Nordic Bronze Age Warm Period

Just a short “preservation posting”. Yet Another Wiki Page that will likely be obliterated. IMHO, due to saying it was warmer in the past…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age

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Now it is a short article, but there isn’t a whole lot of obvious issue to me. I’ll be quoting the article in full, and putting a bit of bold on the part that I suspect is the real “issue”… that it says it was warmer then…

The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age) is the name given by Oscar Montelius to a period and a Bronze Age culture in Scandinavian prehistory, c. 1700–500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia. Succeeding the Late Neolithic culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown in the absence of written sources. It is followed by the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

General characteristics

Even though Scandinavians joined the European Bronze Age cultures fairly late through trade, Scandinavian sites present rich and well-preserved objects made of wool, wood, and imported Central European bronze and gold.

Many rock carvings depict ships, and the large stone burial monuments known as stone ships suggest that shipping played an important role. Thousands of rock carvings depict ships, most probably representing sewn plank built canoes for warfare, fishing, and trade. These may have a history as far back as the neolithic period and continue into the Pre-Roman Iron Age, as shown by the Hjortspring boat.[1]

There are many mounds and rock carving sites from the period. Numerous artifacts of bronze and gold are found. No written language existed in the Nordic countries during the Bronze Age. The rock carvings have been dated through comparison with depicted artifacts, for example bronze axes and swords. (There are also numerous Nordic Stone Age rock carvings in the north of Scandinavia, mostly portraying elk.)
Sub-periodization

Oscar Montelius, who coined the term used for the period, divided it into six distinct sub-periods in his piece Om tidsbestämning inom bronsåldern med särskilt avseende på Skandinavien ("On Bronze Age dating with particular focus on Scandinavia") published in 1885, which is still in wide use. His absolute chronology has held up well against radiocarbon dating, with the exception that the period's start is closer to 1700 BC than 1800 BC, as Montelius suggested. For Central Europe a different system developed by Paul Reinecke is commonly used, as each area has its own artifact types and archaeological periods.

A broader subdivision is the Early Bronze Age, between 1700 BC and 1100 BC, and the Late Bronze Age, 1100 BC to 550 BC. These divisions and periods are followed by the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
Climate

The Nordic Bronze Age was characterized first by a warm climate that began with a climate change around 2700 BC (comparable to that of present-day central Germany and northern France). The warm climate permitted a relatively dense population and good farming; for example, grapes were grown in Scandinavia at this time. A wetter, colder climate prevailed after a minor change in climate between 850 BC and 760 BC, and a more radical one around 650 BC.

Religion

Not much is known about the Nordic Bronze Age religion, since written sources are lacking. Archaeological finds draw a vague picture of what the religion might have been, but only some possible sects of it and only certain possible tribes. Some of the best clues to the religion of this period come from the rock carvings scattered through Northern Europe.

A pair of twin gods are believed to have been worshipped, and is reflected in a duality in all things sacred: where sacrificial artifacts have been buried they are often found in pairs. A female or mother goddess is believed to have been widely worshipped (see Nerthus). Sacrifices (animals, weapons, jewelry, and men) have been connected to water, and small lakes or ponds were often used as holy places for sacrifice and many artifacts have been found in such locations. Hieros gamos rites may have been common. Ritual instruments such as bronze lurs have been found sacrificed and are believed to have been used in ceremonies.

Bronze Age rock carvings may contain some of the earliest depictions of well-known gods from later Norse mythology. A common figure in these rock carvings is that of a male figure carrying what appears to be an axe or hammer. This may have been an early representation of Thor. Other male figures are shown holding a spear. Whether this is a representation of Odin or Týr is not known. It is possible the figure may have been a representation of Tyr, as one example of a Bronze Age rock carving appears to show a figure missing a hand. A figure holding a bow may be an early representation of Ullr. Or it is possible that these figures were not gods at all, but men brandishing the weapons of their culture.

Remnants of the Bronze Age religion and mythology are believed to exist in Germanic mythology and Norse mythology; e.g., Skinfaxi and Hrímfaxi and Nerthus, and it is believed to itself be descended from an older Indo-European prototype.

