1.
History of Scandinavia
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The history of Scandinavia is the history of the region of northern Europe comprising Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Finland and Iceland are at times considered part of Scandinavia, one important collection that exists, however, is a widespread and rich collection of stone drawings known as petroglyphs. As the ice receded, Reindeer grazed on the lands of Denmark. This was the land of the Ahrensburg culture, tribes who hunted over vast territories, there was little forest in this region except for arctic white birch and rowan, but the taiga slowly appeared. In the 7th millennium BC, when the reindeer and their hunters had moved for northern Scandinavia, the Maglemosian culture lived in Denmark and southern Sweden. To the north, in Norway and most of southern Sweden, lived the Fosna-Hensbacka culture, the northern hunter/gatherers followed the herds and the salmon runs, moving south during the winters, moving north again during the summers. During the 6th millennium BC, southern Scandinavia was covered in temperate broadleaf, fauna included aurochs, wisent, moose and red deer. The Kongemose culture was dominant in this time period and they hunted seals and fished in the rich waters. North of the Kongemose people lived other hunter-gatherers in most of southern Norway and Sweden called the Nøstvet and Lihult cultures, descendants of the Fosna, near the end of the 6th millennium BC, the Kongemose culture was replaced by the Ertebølle culture in the south. During the 5th millennium BC, the Ertebølle people learned pottery from neighbouring tribes in the south and they too started to cultivate the land, and by 3000 BC they became part of the megalithic Funnelbeaker culture. During the 4th millennium BC, these Funnelbeaker tribes expanded into Sweden up to Uppland, the Nøstvet and Lihult tribes learnt new technology from the advancing farmers and became the Pitted Ware cultures towards the end of the 4th millennium BC. At least one settlement appears to be mixed, the Alvastra pile-dwelling and this new people advanced up to Uppland and the Oslofjord, and they probably provided the language that was the ancestor of the modern Scandinavian languages. They were cattle herders, and with them most of southern Scandinavia entered the Neolithic, during this period Scandinavia gave rise to the first known advanced civilization in this area following the Nordic Stone Age. The Scandinavians adopted many central European and Mediterranean symbols at the time that they created new styles. Mycenaean Greece, the Villanovan Culture, Phoenicia and Ancient Egypt have all identified as possible sources of influence in Scandinavian artwork from this period. The foreign influence is believed to originate with amber trade, several petroglyphs depict ships, and the large stone formations known as stone ships indicate that shipping played an important role in the culture. Several petroglyphs depict ships which could possibly be Mediterranean, from this period there are many mounds and fields of petroglyphs, but their signification is long since lost. There are also artifacts of bronze and gold
2.
Scandinavian prehistory
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The Scandinavian Peninsula became ice-free around 11,000 BC, at the end of the last ice age. The Nordic Stone Age begins at time, with the Upper Paleolithic Ahrensburg culture. The Neolithic stage is marked by the Funnelbeaker culture, followed by the Pitted Ware culture, around 2800 BC, metal was introduced in Scandinavia in the Corded Ware culture. In much of Scandinavia, a Battle Axe culture became prominent, the period 2500 BC –500 BC also left many visible remains to modern times, most notably the many thousands rock carvings in western Sweden at Tanumshede and in Norway at Alta. A more advanced culture came with the Nordic Bronze Age and it was followed by the Iron Age by the 4th century BC. The pre-history of Sweden begins at the end of the Pleistocene epoch at the beginning of Holocene epoch, following the last ice age, at the end of the ice age, large parts of south and middle Sweden were covered by water. Parts of Denmark, Scania and the Norwegian coast line were free from ice around 13000 BC and it wasnt until 7000 BC that all of Svealand and the modern coastal regions of North-eastern Sweden were free of ice, although the land was by then deeply pressed underwater. By this time, Denmark and Sweden were joined and the Baltic Sea of the age was a fresh water lake called the Ancylus Lake, the Ancylus age is followed by formation of the Littorina Sea and the Litorina Stage at around 6200 BC. With the first human colonization of new land during the Ancylus. As the ice receded reindeer grazed on the plains of Denmark and this was the land of the Ahrensburg culture, whose members hunted over territories 100000 km² vast and lived in teepees on the tundra. On this land there was little forest but arctic white birch and rowan, in the 7th millennium BC, when the reindeer and their hunters had moved for northern Scandinavia, forests had been established in the land. Utilizing fire, boats and stone tools enabled these Stone Age inhabitants to survive life in northern Europe, the northern hunter/gatherers followed the herds and the salmon runs, moving south during the winters, moving north again during the summers. The Maglemosian people lived in forest and wetland environments using fishing and hunting tools made from wood, bone, a characteristic of the culture are the sharply edged microliths of flintstone which were used for spear heads and arrowheads. Microliths finds are sparse from c.6000 BC and the period is said to transit into the Kongemose culture. The finds from this period are characterised by long flintstone flakes which were used for making the characteristic rhombic arrowheads, scrapers, drills, awls, during the 6th millennium BC, southern Scandinavia was clad in lush forests of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests. In these forests roamed animals such as aurochs, wisent, moose, now, the Kongemose culture lived off these animals. Like their predecessors, they hunted seals and fished in the rich waters. North of the Kongemose people, lived other hunter-gatherers in most of southern Norway and Sweden, called the Nøstvet and Lihult cultures, descendants of the Fosna and Hensbacka cultures
3.
