all paddling eight hours a day, about 80 kilometers or so.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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 an academy also you you have to qualify you have to be initiated and 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 i guess you could imagine like um nordic bronze age equivalence of boat races as well between communities indeed And I think that is what we very much see on the rock.

Speaker 18 I mean, similar as you have in other maritime societies in the Pacific, Maori or also Hawaii or Solomon Islands.

Speaker 18 We can take it also with British Columbia, with the Haida Indians, that, interestingly enough, had boats that are similar in length and width.

Speaker 18 although done with a dugout, you know, they have these large cedar trees, but they have the same proportion as the Jürgen's boat.

Speaker 18 They took these boats 2,000 kilometers sometimes each season to trade, raid, and intimidate.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 This is late though in history, but they call them the Vikings from the West Coast.

Speaker 18 But fascinating and also important to compare to other maritime cultures in time and space.

Speaker 19 And the building of a boat, how important that could be to a community, like with the ancient Polynesians learning about

Speaker 19 how central it is, the building of the boat together.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 18 And that was probably also, you know, in parallel with rituals, you know, all the way. And therefore, we think maybe the...

Speaker 18 parts of the rock art could have done in part partly when you when you actually built the boat as a magical counterpart to enrich the boat with magic, so to speak.

Speaker 18 Because we see rock art on high ground, favorable for where you

Speaker 18 had a lot of forest, and then they drip down to the seashore, so to speak.

Speaker 18 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.

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Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 19 We'll answer that and then kind of explain to us what we should be envisaging with this rock art and how it's created.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 18 Well, we find them in coastal areas. I mean, the the most dense area are the one, the west coast in Sweden, but also in that sense, the east coast of Norway that merge there.

Speaker 18 Also, but all coastal area, coastal Scania area, the region close to Stockholm and also the region in the Baltic, the Swedish

Speaker 18 coastal area. So they are a majority are made in these coastal regions.
they're dominated by ships, warriors, metals, and also cosmopolitan codes, you can say.

Speaker 18 Fascinating enough, we can see a peak in the rock art production when we have a peak in metal circulation.

Speaker 18 Therefore, we strongly believe that this is a praxis related to long-distance exchange of metal, and more specifically, the groups that execute this trade, that do this probably to initiate, to learn, to discuss also how to do these undertakings.

Speaker 18 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 only like looking at an image, at a boat.

Speaker 18 If you have bad weather, how do you act? And just point to a boat on the rock art to say, okay, I will do this and this.

Speaker 18 So I think they are...

Speaker 18 they are they are preparing these journeys and rock art is a part of that partly initiate the crew, but partly to prepare, mentally prepare these journeys that are A, dangerous, you're meeting the sea and different weather, but even worse, you meeting other human groups and how to handle that, how to communicate with them, how to fight with them.

Speaker 18 Again, looking at British Columbia, I know that, you know, they had really hostile chiefdoms, maritime chiefdoms that were constantly at war.

Speaker 18 And they, instead of coastal hug, these groups were moving out

Speaker 18 as far to the sea in order to not encounter other groups. Because that's the most difficult part.
Therefore, Rockhart is probably very close to what you call magic in that sense, magic for, you know,

Speaker 18 making sure that you can realize these journeys.

Speaker 19 I was also going to say they sound almost like,

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 Do we have any idea what the Nordic Bronze Age style was, I guess, how they did it?

Speaker 18 Well, interesting 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,

Speaker 18 for a long time, you have argued that you have done it with a direct check technique with stone, right? And therefore, a stone type, I mean, most of the rock art are made in granite in the west coast.

Speaker 18 And therefore, you need a stone that is harder than that, amphibolite or quarcite or quartz, so to speak. But there are some details in the rock art.

Speaker 18 I mean, some of the crew strokes you do are millie, millimeters from each other.

Speaker 18 And we can now show also that

Speaker 18 with experiments, but also with laser scanning and other things, that you must have outlined the rock art with bronze.

Speaker 18 And we have made experiments on it. And instead of taking like 10 hours to make a boat, we come down in a half an hour or less than that with bronze.
Of course,

Speaker 18 this shows that bronze is vanishing when you do this, little depending on the techniques you have.

Speaker 18 But if you heat up parts of the rock, granite, and then put water on it, and then use bronze, then you can do it in a much faster way.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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 phase.

Speaker 18 And it's almost like consumption 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 It really epitomizes, doesn't it, that great variety of artistic designs that they made in this rock art over centuries.

Speaker 18 Exactly. And

Speaker 18 another analogy for the type of

Speaker 18 institution 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

Speaker 18 they are often making rock art. They are controlling trade.
They have networks of trade and they use power symbols and magic. And also also they control religion and magic in society.

Speaker 18 It's one of the controls to show that we have the control of religion and magic. You do not have that.

Speaker 18 This makes us exclusive. We can do these long distance journeys.
We can meet other people abroad. We can learn.
You don't have that. You don't qualify.
which was very much the case in North America.

Speaker 18 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 Lil.

Speaker 18 Little Bitcoin. Yeah.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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?

Speaker 18 Well, there are two theories about it. Some scholars argue that you don't depict gods.
Others say they do.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 that argue that you have personified gods, you have the twin rulers depicted on the rock art. And then in between, we have Timothy Earl to say that, well, these are elite societies.

