European Journal of Archaeology 22 (4) 2019, 523–541 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Earliest Wave of Viking Activity? The Norwegian Evidence Revisited AINA MARGRETHE HEEN-PETTERSEN Department of Historical Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway This article discusses the chronology and nature of the earliest Viking activity, based on a group of early burials from Norway containing Insular metalwork. By focusing on the geographical distribution of this material and applying the concept of locational and social knowledge, the importance of establishing cognitive landscapes to facilitate the Viking expansion is highlighted. It is argued that the first recorded Viking attacks were only possible after a phase in which Norse seafarers had acquired the necessarily level of a priori environmental knowledge needed to move in new seascapes and coastal environments. This interaction model opens the possibility that some of the early Insular finds from Norway may represent pre-Lindisfarne exploration voyages, carried out by seafarers along the sailing route of Nordvegr. Keywords: Early Viking Age, Vikings, Insular, Norway, Nordvegr, maritime mobility INTRODUCTION and data which have not been included in previous debates about the earliest Viking For over a century, the earliest Viking activity. Second, the article examines the activity in Britain and Ireland (the `Insular nature of the initial phase of contact with area` referred to in this paper) has been a focus on maritime mobility and environ- the topic of intense scholarly discussion. mental knowledge, which must have been The written and archaeological evidence vital aspects but remain under-investigated have been regularly reviewed, most components of the initial phase of contact. recently by Emer Purell (2015) and Clare Finally, the article brings together these Downham (2017) who have studied the elements and proposes a model of move- first generation of Vikings in Ireland and ment and maritime communication for the the written sources for the earliest Viking earliest voyages across the North Sea. activity in England, respectively. The purpose of this article is to consider the Norwegian evidence in light of the THE EARLIEST RECORDED RAIDS AND current discussions into initial direct THE BEGINNING OF THE VIKING AGE contact across the North Sea. First, it reviews the chronology and geographical Over the years, many scholars have distribution of 16 early burials containing expressed different views about when the Insular metalwork, including new finds earliest direct contact between Norway © European Association of Archaeologists 2019 doi:10.1017/eaa.2019.19 Manuscript received 29 June 2018, accepted 18 March 2019, revised 17 December 2018 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.126, on 28 Sep 2021 at 09:49:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2019.19 524 European Journal of Archaeology 22 (4) 2019 and the Insular world took place and the sources including letters, foreign chroni- nature of this interaction. The relationship cles, and charters, suggest that large parts between the archaeological evidence and of southern England were also targeted by information recorded in the Irish annals ‘pagans’ around the same time. These and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has been accounts are however somewhat supressed central to these discussions. in the Chronicle, which mainly records The first written record of a Viking the Vikings as a regular threat to southern attack on Insular land took place in England from c. AD 830 and onwards. It Portland, Dorset, in AD 789—or sometime appears that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is during the reign of King Beorthric of somewhat biased towards King Alfred and Wessex between AD 786 and 802 if we his family by playing down the impact base the dating on a cautious use of the of the Vikings before the reign of King sources (Dumville, 2008: 356). According Ecgberht, King Alfred’s grandfather to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, three ships (Downham, 2017: 12). of Northmen arrived near a royal resi- Since the early twentieth century, the dence, where they killed the king’s reeve earliest recorded raids have generally been who rode out to meet them. While the regarded as the starting point of contact earliest source refers to the Northmen as across the North Sea. By tradition, this ‘Dani’ (a general term for Scandinavians), has led to the widespread notion that any later versions of the Chronicle (Versions Insular metalwork could only have reached D, E, and F) identify the ships as origin- Scandinavia after these events. This prin- ating from Hordaland in the western part ciple is often referred to as the ‘Shetelig of present-day Norway (Dumville, 2008: axiom’ and has been both influential and 356, Downham, 2017: 1). Possibly after much debated. While early researchers the altercation in Portland, the earliest were also open to the idea of direct pre- Viking raid on an ecclesiastical location is Viking contact, this topic became the the well-known attack on the monastery subject of lively scholarly discussion in the on Lindisfarne in north-eastern England 1990s. Instead of viewing the Lindisfarne in June 793, recorded in the Northern attack as the first time the ‘Norwegian’ recension of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Vikings entered the Insular world, it was versions D and E (Downham, 2017: 2). strongly argued that a pre-Viking phase of In the following decade, the Insular migration and trade to Atlantic Scotland sources record repeated raids around the took place from the early to mid-eighth shores of Britain and Ireland. This century or even earlier (e.g. Myhre, 1993, includes the sacking of the monastery at 1998, 2000; Weber, 1994, 1996; Solli, the ‘mouth of the River Don’ (possible 1996). This view is sometimes referred to Jarrow, or a monastery in South as the ‘Myhre’ model because of Bjørn Yorkshire) and raids throughout the Myhre’s influential role in these discus- Hebrides in AD 794, on the islands of sions. As summarized elsewhere (see Iona, Inishmurray, Inishbofin, and Rechru Barrett, 2008: 418–21), the debate princi- (probably Lambay Island, Co. Dublin) in pally centred around four aspects of the AD 795, while mainland Scotland (Argyll) archaeological evidence: 1) Viking graves and Ireland were targeted from AD 796 with early types of brooches or weapons in onwards (Dumville, 2008; Downham, Scotland; 2) early combs from Orkney 2000). While the annals and Chronicle made of Scandinavian reindeer antler; 3) show an emphasis on early raids on pollen analysis on Faroe indicating a pre- Ireland and northern Britain, other written Viking presence; and 4) early Insular Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.126, on 28 Sep 2021 at 09:49:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2019.19 Heen-Pettersen – The Earliest Wave of Viking Activity? 525 objects in Norwegian graves. The first of THE EARLIEST INSULAR METALWORK: these pieces of evidence has since been COMPOSITION largely dismissed because the early brooches show clear signs of wear and Over forty years ago, Egil Bakka discussed repair and because of the difficulties of the chronology of a group of eleven early dating Scottish graves on the basis of graves from Norway with Insular metal- Norwegian typologies (e.g. Morris, 1998: work, all of which also contained brooches 88; Owen, 2004). The presence of of the late Vendel/Merovingian periods or Scandinavian reindeer antler from Orkney transitional types that survived into the has also been reviewed and has shown that Early Viking Age (Bakka, 1973; see also the arrival of this material cannot be Wamers, 1998:51–54). To this group, securely dated to before the early ninth five further finds, from Ytre Kvarøy, Skei, century (Ashby, 2009; von Holstein et al., Geite, Myklebost, and Farmen, can be 2014). The evidence for a pre-Viking Age added (Figure 1 and Table 1). presence on the Faroes has recently been As shown in Table 1, the Insular metal- confirmed by new pollen evidence and work comprises twenty-three objects from dates. These results are interpreted as ‘firm sixteen graves representing fourteen female evidence for the human colonisation of the and two male burials. The most significant Faroes by people of unknown geographical piece is the complete reliquary from a and ethnic origin some 300–500 years woman’s burial in Melhus (see Figure 6), before the large-scale Viking colonisation one of only twelve largely complete Insular of the ninth century’ (Church et al., 2013: house-shaped shrines to have survived in 231–32). While not forming part of the Europe. The grave contained a further original discussion, an early date from a Insular find in the form of a reworked site in Norwick, Shetland, obtained in ecclesiastical mount, which was probably 2003, has also been used to suggest Norse used as a brooch to fasten the deceased’s settlement before AD 793 (Ballin Smith, fur cloak (see Heen-Pettersen & Murray, 2007). However, the date was obtained 2018 for a recent presentation of this from carbonized food deposits and could find). Such decorative and gilded copper- easily be a result of marine reservoir effects alloy mounts are by far the most common on cooked fish, or even statistical chance, object type in the early Insular material, since the remaining dates from the site with fifteen pieces known from fourteen largely suggest a later settlement date locations.