The Pre-history of the North, based on contemporary memorials ... Translated, with a brief memoir of the author, by H. F. M. Simpson ... With several illustrations and a map

Front matter

THE PREHISTORY OF THE NORTH. THE PRE-HISTORY OF THE NORTH, BASED ON Contemporary Memorials, BY THE LATE Chamberlain J. J. A. WORSAAE, , Dr. Phil., Hon. F.S.A., P.S.A. Scot., M.B.I.A., &c."^ r-» VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ANCIENT NORTHERN TEXTS (1865-1885), DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL MUSEUM OF NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES THE ETHNOGRAPHICAL MUSEUM AND THE ROSENBORG CASTLE IN COPENHAGEN, GRAND CROSS OF THE DANNEBROG, ETC. ETC. TRANSLATED, WITH A BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. UT H. F. MOKLAND SIMPSON, M.A. OTftfj seberal Illustrations anu iSap. LONDON: TKUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 1SS6. [All rights reserved.'] TMttnrwis -pwsj* BAI.LANTYNB, HANSON AND CO. LU1HUVB.GH AND LONDON CONTENTS. PAGE Translator's Preface vii Memoir of the Author xi Author's Preface xxiii Introduction xxvii ■first part. THE STONE-AGE.

CHAP. I. The Stone-Age in General i II. The Early Stone-Age in the North .... 9 III. The Later Stone- Age in the North .... 19 Second part, THE BRONZE-AGE. IV. The Rise and Spread of the Bronze-Age . . 48 V. The Earlier Bronze-Age in the North . . .62 VI. The Later Bronze-Age in the North . . .74 VI CONTENTS. abtrfc part. THE IRON-AGE. CHAP. PAGE VII. The PiiSE and Spread of the Iron-Age . . .102 VIII. The Earlier Iron- Age in the North . . .110 IX. The Middle Iron-Age in the North, or First Period of the Later Iron- Age . . . -135 X. The Viking-Times in the North, or Second Period of the Later Iron-age 182 Approximate Conspectus of the Prehistoric Settlements and Development of Culture in the Scandinavian North 205 Map of the Scandinavian North, and Chart to Illustrate the Progress of the various Cultures Northwards.

In presenting this work to the English public, in memory of the distinguished archæologist to whom the early history of our own people also owes a deep debt of gratitude, I desire ' to express my heartfelt thanks to those of his friends and countrymen from whom I have received encouragement and valuable assistance ; and firstly to Fru Worsaae herself, the widow of the author, for her gracious assent to the undertaking ; also to Dr. Sophus Miiller, secretary of the Northern Text Society, the author's most intimate friend and assistant, for permission to use his memorial address delivered in November last before the Society.1 To him I am gratefully indebted for several corrections and explanations of .difficulties in the text, and still more for his personal kindness and introduction to many of the objects described in this volume.

Preface

. The present work is intended to give a general survey of the most important results as yet attained by the modern investigation of prehistoric antiquities. It was originally printed in Danish by the Letterstedt Association in the "Nordisk Tidskrift for Vetenskap Konst och Industri" (Stockholm 1878, Parts 1-3). It was then published in German as a separate book under the title : " Die Vorgeschichte des Nordens nach gleichzeitigen Denkmalern " (Hamburg 1 878), with an introduction by the translator Friiulein J. Mestorf, curator of the Museum of Antiquities in Kiel — who has done so much for the study of Northern Antiquities — and a preface by myself. After frequent appeals I was just on the point of re-publishing the work in Danish in a more accessible form for general readers, than the above-mentioned periodical presents, when I had the good fortune to discover the meaning of the sacred signs used by the ancient inhabitants of the North and of the representa- AUTHOR'S

PREFACE.

. XXIV tions on the gold bracteates and on the two very remarkable Golden Horns from the district of Mogel tonder in North- Slesvig. This enabled me to take a broad and unexpected view of the ancient religious life of the Northmen, as well as of the other kindred Germanic races, especially during the early period of the Iron- Age, just before the great national migrations in the fifth century after the birth of Christ. In reference to this I have rewritten that part of my work which deals with this subject. Along with this I have woven in the most important of the archæological observations made in the last three years (1878-80). These, among other results, have shown more and more a striking external and internal agreement in the main between the gradual stages of development of the Stone and Bronze Ages in various parts of the world.

