Overview

Scandinavia, a land mass comprising the modern countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, was the last part of Europe to be inhabited by humans. Not until the end of the last Ice Age when the melting of huge ice sheets left behind a fresh, barren land surface, about 13,000 BC, did the first humans arrive and settle in the region. The archaeological record of these prehistoric cultures, much of it remarkably preserved in Scandinavia's bogs, lakes, and fjords, has given us a detailed portrait of the evolution of human society at the edge of the inhabitable world. In this book, distinguished archaeologist T. Douglas Price provides a history of Scandinavia from the arrival of the first humans to the end of the Viking period, ca. AD 1050. The first book of its kind in English in many years, Ancient Scandinavia features overviews of each prehistoric epoch followed by illustrative examples from the region's rich archaeology. An engrossing and comprehensive picture of change across the millennia emerges, showing how human society evolved from small bands of hunter-gatherers to large farming communities to the complex warrior cultures of the Bronze and Iron Ages, cultures which culminated in the spectacular rise of the Vikings at the end of the prehistoric period. The material evidence of these past societies--arrowheads from reindeer hunts, megalithic tombs, rock art, beautifully wrought weaponry, Viking warships--give vivid testimony to the ancient peoples of Scandinavia and to their extensive contacts with the remote cultures of the Arctic Circle, Western Europe, and the Mediterranean

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9780190231972

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Anyone interested in Scandinavian prehistory, student and researcher alike, will be superbly served by this book, which elegantly blends synthesis with in-depth case studies. Highly recommended. --Kristian Kristiansen, University of Gothenburg Price has written the most accessible overview of Scandinavian prehistory in decades, taking the reader on a well-illustrated journey of some 14,000 years from the first settlement to the time of the Vikings. With remarkable fluency, a clear line of narrative chronology links major discoveries, debates and key sites, and the result is superb. For a one-stop guide to the archaeology of the Scandinavian countries, this is the book. --Neil Price, University of Uppsala This book provides a comprehensive overview of the archaeology of Scandinavia, from the first inhabitants 15,000 years ago to the time of the Vikings. The author's focus on specific sites of settlements, burials, and treasure deposits shows the reader clearly how archaeologists reconstruct ancient societies from the material evidence. --Peter S. Wells, University of Minnesota

Author Information

T. Douglas Price is Weinstein Professor of European Archaeology Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and honorary Professor in the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. His previous books include Europe before Rome, Images of the Past, Europe's First Farmers, and Principles of Archaeology.

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