So looks to me like a bit of a ‘dig here’ for more supportive evidence for this historical warm period.

See also

Bronze Age Europe
Bronze Age sword
Egtved Girl
The King’s Grave
Stone ships
Tanumshede
Pomeranian culture

Notes

Jump up ^ Ling 2008. Elevated Rock Art. GOTARC Serie B. Gothenburg Archaeological Thesis 49. Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Gothenburg, Goumlteborg, 2008. ISBN 978-91-85245-34-5.
Jump up ^ . The carvings have been painted in recent times. It is unknown whether they were painted originally. Composite image. Nordic Bronze Age.

Bibliography

Dabrowski, J. (1989) Nordische Kreis un Kulturen Polnischer Gebiete. Die Bronzezeit im Ostseegebiet. Ein Rapport der Kgl. Schwedischen Akademie der Literatur Geschichte und Alter unt Altertumsforschung über das Julita-Symposium 1986. Ed Ambrosiani, B. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien. Konferenser 22. Stockholm.
Davidson, H. R. Ellis and Gelling, Peter: The Chariot of the Sun and other Rites and Symbols of the Northern European Bronze Age.
K. Demakopoulou (ed.), Gods and Heroes of the European Bronze Age, published on the occasion of the exhibition “Gods and Heroes of the Bronze Age. Europe at the Time of Ulysses”, from December 19, 1998, to April 5, 1999, at the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, London (1999), ISBN 0-500-01915-0.
Demougeot, E. La formation de l’Europe et les invasions barbares, Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1969-1974.
Kaliff, Anders. 2001. Gothic Connections. Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000 BC – 500 AD.
Montelius, Oscar, 1885. Om tidsbestämning inom bronsåldern med särskilt avseende på Skandinavien.
Musset, L. Les invasions: les vagues germanique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965.

This link seems to have much of the same text and images (some even larger):
http://forum.christogenea.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2339

Page 178 of this Google Book entry The Well Spring of the Goths: About the Gothic peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent by Ingemar Nordgren (Nov 19, 2004) is at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0595336485

The Nordic Bronze Age Society was in many ways a flourishing culture. There was a warm climate making it possible to have a relatively extensive agriculture and the nature was overwhelmingly rich. The houses did not have to be as heat insulated as later on and the cattle could be out around the year.

So we have a bit of confirmation on the warmth.

This link has a similar warm then cold cycle documentation:

http://www.calimaine.com/gg_vikings.html

Below, although no written language yet existed, petroglyphs from Scandinavia (images incised in rock that were a form of pre-writing symbols used in communication have been dated as belonging to the Nordic Bronze Age by comparing depicted artifacts with archaeological finds. For example, bronze axes were portrayed in petroglyphs. Petroglyphs depicting ships tell us that shipping played an important role in Scandinavian life. During this period, a warm climate permitted the growth of a relatively dense population and provided conditions for good farming, including that of grapes, until a deteriorating climate in Scandinavia of colder, wetter weather (600 BC to 300 BC) pushed tribes southward into continental Europe.

So there ought to be a fair amount of history to document that warmer Viking time.

It’s also indirectly an indication that “My People” have been hanging around grapes and wine longer than I’d thought ;-)

Mum raised me with the Viking Legends and I was told that my family history of several generations of sailors reached back to the Vikings arriving in England long long ago. That, and the family tendency to blonds, redheads, and blue eyes; all tended to support the oral history… So looks like we ‘hung out’ with grapes in Scandinavia, then moved down to the UK for a bit of wine during the Roman Warm Period. Eventually to land in California for a while. Now off to Florida; where I’ve found a local winery ;-)

At any rate, I’ve preserved the bit of wiki-heresy about historical warmth, and documented a couple of other references.

It was warm in the Bronze Age, colder in the Iron Age, and we warmed up again in the Roman Warm Period, but only enough to get grape growing into the middle of the UK. Looks like a long period cycle to me.

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