You may think of Vikings as warriors raiding and ransacking Medieval European villages. But this image of Viking hordes embarking on sea voyages with the sole purpose of pillaging is changing with new discoveries that reveal extensive trade networks spanning Europe and beyond.
Experts are revealing entirely different relationships built on the exchange of a wide variety of goods from far away places for Viking society.
Archaeological evidence reveals that materially, the Viking world was like that of the Iron Age, says Søren Michael Sindbæk, an archaeologist as Aarhus University in Denmark. Despite that, it was also “quite globalized,” he says, with ships and traders sourcing goods from far and wide.
Famous Viking Pillaging
The Viking age commonly spans the 8th century to the 11th century. Raiding clearly was an important part of Viking relations with other peoples, and it became highly profitable and organized over time.
Famously, the Viking period is usually marked by the raid on Lindisfarne, a small island off the northeastern coast of England, in 793. But evidence shows that decades before this violent encounter, the Vikings travelled extensively to procure valuable trade goods in the East, including silver and worked beads.
With global ships and traders though, this creates “a funny paradox” of well-evidenced long-distance journeys in the 11th century contrasted with Viking society that was predominantly comprised of a world of villages that are “spread out and not very well connected,” he adds.
Read More: Viking Skulls Reveal the Ancient People Were Hardy, but Not Healthy
Trading and Settlements
During the Viking period, raiders and traders set sail, founding numerous trading hubs and settlements across Europe. These towns became focal points for trade networks spanning many thousands of kilometres.
A paper published last year, for example, suggested that Norsemen who settled on Iceland and Greenland ventured to the High Arctic in the search for valuable walrus ivory. That meant possible substantive interactions with Thule Inuit peoples as far as Canada, long before the discovery of North America by Christopher Columbus.
“What really surprised us was that much of the walrus ivory exported back to Europe was originating in very remote hunting grounds located deep into the High Arctic. Previously, it has always been assumed that the Norse simply hunted walrus close to their main settlements in southwest Greenland,” Peter Jordan, professor of archaeology at Lund University, said in a statement.
Another study, published in 2023, revealed how the important trade hub of Hedeby, in Germany, linked up with the far north of Scandinavia, bringing vast quantities of reindeer antler there as early as A.D. 800.
Viking Connections Across Europe
Workers crafted reindeer antler into goods such as combs, which were essential items during Medieval Europe, Sindbæk explains. Those trade networks likely connected Viking peoples in modern countries such as Norway where reindeer dwelled in remote areas with a far larger market.
“There's an element of car boot sales in the Viking trade,” he says. “Lots of people can participate and they can bring something which is unique to their area and participate in a much wider pool of material commodities.”
Viking peoples also traded many other goods, including textiles woven by women, horses, pottery, silks, spices, and other items like jewelery. Their role in transporting captured and enslaved peoples from across Europe is, of course, highly distasteful in our modern age, says Sindbæk.
“But it doesn't seem that people in the Viking period really struggled with the fact that you can trade people like you can trade livestock,” says Sindbæk.
Read More: What Real Vikings Wore, According to Archaeologists
Viking Diplomacy
Though raiding remained commonplace, so too was establishing peaceful relations to foster and maintain trade. On that front, on several occasions Viking leaders engaged in diplomatic efforts to enable trade to flourish.
In fact, researchers believe that trade, not warfare, was the initial trigger behind the Viking Age.
“The chronology is now teaching us that we can see contacts emerging between North and Central Scandinavia and South Scandinavia and the southern North Sea area in the eighth century,” says Sindbæk. “Today, we can sustain a narrative where the capacity to use maritime vessels to engage in long-distance trading relationships emerged first and then became a vehicle for the raids and military operations.”
There is still much to be discovered about the trade networks of the Viking Age. Sindbæk says that for some time a focus on the luxury goods – such as silver and ivory – has removed attention from everyday staple items, like grain or dried cod, that medieval peoples depended on. Evidence suggests that Nordic peoples suppled cod to Europe for centuries, a practice kickstarted during the Viking Age.
“I think that whole middle group of lots of different materials, which were extraordinarily useful to people, but in relatively confined quantities, is where the exciting research is taking place right now,” he says.
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
English Heritage. The Viking Raid on Lindisfarne
Nature. Single-year radiocarbon dating anchors Viking Age trade cycles in time
Science Daily. The Vikings were part of a global network trading in ivory from Greenland
Lund University. Early interactions between Europeans and Indigenous North Americans revealed
University of York. Viking trade connections stretched over hundreds of kilometres to the Arctic, research shows
Museum Lolland-Falster. Traders and markets
Slavery & Abolition. The slave markets of the Viking world: comparative perspectives on an ‘invisible archaeology’
The Viking Herald. Free trade in the Viking Age: Diplomacy and trade agreements
University of Cambridge. DNA from Viking cod bones suggests 1,000 years of European fish trade
Sean Mowbray is a freelance writer based in Scotland. He covers the environment, archaeology, and general science topics. His work has also appeared in outlets such as Mongabay, New Scientist, Hakai Magazine, Ancient History Magazine, and others.