They bear new witness to the remarkably universal currents of culture during the Iron-Age also ; and justify us in connecting the first beginnings of the Iron- Age in the most southern parts of the North with the pre-Roman Iron-culture, thus fixing its date somewhat earlier than it had previously been the custom to assume. In a more detailed work, for which this may serve as the forerunner, it is my intention as soon as possible to deal more closely with those numerous coincident facts observed in many lands, on which I have based my new and, as I hope, successful explanations men- AUTHOR'S

PREFACE.

. XXV tioned above. At any rate it can no longer be doubted that the prehistoric contemporary records themselves, which have hitherto served chiefly as evidence of external conditions of culture, are also of foremost importance for a trustworthy and full comprehension of the creeds of individual peoples, and especially of that hope of a life hereafter, which inspired our fore fathers not least of all throughout the whole of anti quity, and which at last prepared and aided the transition from heathenism to Christianity. J. J. A. WORSAAE. Copenhagen, Rosenborg, 14th December 1880.

Introduction

. The investigation of prehistoric antiquities is still in its earliest infancy. From northern Europe, we may even add, more especially from the Scandinavian North, where even in our own times its cradle stood, it has succeeded with surprising rapidity in overspreading well-nigh all lands both in Europe and beyond. Based on contemporary facts and thus strengthened in the struggle with the traditional prejudices of literature nationality and, in part, of politics, it has begun to open new vistas into various and still measureless ages of man's existence on the earth prior to sure written history. Thus much may with certainty be now pre dicted, that the theories formerly accepted in science and derived solely from written sources concerning the comparatively late origin of the human race the rise of diverse national stocks their development in culture and gradual .extension over various lands will either be completely overthrown, or at least undergo a searching change.

INTRODUCTION.

. But as a matter of course a mode of inquiry so new and so unusually comprehensive in the study of pre historic antiquities cannot yet offer many general firm and universally convincing scientific results, to replace the old prejudices hitherto prevailing. The foundations of the comparative method of investigation have been successfully laid. Research is no longer confined solely to the prehistoric monuments everywhere preserved. Ethnography natural science the science of language and the oldest and most trustworthy documents must all lend their aid. Yet it will be long ere each single group of lands and peoples can be assigned its right place in the whole steadily progressive development of man during the far-reaching pre-historic ages. Nor will it as a rule be possible yet to give a com prehensive and generally trustworthy representation of the peculiar form presented by the earliest prehistoric stages of culture in each country.

The older the civilisation and written records of such lands as India Egypt Greece and Italy, the more evidently are the prehistoric traces effaced or difficult to distinguish from the numerous extant memorials of later conditions of civilisation. The right way to solve this problem is to be sought for most directly in remoter regions, which have been disturbed by the great historical streams of civilisation only at a later time and in a less degree. For in such lands the last relics of the bygone and preparatory

INTRODUCTION.

. XXIX primitive stages have been preserved longest and purest. Once gain a firm hold of the thread which unmistakably winds through the earliest portions of man's life over the whole world, and it will be easier gradually to unravel this closely twisted and tangled knot. In this respect the distant Scandinavian North and the nearest neighbouring countries southward on the Baltic and North Seas occupy a specially favourable position. It was no mere chance that this very quarter should prove one of the first and most im portant starting-points of the new prehistoric archæ ology. Careful and systematic examinations of the unusually large number of prehistoric memorials pre served in the North have succeeded in showing here the succession of the Stone Bronze and Iron Ages. Thus observation has long been turned to a corresponding succession in the primitive stages of human culture elsewhere, nay, in almost every part of the world.

Hence we may with truth maintain that the first clear ray has been shed across the universal prehistoric gloom of the North and of the world in general. Gradually as the domain of research is widened and cleared by the road of comparison, may we here, more than in most other lands, hope occasionally from the rich and pure material at hand to present larger glimpses over the territory gained, illuminating the course of colonisation and the last heaving of the waves on the main course of culture in Scandinavia, and thus materially contri-

INTRODUCTION.