Nordic Stone Age
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The Nordic Stone Age refers to the Stone Age of Scandinavia. As the ice receded, reindeer grazed on the plains of Denmark and southernmost Sweden, while along the coast of western Sweden, marine resources were exploited. This was the land of the Ahrensburg culture and preceding Hamburg culture, tribes who hunted over territories 100,000 km² vast, on this land there was little forest but arctic white birch and rowan, but the taiga slowly appeared. In the 7th millennium BCE, the climate in Scandinavia was warming as it transitioned from the former Boreal age to the Atlantic period, reindeer and their hunters had already migrated and inhabited the lands of northern Scandinavia, and forests had established. A culture called the Maglemosian culture lived in the areas of Denmark, to the north, in Norway and along the coast of western Sweden, the Fosna-Hensbacka culture was living mostly in changing seasonal camps along the shores and close to the now thriving forests. Utilizing fire, boats and stone tools, these Stone Age tribal cultures managed to survive in northern Europe, the northern hunter-gatherers followed the herds and the salmon runs, moving south during the winters, moving north again during the summers. During the 6th millennium BCE, the climate of Scandinavia was generally warmer and more humid than today, large animals like aurochs, wisent, moose and red deer roamed freely in the forests and was hunting game for tribes of what we now call the Kongemose culture. Like their predecessors, the Kongemose tribes also hunted animals such as seals. North of the Kongemose people, lived other hunter-gatherers in most of southern Norway and Sweden, now dubbed the Nøstvet and Lihult cultures, descendants of the Fosna and Hensbacka cultures. During the 5th millennium BCE, the Ertebølle people learned pottery from neighbouring tribes in the south, soon, they too started to cultivate the land and, ca 4000 BCE, they became part of the megalithic Funnelbeaker culture. During the 4th millennium BCE, these Funnelbeaker tribes expanded into Sweden up to Uppland, the Nøstvet and Lihult tribes learned new technology from the advancing farmers, but not agriculture, and became the Pitted Ware cultures, towards the end of the 4th millennium BCE. At least one settlement appears to be mixed, the Alvastra pile-dwelling and this new people advanced up to Uppland and the Oslofjord, and they probably provided the language that was the ancestor of the modern Scandinavian languages. These new tribes were individualistic and clearly patriarchal with the axe as a status symbol. They were cattle herders and with them most of southern Scandinavia entered the Neolithic, however, soon a new invention would arrive, that would usher in a time of cultural advance in Scandinavia, the Bronze Age
4.
Iron Age Scandinavia
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Iron Age Scandinavia refers to the Iron Age, as it unfolded in Scandinavia. The 6th and 5th century BC was a point for exports and imports on the European continent. Now they had to be practically self-dependent and self-sustaining, archaeology attests a rapid and deep change in the Scandinavian culture and way of life. Agricultural production became more intensified, organized around larger settlements and with a much more labour-intensive production, slaves were introduced and deployed, something uncommon in the Nordic Bronze Age. Bronze could not be produced in Scandinavia, as tin was not a natural resource. Iron is a metal and was suitable for tools and weapons. The Bronze Age ard plough was still the plough of choice, previously, herds of livestock had pasture grazed freely in large wood pastures, but were now placed in stables, probably to utilize manure more efficiently and increase agricultural production. Even though the advent of the Iron Age in Scandinavia was a time of great crisis, the period might just reflect a change of culture and not necessarily a decline in standards of living. The Iron Age in Scandinavia and Northern Europe begins around 500 BC with the Jastorf culture, AD800 and the beginning Viking Age. It succeeds the Nordic Bronze Age with the introduction of metallurgy by contact with the Hallstatt D/La Tène cultures. Jørgen Jensen, I begyndelsen, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarks Historie, ISBN 87-89068-26-2 Bente Magnus, G Franceschi, Asger Jorn, Men, Gods and Masks in Nordic Iron Age Art
5.
