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Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries.
Vikings themselves were expanding; although their motives are unclear, historians believe that scarce resources or a lack of mating opportunities were a factor. [ 92 ] The slave trade was an important part of the Viking economy, with most slaves destined to Scandinavia, although many others were shipped east where they could be sold for large ...
This shows that there were already close contacts between the two peoples, and the Vikings would have been well informed about their targets. [ 14 ] The next recorded attack against the Anglo-Saxons came the following year, in 793, when the monastery at Lindisfarne , an island off England's eastern coast, was sacked by a Viking raiding party on ...
Swedish Vikings predominantly traveled eastward, into Russia. The Swedes took part in many Western raids against England alongside the Danes and Norwegians of which many successfully acquired Danegeld as seen on the England Runestones. The Swedes were also very active traders and raiders in the eastern and southeastern parts of Europe.
The Vikings on the Faroe Islands were an agricultural people. They grew barley, which was ground with slate millstones imported from Norway. The most important domestic animals were sheep, and Faroese wool was already an important export at that time. There were also cows and, unlike today, many pigs. The name of the island, Svínoy, testifies ...
The rediscovery of the Viking past began in Norway during the 19th century when Norway saw a rise in nationalism. Having been in a personal union with Denmark under the Danish king for 400 years and subsequently in the union between Sweden and Norway under the Swedish king, Norwegians started looking back to their Viking Age kings and sagas.
A large stone coffin was found in the middle of the mass grave, but the remains of this body did not survive. A study of the skeletal remains revealed that at least 80% of the bodies were male, and were between the ages of 15 and 45. [70] A variety of Viking artefacts were also found among the bones. [70]
Earth samples proved that the Vikings used slash-and-burn agriculture to cultivate the area and burned down the birch bushes that originally grew there to create pastures. [18] In summary, the excavation results so far allow us to conclude that the living conditions were significantly less favorable than in the eastern settlement.