. XXX buting to a juster comprehension of the earlier nature and development of the streams of culture in the rest of Europe, and even in other quarters of the globe, as they at last made their way up to the remote North. In such general surveys many great changes and improvements must necessarily be made in accordance with later and more successful investigations. But this cannot weigh in comparison with the progress attained, if we thus succeed more and more in riveting attention on some of the principal starting-points for future investigations, and so help to point out more definitely the plain natural way, by which research both here aud elsewhere will most readily and best be able to open up new roads. ffirst part. THE STONE-AGE.

Chapter I. The Stone-age In Generau

From the earliest dates of which we possess the sure written records, Europe received from Asia and North Africa steady fertilising influences of culture, the result partly of new immigrations. That this was the case in pre-historic periods, and that the later movements of culture thus merely followed the track of the older, is in itself probable. At all events there is no sufficient evidence forthcoming as yet in Europe to show that in the primeval ages of mankind Europe had an earlier or at least as early and in comparison as developed a population as in the most favoured regions of Asia. More and more do archæological facts testify that in the oldest culture lands of Asia and North Africa, as A for instance in India China Assyria and Egypt, an Age of Stone must once have prevailed — followed by a Bronze Age — long before those highly developed stages of culture recognised by history, which were in full bloom in these countries thousands of years before the birth of Christ.

Similar strata of ancient culture and in part of several earlier populations even within the limits of the Stone Age are beginning to show them selves in Egypt Asia Japan the South Sea Islands and America, where men have thought — though scarcely always on sufficient grounds — to find the last remains of the real aboriginal inhabitants in the still existing savage races. We are not now concerned with the origin of the chief races of man. In the very beginnings of history they confront us with fully stamped char acteristics. The gradual spread and development of mankind have in general proceeded with the greatest slowness. Only exceptionally at certain epochs and in particular places have races progressed at a bound. And this very slowness is obviously greatest in the case of the Stone Age, and in particular during its most primitive periods; since only the scantiest and most miserable resources then stood at man's command.

We may indeed be still unable to adopt the geologist Sir Charles Lyell's theory that the human race has probably existed on earth for some 100,000 years. Yet this much is certain: the more our glance is directed to that epoch-making point of time, when the Creator wakened man in all his nakedness into life, and therefore most probably under a warmer sun in some more genial climate, the more does that point recede into an endlessly distant indefinable past. THE STONE-AGE IN GENERAL. 3 Europe in particular does not appear to have received its first population, before the human race had spread extensively elsewhere. The growth of settlement and consequent want of support must gradually have forced races and families to change their original sunny homes for more distant and inclement lands. As such an original or at all events very important starting point for the population of the earth or first settlement on a larger scale we must in any case regard Asia, and particularly, till further evidence be forthcoming, India, so richly endowed by nature.

Here in ancient chalk - deposits under the earth's surface numerous relics have been found of a primitive Stone - Age. These clearly embrace a gradual development from a lower to a higher stage. In fact stone antiquities in India are generally regarded with superstitious awe on account of their high age, and are regularly deposited in the temples as offerings to the gods. There is every probability that it was from India the settlers went forth, who, according to the unanimous testimony of archæological and ethnographical indications, during the earliest and lowest stages of culture in the Age of Stone overspread the east and north of Asia ; whence some of them crossed Behrings Straits to America, others the Indian islands to the South Seas. Remark ably similar discoveries of various stone objects of the rudest kind in India Assyria and the most southern and western parts of Europe point also to the pro bability that a corresponding westward movement led the earliest immigrants to Syria Egypt and Asia Minor, thence onwards over the present boundaries of Europe, and thus for the first time to the warm and fruitful coast-lands bordering on the Black Sea and Mediterranean.1 It is true that the lands of the Mediterranean were in a very distant historical period the seat of a highly developed and peculiar classic culture, which must necessarily have been preceded locally by more primi tive circumstances to begin with; and for these the most favourable natural conditions lay to hand.