Migration Period
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The Migration Period was a time of widespread migrations within or into Europe in the middle of the first millennium AD. It has also been termed the Völkerwanderung and, from the Roman, many of the migrations were movements of Germanic, Slavic, and other peoples into the territory of the then Roman Empire, with or without accompanying invasions or war. Although immigration was common throughout the time of the Roman Empire, later invasions, also had significant effects, however, they are outside the scope of the Migration Period. Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward, moving into southern Germany up to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul by 100 BC and it is this western group which was described by the Roman historian Tacitus and Julius Caesar. A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians, the Barbarian Invasions may be divided into two phases. The first phase, occurring between AD300 and 500, is documented by Greek and Latin historians but difficult to verify archaeologically. It puts Germanic peoples in control of most areas of what was then the Western Roman Empire, the Tervingi entered Roman territory in 376. Some time thereafter in Marcianopolis, the escort to Fritigern was killed while meeting with Lupicinus, fending off challenges from the Allemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths, the Frankish kingdom became the nucleus of what would later become France and Germany. The initial Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain occurred during the fifth century, the Burgundians settled in North Western Italy, Switzerland and Eastern France in the fifth century. The second phase took place between 500 and 700 and saw Slavic tribes settling in central and eastern Europe, gradually making it predominantly Slavic, additionally, Turkic tribes such as the Avars became involved in this phase. In 567, the Avars and the Lombards destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom, the Lombards, a Germanic people, settled in Italy with their Herulian, Suebian, Gepid, Thuringian, Bulgarian, Sarmatian and Saxon allies in the 6th century. They were later followed by the Bavarians and the Franks, who conquered and ruled most of Italy, during the Khazar–Arab Wars, the Khazars stopped the Arab expansion into Europe across the Caucasus. At the same time, the Moors invaded Europe via Gibraltar and these battles broadly demarcated the frontiers between Christendom and Islam for the next millennium. The following centuries saw the Muslims successful in conquering most of Sicily from the Christians by 902, the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin from around 895, and the Viking expansion from the late 8th century conventionally mark the last large movements of the period. Christianity gradually converted the non-Islamic newcomers and integrated them into the medieval Christian order, a number of contemporary historical references worldwide refer to an extended period of extreme weather during 535–536. Evidence of this period is also found in dendrochronology and ice cores. The consequences of this period are debated
6.
Viking Age
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The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. Three Viking ships had beached in Weymouth Bay four years earlier, the Viking devastation of Northumbrias Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote, Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared. Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. The chronicles of medieval England portrayed them as rapacious wolves among sheep, the first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached a readership in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britains Viking past, linguistics traced the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled more Victorians to read the Icelandic Sagas, the Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly pagans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled in the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland, Greenland and their North Germanic language, Old Norse, became the mother-tongue of present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a central authority appears to have been established in Jutland. In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries, communities there remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway, the sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the 8th century that Scandinavians began to build ships of war, the North Sea rovers were traders, colonisers and explorers as well as plunderers. There are various theories concerning the causes of the Viking invasions, for people living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales and Ireland, the Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may also have been a factor, a reason for the raids is believed by some to be over-population caused by technological advances, such as the use of iron, or a shortage of women due to selective female infanticide. Although another cause could well have been caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders, in search of subsistence, There is ongoing debate among scholars as to why the Scandinavians began to expand during the 8th through 11th centuries
7.
