The Viking Education
The steps of understanding the Historical Significance of Vikings
Who were the Vikings? If popular media is to be believed, then they were a group of men and women who sailed around pillaging other places with horns on their head. However, the concept of “Viking” is more complex than this depiction would imply. In part this is because the idea that identity was found in country, or race is anachronistic to these people. “Viking” was less a population than lifestyle. As Margaryan et al. (2020) note, in some cases, localities seem to have taken up Viking culture while incorporating little to no Scandinavian ancestry components, suggesting that the “Viking” identity was not always necessarily associated with Scandinavian genetic ancestry.” Instead of thinking of the Viking Identity as something based on race or location, it is more apt to consider it the identity of the Vikings to be based on shared cultural aspects, such seafaring, burial practices, and the literature that the words from the Vikings mouth.
Where Vikings Travelled
The Vikings were one of the first groups of Europeans to traverse the globe. The Vikings were able to go further, before any other Europeans, resulting in the spread of the Viking culture further than most, as stated by Margaryan, "The discovery of individuals with ancestry from Southern Europe and the British Isles is the first direct evidence for movement into Scandinavia from these regions.
The directions of interaction marked by these individuals is consistent with the major directions of gene flows outwards from Scandinavia also seen in the data.”
Many scholars have asked how they were able to do so, since they only had a limited knowledge of how the world affected their travels. When answering the question of how, there are three important factors for one to consider in their research, where they sailed from, the climate in which they sailed, and the boats which were commonly sailed.
As stated previously the Vikings were not solely Scandinavian, which means that their journeys did not all start from Scandinavian countries. Often, they were conducted on a long-term basis where Vikings would stop and set up settlements in a new land before moving forth and continuing on.
The importance of location, is obvious when analyzing a topic spatially, but the uniqueness of analyzing a historical groups other features cannot be overstated, because it allows for a more complete understanding of the world that the Vikings lived in, which in turn leads to better maps, and more information.
Notes on the Map
The map is of locations and type of the land, or settlement that they were built on. While it is uncertain in many cases when Vikings visited these places, or the significance that they held to the Vikings as stated in "The Norse World Project", it does give a clear picture of the extent of travel, and how they chose places to settle.
Environmental Factors
The majority of the historically documented Viking journeys took place Europe and the world was experiencing what has become known as the Little Ice Age.
During this period the rest of Europe had gone into the dark ages, however the Vikings flourished because the Vikings as a group learned to traverse the ocean which currents changed greatly and allowed for Vikings to travel further more affectively.
A Map of Commonly Attested Places to demonstrate the increase of Viking travel after the beginning of the little Ice Age in the 1300s.
This may have been caused by the fact that Vikings already knew how to sail around the Icebergs that were forming, while other seafaring nations like Italy and Greece were having to learn for the first time. Oglivie, Barlow, and Jennings explain the effect of “sea ice” in their article “North Atlantic climate c. AD 1000: Millennia1 reflections on the Viking discoveries of Iceland, Greenland and North America” writing, “Sea-ice forms easily on low-salinity Polar Water, which comes from the Arctic Ocean and contributes to the East Greenland Current. Expansion of Polar Water leads to greater sea-ice. Positive sea-ice anomalies in the Greenland Sea and Denmark Strait are generally in phase with negative sea surface salinity and SST anomalies of the East Green- land Current, which are in turn driven by changes in the near-surface salinity of the Arctic Ocean” Later they go on to explain, “Surface ocean circulation. The surface ocean circulation in the North Atlantic is dominated by the southward movement of cold Polar Water out of the Arctic Ocean via the Fram Strait and the Canadian High Arctic channels” To summarize the findings of Oglivie and his colleagues, the sea ice that was more prominent in the Atlantic ocean during the Vikings exploration of the world, led to stronger currents, which allowed the Vikings to travel more vast distances. The understanding of weather and climate conditions is of the utmost importance in considering ancient worlds, because it allows the reconstruction to become more accurate.
Viking Ships
The final factor to consider when considering the Vikings travels were the ships they used to travel. Christensen explains the process of building a Viking ship writing, “A few key finds show that the principle of building vessels as a shell of planks which was afterwards strengthened by inserted ribs can be followed back to c. 350 BC, and that the planks were laid with an overlap and fastened together. The fastenings differ, lashing or sewing, iron rivets or treenails.” This description matches that of how boats like the Titanic were built in the 20th century. The only difference being the materials. The Vikings in this way by far triumphed over there competitors in the rest of Europe which Christensen confirms writing, “However, the well-organized kingdoms in England and France never tried to strike back across the sea, a strong indication that ships good enough for the job were lacking outside Scandinavia.” Overall not only were the Vikings more prepared for seafaring in the form of their boats, but they had also been given the advantage of a more buoyant ocean, and had the knowledge of how to set settlements up in other lands than their own.
Issues in Researching Vikings through Text
Viking Burial is one of the most important tools that a historian can use. One might wonder why this is, however. Why can’t historians and archaeologists just use the text that was written by the Vikings in order to map their journeys? The answer to that question opens up a great deal of other questions however, because most of the Vikings from the Viking age, did not read or write. In fact, much of their knowledge was passed down by an oral tradition. Most of the written Viking word was transcribed years after the end of the Viking High Period, meaning that it did not come from Vikings, and therefore is not a primary resource, making it less trust worthy. The most accurate representation of Viking writing was Runic inscriptions, which were often found on the aforementioned chamber burials, but they are also few and far between. More so the Viking tales were transcribed into two main languages known as old Swedish, and Old Danish. Languages that although resemble modern Swedish and modern Dutch, are not the same making it increasingly difficult to find the true meaning of the stories.
As well they are muddled with fiction, and tales of the Norse Gods making them even more unreliable. So, while these written works do exist, they are not wholly trustworthy. Instead they must be scrutinized, and deeply dug into to find the truth within them. This fact gives more credit however to pieces like settlement documents, and runes that are discovered because it allows for researchers to be sure that the Vikings were in fact in this place they claimed to be. Allowing for greater certainty for where archaeologists and others to start their search for the Viking memory.
Vikings as understood by popular culture, have been wrongly defined. Instead of being Thor from Avengers, or horn wearing barbarians, they had a complex culture, that was shaped and defined by the world around them. These facts are important in understanding the academic world of Vikings, because it is impossible to add to the research if one does not know what already exists. So, the understanding of the Vikings as a whole is of the utmost importance to understanding any one niche. Reconstruction of the past is more complicated than simply understanding the one part. If one is to only look at one part instead of the whole it is as if they are looking at a singular puzzle piece and trying to see the whole picture, which is impossible. As spoken in the words of the Vikings, “Men become friends when they can share their minds with one another.”