But it is the investigation of pre-historic antiquities, in opposition to the usual views of classical learning, which has in recent years first clearly shown by means of a comparatively astonishing quantity of mutually corroborative discoveries that in the Ion? ages, before there could be any question of a really great development of culture, a people must have lived throughout the coast-lands of the Mediterranean, who were un acquainted with the use of metals, and who from the very first supported themselves, in the usual manner of savage races, partly by fishing and hunting, partly on herbs roots and fruits. For a people of so low standing, who for their maintenance and protection against enemies and wild beasts possessed only the most necessary simple and clumsy implements of stone bone and wood, it was easier to spread along the more open mild sea-coasts, than, even by help of the great rivers, to push their way at once up into the interior of Europe.

Every- 1 Mommsen's statement (Hist. Rome, vol. i., chap, ii., Eng. tr.) re quires correction : " Nothing has hitherto been brought to light to warrant the supposition that mankind existed in Italy at a period ante rior to the knowledge of agriculture and of the smelting of metals." The museums of Italy tell a different tale, and might have warned so careful an archæologist from roundly asserting a negative. THE STONE-AGE IN GENERAL. 5 ■where in this direction they must have found them selves confronted by huge primeval forests and marshes deadly with poisonous exhalations, or mountain-chains, that, in far greater extent than now in the South and North, were shrouded with the mighty remains of the slowly vanishing masses of ice, which at one time — in the so-called " Ice- Age " — lay fast packed over a great portion of Europe.

Not a few discoveries of the self-same character have been made in the countries of the Mediterranean, in the lands of western Europe, on the coasts of the Atlantic, in France Belgium and England. These appear sufficient to prove that the first new settlers, who frequently had their abode in mountain-caves or under overhanging cliffs, and who were coeval with the mammoth cave bear cave-hyena rhinoceros and many other great mammals long ago extinct in Europe, must at first have preferred under the severer or sharply changeful climate then prevailing to sojourn on the coasts or the great river plains or at all events in the actual coast-lands. A somewhat milder period followed. Man had now learned to produce fire by rubbing pieces of wood or striking flint and quartz. The great mammals were on the eve of disappearing; while the reindeer was be ginning to play a more important part as a means of subsistence for the increasing population.

Till then probably no very considerable tracts of central Europe had received their earliest inhabitants, however feeble and few, along the river plains leading from the Black Sea or Mediterranean. Moreover these people under a new influence, as it seems, from Egypt and Asia now began perceptibly to develop and improve their extremely rough and clumsy implements of stone and bone. This improvement and especially the use of fire must have largely aided them in their advance from the coasts through the thick primeval forests, as well as in their struggle for daily food. But of any real settlement of the high Scandinavian North or generally of north-western Europe in these remote periods of the Stone- Age, called the Mammoth or Reindeer Period or the " Palæolithic- Age," not a single trace has yet been revealed.

As the countries on the Baltic were among the last to receive the peoples of the Stone-Age, so it was reserved for the remote Scandinavian North longest to preserve some of the last remains left by the primitive conditions of the Stone-Age in Europe. As yet the whole North with its lofty snow-capped mountain peaks its granite cliffs overgrown with thick gloomy primeval forests its long dales and lowlands formed an undiscovered wilderness, where only swarms of wild beasts roamed undisturbed. In the west and south-west of Europe meantime the population was steadily increasing. Simultaneously an entirely new development of the originally low culture of the Stone- Age began to spread abroad, more especially in the extreme south of Europe. Hunting and fishing demand exceptionally large tracts and frequent change of habi tation, if they are to provide sufficient food all the year round for increasing races.

Instead of these pursuits cattle-breeding agriculture and even gardening were now coming more to the front as the most impor tant means of livelihood. The new needs were followed by larger permanent dwellings with stalls for the cattle THE STONE-AGE IN GENERAL. 7 and store-houses against the winter. Clothes — partly woven of wool — were improved. More implements of greater variety were fashioned with a skill and taste as yet unknown. Large graves of stone were erected ; and in them were laid the implements ornaments and weapons needed by the dead, as was most naturally supposed, in the other world. The very appearance of these stone graves is remark able. In structure they are peculiar, and on compari son evidently uniform. They can be traced to north Africa and far into Asia, nay, now even to Japan and North America.

