What is it about?
This essay presents the results of a pilot project that re-evaluates how people and objects moved across the North Sea between AD 700 and 1100. Traditionally, the surge in international trade and mobility during this era has been credited almost entirely to "Viking" activity—raiding, trading, and piracy. Here we argue that this model is too simple. By cross- comparing and synthesising large datasets of metal-detected finds—such as brooches, coins, strap fittings, and horse gear—from England, Denmark, and the Netherlands, we demonstrate that complex networks of exchange existed well before the Viking Age began. The study utilizes data from recording schemes like the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) to map object mobility. We categorized finds into three groups: Imports (items made abroad), Local/Regional (items made nearby), and Influence (local items that mimic foreign styles). The findings suggest that the North Sea was a dynamic zone in which Frisians, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons were moving goods and ideas long before Scandinavian expansion peaked. Ultimately, we demonstrate that the Long Viking Age was defined by a layered history of movement in which ideas, technology, and religion traveled just as rapidly as the physical objects themselves.
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Photo by Gunnar Ridderström on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This research shifts the focus of early medieval history from "who was raiding whom" to "how was everyone connected." By analyzing thousands of small, everyday items found by metal-detectorists—rather than just more well-known treasures or written chronicles—it provides a bottom-up view of such interaction. It is also a methodological breakthrough, being the first project to synchronise diverse, multilingual databases of this kind from different countries (Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK) into a single compatible system. This allows us to see patterns that previously became invisible at national borders. By demonstrating that significant object mobility existed in the pre-Viking period, we challenge the idea of a sudden Viking explosion, showing instead that the era represents a continuation of long-standing North Sea relationships.
Perspectives
This paper emerged from a small project called 'Culture and Communication in the Long Viking Age' (https://thelongvikingage.wordpress.com/), that was designed as a pilot to investigate the possibility of collecting data from multiple national finds databases, and bringing them together. This was a difficult task, but was ultimately successful, making the project an important forerunner to ongoing efforts to make such databases more fully interoperable. While there are difficulties and confounds to working with publicly collected metal-collected data (such as the lack of straitifed context), projects like this one demonstrate that the sheer volume of data compensates for its lack of precision. We use these small scraps of copper alloy as informants that speak for the silent majority of early medieval society—the merchants, artisans, and farmers who actually kept the North Sea networks running.
Dr Steven P Ashby
University of York
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Prehistory of Movement:, September 2022, JSTOR,
DOI: 10.2307/jj.38238645.6.
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