Speaker 18 They don't flesh out gods on the panels. This is something you control.
And

Speaker 18 it's an interesting topic in that sense. But otherwise, I mean, religion has been the one we have made most speculation on in terms of Bronze Age Northern Europe, but not so much the other features.

Speaker 18 Again, this is... so typical archaeology when you don't have an answer well it's religion you say it's ritual

Speaker 18 But all in all, we can say that the religion is probably

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 But the important thing here is that the religion is controlled by the elites. Right.

Speaker 18 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 the bronzes, that they are more elitistic, they are more secret and interesting enough, you never see these on the rocks.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 And I've also got in my notes this amazing artifact called the Trundhelm chariot, which I must ask about.

Speaker 18 Indeed, I mean, you can say celestial orientated, the sun, the moon, and other features.

Speaker 18 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 flesh out, not

Speaker 18 personified gods, rather the ones that try to position the self in society in relation to the celestial symbols, as for the sun.

Speaker 18 And it's very clear, as you say, that it seems like the religion is sun-orientated. And it has, I mean, symbolical reasons, but also practical reasons, because you...

Speaker 18 It's fascinating to see oftenly with these depictions of boats that you see a sun symbol or sometimes a cup marker, you think a sun symbol.

Speaker 18 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,

Speaker 18 that you use. So the sun is not only a symbol for the religious realm, it also has a practical function in that sense.

Speaker 19 Because I would always think, oh, you know, the sun, obviously the importance for growing crops and so on.

Speaker 19 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 I won't won't deny this with the corpse and the seasons and and but still it it could have other interesting functions as well could you also mention to us what this stunning artefact is the Trondhelm chariot because it seems if anyone types in the Nordic Bronze Age they will probably see this striking artefact first and foremost.

Speaker 18 Well, it's a 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 And he played with it in his bathtub.

Speaker 18 Amazing. And then somebody reported to some antique scholars and said, well, look.

Speaker 18 But it's very fascinating. It also show 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.

Speaker 18 It's probably a manifesto of this sun-orientated religion that you have in the Bronze Age. And we see other related phenomena to that as well.

Speaker 19 We could talk about so many other amazing examples of splendid artifacts from the Nordic Bronze Age.

Speaker 19 I will ask about one other, which kind of brings us back to the military, but at the same time, maybe not.

Speaker 19 It's an extraordinary artifact. I saw like kind of this gold helmet, but it almost has horns on it.

Speaker 19 Naturally, with the Vikings, there's that big factoid 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.

Speaker 18 Yeah, indeed. I mean, here's one example of the Vixer helmets, but also on the rock art.

Speaker 18 So therefore, again, it is this old notion that is the Viking Age starting with the Bronze Age.

Speaker 18 Fascinating with these Vixer helmets, there are two pairs, and therefore people are arguing that this could also symbolize the twin rulers, the Indo-European notion of

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 But these helmets are extraordinary and they are about 1000 BC. You see them also depicted in the Iberian Bronze Age on the warrior stele.

Speaker 18 Helmets with horns also on Sardinia on these figurines, but the most similar analogy of the Iberian warrior stele, so to speak.

Speaker 18 And they show also how, I mean, there's also a typical feature for what you call secret societies, using, you know, that there are groups

Speaker 18 that have ritual perplania that show that they're in contact with

Speaker 18 the supernatural world. They control that contact.
They travel, they meet other groups, also elites that have this contact.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 19 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 Eggtved girl?

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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 the coming of iron and the end of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia, in these Nordic societies?

Speaker 18 Well, we know that when iron comes into play, so to speak, this entire system cracks up. Before, you have had a system based on elite families that organize long-distance trade of copper and tin.

Speaker 18 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 demands.

Speaker 18 For instance, you have the silver then, of course, and also other exotica. But iron replaces this, I mean, forge metal, I mean, bronze for tools and weapons.

Speaker 18 specifically when you you're able to do what you call steel actually or or it's like you mix charcoal with iron iron per se is less effective than bronze. But when you do steel, that's the deal.

Speaker 18 But bronze is close to steel, which is fascinating. It's a fascinating material.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 Lastly, you've done so many projects around this over the years. What are you working on currently?

Speaker 18 Currently, I have one major project, the Maritime Encounters, where we try to look at the trade exchange and warfare along the Atlantic facade.

Speaker 18 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 Orm.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 I mean, we speak about, here we speak about, you know, all this copper they imported, but think about the 10% was tinned. Yes.
Yes. So there are also tonnage, tonnage, tonnage of tin.

Speaker 18 And now later analysis has shown that the tin is going all the way to the East Mediterranean world. And fascinatingly enough, it's where you find most artifacts of tin.

Speaker 18 You have the Uliburon, for instance. that has at least one tonnage of tin that match sources in Cornwall.

Speaker 18 So showing again how important long distance exchange were in the Bronze Age and also the tin in this.

Speaker 19 Britain certainly got lucky with tin in the Bronze Age, didn't they? Johan, this has been absolutely great.

Speaker 19 It just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Speaker 18 Thank you.

Speaker 18 Well, there you go.

Speaker 19 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.

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Speaker 20 I'll see you in the next episode.