Christianization of Scandinavia
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The Christianization of Scandinavia took place between the 8th and the 12th centuries. The realms of Scandinavia proper, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, established their own Archdioceses, responsible directly to the Pope, in 1104,1154 and 1164, respectively. The conversion to Christianity of the Scandinavian people required more time, the Sami remained unconverted until the 18th century. Although the Scandinavians became nominally Christian, it took longer for actual Christian beliefs to establish themselves among the people. The old indigenous traditions that had provided security and structure were challenged by ideas that were unfamiliar, such as sin, the Incarnation. Thirteenth-century runic inscriptions from the merchant town of Bergen in Norway show little Christian influence, during the early Middle Ages the papacy had not yet manifested itself as the central Roman Catholic authority, so that regional variants of Christianity could develop. Recorded missionary efforts in Denmark started with Willibrord, Apostle to the Frisians, who preached in Schleswig and he went north from Frisia sometime between 710 and 718 during the reign of King Ongendus. Willibrord and his companions had little success, the king was respectful but had no interest in changing his beliefs, agantyr did permit 30 young men to return to Frisia with Willibrord. Perhaps Willibrords intent was to them and recruit some of them to join his efforts to bring Christianity to the Danes. A century later Ebbo, Archbishop of Reims and Willerich, later Bishop of Bremen and he returned to Denmark twice to proselytize but without any recorded success. In 826, the King of Jutland Harald Klak was forced to flee from Denmark by Horik I, Harald went to Emperor Louis I of Germany to seek help getting his lands in Jutland back. Louis I offered to make Harald Duke of Frisia if he would give up the old gods, Harald agreed, and his family and the 400 Danes with him were baptized in Ingelheim am Rhein. When Harald returned to Jutland, Emperor Louis and Ebbo of Rheims assigned the monk Ansgar to accompany Harald, when Harald Klak was forced from Denmark by King Horik I again, Ansgar left Denmark and focused his efforts on the Swedes. Ansgar traveled to Birka in 829 and established a small Christian community there and his most important convert was Herigar, described as a prefect of the town and a counselor to the king. In 831 the Archdiocese of Hamburg was founded and assigned responsibility for proselytizing Scandinavia, Horik I sacked Hamburg in 845 where Ansgar had become the archbishop. The seat of the archdiocese was transferred to Bremen, in the same year there was a pagan uprising in Birka that resulted in the martyrdom of Nithard and forced the resident missionary Bishop Gautbert to flee. Ansgar returned to Birka in 854 and Denmark in 860 to reestablish some of the gains of his first visits, in Denmark he won over the trust of then-King Horik II who gave him land in Hedeby for the first Christian chapel. A second church was founded a few years later in Ribe on Denmarks west coast, a significant step in this direction was the foundation of an archbishopric for the whole of Scandinavia at Lund in 1103-04
8.
Kalmar Union
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The Union was not quite continuous, there were several short interruptions. Legally the countries remained separate sovereign states, but with their domestic, one main impetus for its formation was to block German expansion northward into the Baltic region. The main reason for its failure to survive was the struggle between the monarch, who wanted a strong unified state, and the Swedish and Danish nobility which did not. Diverging interests gave rise to a conflict that would hamper the union in several intervals from the 1430s until its breakup in 1523 when Gustav Vasa became king of Sweden. Norway continued to remain a part of the realm of Denmark–Norway under the Oldenburg dynasty for nearly three centuries until its dissolution in 1814. Then Union between Sweden and Norway lasted until 1905, when a grandson of the incumbent king of Denmark was elected its king, the union was the work of Scandinavian aristocracy wishing to counter the influence of the Hanseatic League. Margaret, a daughter of King Valdemar IV of Denmark, married King Haakon VI of Norway and Sweden, Margaret succeeded in having her son Olav recognized as heir to the throne of Denmark. In 1376 Olav inherited the crown of Denmark from his grandfather as King Oluf III, with his mother as guardian. The two kingdoms were united in a union under a child king, with the kings mother as his guardian, later. On 2 February the next year, she was recognized as regent of Norway. Their common enemy was the Hanseatic League and the growing German influence over the Scandinavian economy. The Nordic union was established on 17 June 1397 by the Treaty of Kalmar, signed in the Swedish castle of Kalmar on Swedens south-east coast, at each junction, installation of a new monarch tended to mean a break-up of the union for a while. Eric of Pomerania, however, became the monarch of all three kingdoms, at Kalmar, the 15-year-old Eric of Pomerania was crowned king of all three kingdoms by the archbishops of Denmark and Sweden, but Margaret managed to remain in control until her death in 1412. It is said that contemporaries of the Union would not recognize the term, Union of Kalmar—that they just understood that much of the time. While the term meaning Treaty of Kalmar was known already at the time, the Swedes were not happy with the Danes frequent wars on Schleswig, Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania, which were a disturbance to Swedish exports to the European continent. Furthermore, the centralization of government in Denmark raised suspicions, the Swedish Privy Council wanted to retain a fair degree of self-government. The unity of the union eroded after the Danish defeat against the German Hanseatic League in the 1430s, even to the point of armed rebellion, erik was deposed as the union king and was succeeded by his nephew, the childless Christopher of Bavaria. In the power vacuum that arose following Christophers death, Sweden elected Charles VIII king with the intent to reestablish the union under a Swedish king, during the next seven decades struggle for power and the wars between Sweden and Denmark would dominate the union
9.
