Bear and Human
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Book Series
The Archaeology of Northern Europe, vol. 6
Harvesting the Margins of the Viking World
Decentralizing Economies in Late Iron Age Fennoscandia
Charlotta Hillerdal, Kristin Ilves (eds)
- Pages: approx. 288 p.
- Size:216 x 280 mm
- Illustrations:60 b/w, 20 col., 40 tables b/w., 40 maps b/w
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2026
- € 110,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62018-3
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (Jul/26)
- € 110,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62019-0
- E-book
- Forthcoming
- Contains contributions in Open Access
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In this work a more diverse understanding of Northern Late Iron Age economies and subsistence strategies is gathered with the aim of nuancing our understanding of Viking Age economies.
Subject(s)
BIO
Charlotta Hillerdal (Ph.D. 2010, Uppsala Universitet) is a Senior Lecturer in archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. Her research spans archaeological theory, Indigenous- and community archaeology, Late Iron Age Scandinavia and the Viking diaspora.
Kristin Ilves (Ph.D. 2012, Uppsala University) is tenure track Professor in Maritime Archaeology at the University of Helsinki. Her current research interests include maritime cultural landscape studies, human-environment interactions, settlement dynamics, identity and social relations, and the northern European Late Iron Age.
Summary
Viking Age research has long been shaped by an ‘agricultural paradigm’ — a framework that centres economic and social development in the fertile plains of southern and central Scandinavia. This dominant model has marginalized alternative subsistence strategies and rendered northern regions peripheral, both geographically and conceptually. This volume challenges that orthodoxy through a new focus on the economic and cultural significance of Late Iron Age Fennoscandia. Gathering fifteen chapters from established scholars in the field, this work explores how environmentally diverse and often-overlooked northern areas were not passive peripheries. Instead they were active arenas of innovation, connectivity, and identity formation. Contributors examine mixed economies and subsistence strategies, and the movement of people, materials, and ideas across forested outlands, coastal zones, and inland trade networks. From indigenous agency to interregional exchange, this volume decentres traditional narratives to offer a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of economic life in the Late Iron Age.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
1. Setting the Scene: Shifting Late Iron Age Geography
Kristin Ilves and Charlotta Hillerdal
2. Challenging Marginality: Nuancing the Agricultural Paradigm of Viking Age Fennoscandia
Charlotta Hillerdal
Conceptualizing a New Viking Age North
3. Fuzzy Boundaries: Defining the Wilderness in Finnish Scholarship
Tuija Kirkinen
4. Historical and Mythical Northern Land: Dialoguing between the Viking Age and the Present in Northern Finland
Vesa-Pekka Herva and Risto Nurmi
5. The Rise of an Economic Elite – Societal Changes in the North Induced by Viking Age Trade Networks
Jari-Matti Kuusela
6. Maritime Transformations in Northern Norway during the Viking Age and Medieval Period: Innovation and Independence on the Edge of Europe
Stephen Wickler
7. Sámi in the north – Central actors in Viking Age Trade
Ingela Bergman
8. Trade and Subsistence in Northeastern Fennoscandia: The Northern River Routes and the White Sea Coast
Hanna-Leena Puolakka
9. The Outland as an Economic Resource Base: Exploitation in the Norse Periphery
Irene Baug
Diversifying Economy and Connectivity
10. Hunters and Combmakers, Mountains and Markets: Problematizing the Movement of Reindeer Antler in Viking-Age Norway
Steve Ashby
11. The Riches behind the Langeid Sword: Viking Age Iron Production and Trade
Kjetil Loftsgarden
12. From Quarry to Pot: Soapstone in Local and Regional Networks
Eva Svensson, Lena Grandin, Stefan Nilsson, Ellinor Larsson, Hans Olsson, and Annie Johansson
13. Shears and Frontiers: Pastoral Grave Goods in Viking Age Sweden and their Implications
Samanta Rose
14. Was it for Iron?
Andreas Hennius
15. Clandestine Clay? Explorations into Late Iron Age Religious Identity Creation in an Island Setting
Kristin Ilves, Kim Darmark and Elisabeth Holmqvist
