3-A |
LATE IRON AGE: 550–1050
FARM LANDSCAPES
The Norwegian farm arose in the transition between the Migration Period and the Merovingian Age – around 550. During this time, the landscape was divided into properties, with fences and boundary markers making it clear to everyone what was mine and yours.
The Viking Age dominated the last part of the Iron Age, and control of the oceans became a path to power. Fast-moving ships made it possible to attack and retreat quickly. Many sailed westward to plunder and conquer new lands.
3-B |
TODAY’S LANDSCAPE
The table model is an illustration of how it might have looked in the Late Iron Age – not an accurate reconstruction. Sea levels are based on NGU calculations.
3-C |
AN IRISH HANGING BOWL
The Viking Age begins with the assault of the Lindisfarne monastery in 793. Through raids, a large number of objects from the British Isles and Francia were brought back to Norway. Many of these eventually ended up in the burial mounds of powerful individuals here.
In a female grave at Skei in Sparbu, a beautiful Irish hanging bowl and ladle was found. The grave has been dated to 775–800. Could this mean that there have been westward Viking raids even before the attack on Lindisfarne? Or did these items get here through peaceful trade?
Another explanation is that the woman in the grave was in fact Irish. Perhaps she came here as a bride, bringing jewellery and objects with her.
Bronze hanging bowls from Ireland, found at Skei
Photo: NTNU University Museum, Ole Bjørn Pedersen
3-D |
In several rich female graves from the Late Iron Age, especially along the coast from Trøndelag and northwards, whale bone slabs with detailed carvings and a handle on one side have been found.
Many archaeologists believe that these slabs were used as ironing boards, together with a smooth (perhaps heated) stone or a wooden roller, to straighten out fine textiles. Others believe the slabs were used as dinner plates or serving mats, and that the scratches and cuts are traces of knives. In any case, these were items mostly used by women from the upper class.
A whale bone slab has been found in a rich female grave at Skei in Sparbu. The slab has carved and embedded ornamentation resembling animal patterns.
Whale bone slab from a female grave at Skei
Photo: NTNU University Museum, Ole Bjørn Pedersen
A WHALE BONE SLAB
3-E |
Beneath the old stone church at Mære, where an Iron Age mead hall once stood, a number of tiny gold reliefs – so-called gullgubber (golden men) – have been discovered. These are small, leaf-thin gold foils, between a half and one-and-a-half square centimetres in size. The motif is often a profile of two figures, with a stick or twig between them. These have been interpreted to be the fertility god Frøy and the Jotun woman Gerd.
We do not know the function of these golden men. They are so small and fragile that it is difficult to imagine them as jewellery or currency. The vast majority have been found in and around post holes near the chief’s seat in mead halls. Perhaps they were put there when the halls were built – for good luck?
Gullgubber (golden men) from Mære
Photo: NTNU University Museum, Åge Hojem
TINY GOLDEN WORKS OF ART
3-F |
Ever since the Stone Age, people have lived in longhouses. From the Bronze Age we see the three-nave longhouses, where the roof was held up by two rows of upright posts dug into the ground. The walls consisted of a wickerwork of thin broadleaf material covered with clay. They later transitioned to planks. The barn was located at one end, often towards the east, to protect against the cold eastern winds during winter.
Through the Late Iron Age, farm buildings changed. The main house became a purely residential building, a gathering place for people, while the animals were moved to separate buildings. Several smaller buildings serving different functions – such as firehouses and storehouses – also became part of the growing farmstead. In the Middle Ages, the log building technique replaced the old longhouse traditions.
Reconstruction of a Viking Age longhouse and a Middle Age log building at Stiklestad
Photo: Arven Museums/SNK
A HOUSE FOR EVERYTHING
3-G |
Agriculture and animal husbandry is something we humans have been doing for thousands of years. But it is only in the Late Iron Age that we can start talking about farms in a more modern sense. What does that mean? First and foremost, the sectioning of land into units that someone owned. Within each unit, including cultivated and uncultivated land, they carried out most of their everyday activities.
Large farms were strategically located with clearly visible ancestral mounds – burial mounds that marked a family’s ownership of the land. Several of the farms established at this time still exist, such as Helge, Egge, Trana and Mære. In such places, archaeologists can trace more than a thousand years of more or less continuous farming activity.
Axe and spindle whorl from a Tuv farmstead burial mound
Photo: NTNU University Museum, Ole Bjørn Pedersen
THE EMERGENCE OF FARMS
3-H |
Clothes and other textiles were made at home on the farm. Thread for the textiles was made from sheep’s wool or from flax and nettle from the meadow, spun using a spindle. The tool consisted of a stick passed through a spindle whorl made of stone, bone, ceramic or wood acting as a weight. The wool or plant fibres were held in one hand, while the other spun the spindle round and round.
The spindle has remained a handicraft tool almost right up to modern times, despite more efficient methods having been introduced. This is probably because it was so easy to bring with you, allowing you to spin anywhere and anytime.
Brown sandstone spindle whorl, found at Stod
Photo: NTNU University Museum, Kari Dahl