It is highly probable therefore that the distinct progress of culture in south and west Europe during the Later Stone-Age, as indicated by the appearance of pile-dwellings and other remains, was due to foreign influences, or more directly to a steadily increasing immigration of peoples. Possibly they were of various origin. But in any case they brought with them a culture common in the main to all; and ad vanced from the older culture lands — again chiefly from Asia. Races so savage as the earliest inhabitants of south and west Europe must have been, are not wont to develop themselves to any great extent without foreign influence or strong blendings of peoples beforehand. Nay, in general they are quite incapable of receiving a higher civilisation. Gradually therefore a growing population overspread the south and west of Europe.

More and more the ancient forests were cleared to form pasturage for cattle and open fields for tillage. With the spread of agriculture the hunting grounds must have shrunk back. The older races, living only on hunting and fishino-, and unable or unwilling to adapt themselves to the new conditions of culture, would inevitably be pushed northwards. Here at least, though in sterner regions, they might still for a long time pursue their ancient manner of life without hindrance and aided only by the simple implements and weapons, all the patterns of which they had brought with them from their early homes in western Europe.

Chapter II. The Early Stone-age In The North

In the south the Later Stone- Age had now reached its fullest development. Already the commencement of its slow decline had set in* on the east coasts of the Mediterranean nearest to Egypt and Asia. About this time the lands on the Baltic appear to have received their first savage inhabitants, ousted by the pressure of more favoured races. How late their arrival may be seen from the fact that they had not only learned to produce fire with flint, but brought with them an art unknown to the oldest and rudest peoples — that of burning earthen vessels, in which they were better able to boil and bake their food. Many circumstances serve to prove that the lands of the North were then the same in form as now. The North Sea had long rolled its mighty billows between England and Denmark, joined in bygone ages.

The Baltic also, bursting through and forming belts and - sounds, had severed the great Scandinavian peninsula the Danish islands and the peninsula of Jutland from one another. Coming from the west and south-west, from the coast lands of the Atlantic and North Sea, the roaming and scattered hunters and fishers must first have lit upon the peninsula of Jutland. Before them lay a land almost wholly covered down to the coasts with thick woods. Only here and there, especially on the higher ridges, were the forests broken by heaths, and on the west coast by meadows and marshes. To the west the stormy North Sea broke on shoals {sandrevler) and dunes of sand, and but few fjords were to be found. Here there was less prospect of support for the new settlers than to the east, where the calmer Baltic and Cattegat were everywhere embayed in Sounds and fjords between woody isles.

The primeval forests in part at least still consisted of pines, which afterwards vanished before the oak beech and leafy woods in general. They swarmed with wandering herds of reindeer; while elks Ur-oxen {bos urus) bisons bears wolves lynxes wild boars red deer beavers and other game were plentiful. Nor were they less rich in woodcocks swans great auks and countless other land and sea birds. Whales were occasionally to be seen swimming in the sea. Seals and shoals of fish abounded. Close under the shores, particularly in the Cattegat, as well as in the North Sea to some extent, was a profusion of oysters mussels cockles and other edible shell-fish. Both on the more open seaboard and scattered around in the land lay masses of stone, particularly of the flint peculiar to the soil of Denmark, yielding ample material for the manufacture of the implements and weapons most needful to hunters and fishermen.

In spite of the higher northern latitude the climate was not exceptionally severe, owing to the neighbourhood of the sea the general insular character of the land and the woods, which gave shelter from the wind. To lowlands so easily accessible so well provided by nature and offering such unusually favourable conditions for hunting and fishing the first inhabitants must have come rather to spy out than settle. Others soon followed. The peninsula of Jutland would appear also in these respects to have exercised an earlier and stronger attraction than the south coasts of the Baltic. These, if we except the island of Eiigen, strongly distinguished by its remarkable chalk formations and visible from several points of Denmark, have as yet at all events shown but faint traces of a corresponding primitive population.