Great Northern War
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The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway. George I of Great Britain and of Brunswick-Lüneburg joined the coalition in 1714 for and for Hanover in 1717, Charles XII led the Swedish army. Swedish allies included Holstein-Gottorp, several Polish magnates under Stanisław I Leszczyński, the Ottoman Empire temporarily hosted Charles XII of Sweden and intervened against Peter I. The treaty also secured the extradition and execution of Johann Reinhold Patkul, the Ottoman Empire defeated the Russian-Moldavian army in the Pruth River Campaign, but that peace treaty was in the end without great consequence to Russias position. After Poltava, the anti-Swedish coalition revived and subsequently Hanover and Prussia joined it, the remaining Swedish forces in plague-stricken areas south and east of the Baltic Sea were evicted, with the last city, Riga, falling in 1710. The coalition members partitioned most of the Swedish dominions among themselves, Sweden proper was invaded from the west by Denmark–Norway and from the east by Russia, which had occupied Finland by 1714. Sweden defeated the Danish invaders at the Battle of Helsingborg, Charles XII opened up a Norwegian front, but was killed in Fredriksten in 1718. The war ended with Swedens defeat, leaving Russia as the new dominant power in the Baltic region, by these treaties Sweden ceded her exemption from the Sound Dues, and lost the Baltic provinces and the southern part of Swedish Pomerania. The peace treaties also ended her alliance with Holstein-Gottorp, Hanover gained Bremen-Verden, Brandenburg-Prussia incorporated the Oder estuary, Russia secured the Baltic Provinces, and Denmark strengthened her position in Schleswig-Holstein. In Sweden, the monarchy had come to an end with the death of Charles XII. Between the years of 1560 and 1658, Sweden created a Baltic empire centred on the Gulf of Finland and comprising the provinces of Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia. During the Thirty Years War Sweden gained tracts in Germany as well, including Western Pomerania, Wismar, the Duchy of Bremen, during the same period Sweden conquered Danish and Norwegian provinces north of the Sound. However, the Swedish state ultimately proved unable to support and maintain its army in a prolonged war. The cost of the proved to be much higher than the occupied countries could fund, and Swedens coffers. The foreign interventions in Russia during the Time of Troubles resulted in Swedish gains in the Treaty of Stolbovo, the treaty deprived Russia of direct access to the Baltic Sea. In the late 1690s, the adventurer Johann Patkul managed to ally Russia with Denmark and Saxony by the secret Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye, Charles XII of Sweden succeeded Charles XI of Sweden in 1697, aged 14. From his predecessor, he took over the Swedish Empire as an absolute monarch, Charles XI had tried to keep the empire out of wars, and concentrated on inner reforms such as reduction and allotment, which had strengthened the monarchs status and the empires military abilities
10.
Scandinavian Monetary Union
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The Scandinavian Monetary Union was a monetary union formed by Denmark and Sweden on 5 May 1873, by fixing their currencies against gold at par to each other. An equal valued krone/krona of the union replaced the three legacy currencies at the rate of 1 krone/krona = 1⁄2 Danish rigsdaler = 1⁄4 Norwegian speciedaler =1 Swedish riksdaler. The monetary union was one of the few results of the Scandinavian political movement of the 19th century. The union provided fixed exchange rates and stability in monetary terms, upon acceding to the union, Sweden had the name of its currency changed from Riksdaler Riksmynt to Swedish krona. The word krone/krona literally means crown, and the differences in spelling of the name represent the differences between the North Germanic languages, the political union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved in 1905, but this did not affect the basis for co-operation in the monetary union. It was instead the outbreak of World War I in 1914 that brought an end to the monetary union, Sweden abandoned the tie to gold on 2 August 1914, and without a fixed exchange rate the free circulation came to an end. All three countries use the same currencies as during the monetary union, but they lost their peg, one to one. The Icelandic króna is a derivative of the Danish krone, established after Iceland was elevated to a kingdom in union with Denmark in 1918. Iceland cut its ties to Denmark in 1944 and became a republic, the Scandinavian Monetary Union was inspired by the Latin Monetary Union, established in 1865. The Scandinavian currency union 1875–1914. in Jaime Reis, ed. International Monetary Systems in Historical Perspective, the impact of the Scandinavian Monetary Union on financial market integration