In Jutland on the contrary numerous memorials and scattered discoveries of antiquities testify that the first immigrants spread chiefly on the east along the coasts and fjords as far as the northmost part of the Liim-fjord. Where they could, they would prefer to occupy islets off the coast. Not only were they here freer from the unwholesome exhalations of woods and marshes, but safer against sudden attacks of racial enemies or wild beasts. Here they could con veniently fish in the sea and hunt in the adjacent woods on the coast. If for the sake of the chase they wished to push further inland in their simple canoes and boats hollowed out of trunks, they could always follow the river courses, which as a rule were more extensive then than now. Only however on those points of the coast of Jut land near which rich oyster-beds were to be found does it appear to have been possible for more numerous races to live and support themselves regularly for any considerable time or for the whole year round.

Re mains of such a life may be recognised in the huge heaps of refuse from their meals, the "Kitchen-middens" {Kjohkenmoddinger), as they are called. They contain evident remains of hearths scattered potsherds and traces of charcoal and ashes, and consist of millions of shells of eaten oysters mussels and snails as well as countless bones of wild beasts — some of them split for the sake of the marrow — and all manner of rudely formed stone and bone implements, mostly of small size, with the refuse of their manufacture. But the oyster-catching fishing and hunting in Jutland alone would not long suffice for the support of the increasing population. Gradually they must have crossed the Belts, and by following the nearest coasts of the Cattegat reached the north of Fyen. Thence they would cross to Seeland, where the coast was fringed by numerous islets, and the vast forests, not less than in Jutland, abounded in game.

Huge heaps of shells in north Seeland show in like manner that the new settlers existed permanently in certain spots, where it was important for them to be near the oyster beds in the fjords and on the coasts. Of Fyen and Seeland, according to the observations as yet made, Seeland with the isles around it is beyond comparison richest in remains of the first immigrants at the beginning of the Stone- Age in Denmark. But in course of time a growing population in Seeland would be unable to obtain sufficient support only on the short north coast bordering on the Cattegat, even with the help of the large oyster-beds which then existed there. They were soon therefore obliged to begin spreading themselves over the coasts and isles along the remaining borders of Seeland on the Sound the Great Belt and the Baltic.

True, no oysters were as a rule to be found there. Indeed the brackish waters of the Baltic were just as little able then as now to afford a fair livelihood. But in other respects the conditions of nature were favourable as well in Seeland as on the other adjacent low isles, which are however as a rule of no great extent. Deep inlets of the sea and not a few river-courses opened a com paratively easy approach from the coasts and neighbouring isles, leading through the woods to freshwater lakes in the interior teeming with fish, and at the same time to new and by no means unimportant resources. On the other hand the necessity of gaining a livelihood does not appear to have driven the new settlers far from the coasts to the islands lying out in the more open sea. In Bornholm for instance no memorials have been discovered to indicate the track of the primeval inhabitants.

Strangely enough they never crossed the Sound in any great numbers from Seeland to Scania, where the conditions of nature on a fairly large scale were otherwise favourable to them. Only on the extreme coasts of the Scandinavian peninsula to the south and south-west as far as the southern point of Norway (Lister) have they left behind them meagre and scattered remains. And these too with their admixture of earlier or later objects point for the most part to the very close of the Early Age of Stone. Every indication thus tends to bespeak a limited area of the present Danish lands as the chief seat of the earliest inhabitants who came to the Scandinavian north, coming from the west — namely Jutland Fyen and the adjacent isles. With the exception of occa sional rare discoveries of mixed or transitional objects the contents of the refuse-heaps or kitchen-middens and the contemporary objects found on islands coasts and fjords present a living picture of a hunting and fishing people clad in skins alone.

For a long time without the slightest change development or least acquaintance with metal they continued to stand on the same low level as at their first arrival. In the struggle — often doubtless hard enough — to gain the bare requisites of life it is sufficiently certain that no internal activity of its own enabled this remote people to rise either to cattle-rearing agriculture or any independent radical improvement in their simple im plements of stone and bone. They continued to reproduce the peculiar forms they had originally brought from western Europe. Rude stone objects identically similar in form and evidently from a corre spondingstage of culture can also be shown in cave field and coast finds from south Europe as well as in finds from the district of Thebes in Egypt, from Japan, and from the shell-heaps of America.1 Neither in the refuse-heaps of Denmark nor in the shell-heaps of Japan or America is there the least trace found of a fuller development and change in ornamental objects.