Twelve thousand years ago, human beings slowly made their way into northwestern Europe, hunting the animals and gathering the plants that began to occupy lands left bare by the melting glaciers of the last ice age. For the next twelve millennia, the land and the surrounding sea in what is now called Scandinavia would shape a people who would eventually become known as the Vikings. This is a brief explanation of who they were.

The word "Vikings" has been used to identify all the people who lived in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in early medieval times. They earned the name "Vikings", and the bad reputation that went with it, because in old Norse, the word Viking meant "pirate", a reference to their raiding and pillaging of settlements across Europe at the turn of the ninth century.

  The period from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman Norwegian Norman Conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age of Scandinavian History. The Normans, however, were descended from Danes, rally meaning Norwegian person in the Norwegian language), Orkney, Hiberno-Norse, and Danelaw Vikings who were given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France — the Duchy of Normandy — in the 8th century. In that respect, the Vikings continued to have an influence in northern Europe. Likewise, King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England who was killed during the Norman invasion in 1066, was descended from Danish Vikings. Many of the medieval kings of Norway and Denmark were married to English and Scottish royalty and Viking forces were often a factor in dynastic disputes prior to 1066.

Geographically, a "Viking Age" may be assigned not only to Scandinavian lands (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden), but also to territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, which replaced the powerful English kingdom of Northumbria and the Isle of Man. Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in the foundation of independent kingdoms in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000 A.D. Many of these lands, specifically Greenland and Iceland, were likely discovered by sailors blown off course. Greenland was later abandoned because its few "green" spots disappeared due to climate change. Vikings also seized and destroyed many villages and territories in Slavic-dominated areas of Eastern Europe. The Persian traveler Ibn Rustah described how Swedish Vikings, the Rus, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs.

From 839, Varangian mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Empire, notably Harald Hardrada, campaigned in North Africa, Jerusalem, and other places in the Middle East. Important trading ports during the period include Birka, Hedeby, Kaupang, Jorvik, Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod and Kiev.

There is archaeological evidence (coins) that the Vikings reached the city of Baghdad, the center of the Islamic Empire and their considerable intellectual endeavors.In 921, Ibn Fadlan was sent as emissary on behalf of the Caliph of Baghdad to the iltäbär (vassal-king under the Khazars) of the Volga Bulgaria, Almış. The Bolgar King had petitioned to the Caliph to establish relations. He had asked to have someone come to teach him Arabic and the Qu'ran and pledge allegiance to Hanafi rite of the Sunni Muslims. The Caliph promised to send money to build a fort on the Volga, but the transaction never occurred. The Norse regularly plied the Volga with their trade goods: furs, tusks, seal fat to seal boats and slaves (notably female slaves; this was the one time in the history of the slave-trade when females were priced higher than males). However, they were far less successful in establishing settlements in the Middle East, due to the more centralized Islamic power, namely of the Umayyad and, later, Abbasid empires.

Generally speaking, the Norwegians expanded to the north and west to places such as Iceland and Greenland, the Danes to England and France, settling in the Danelaw (northern England) and Normandy, and the Swedes to the east. These nations, although distinct, were similar in culture, especially language. The names of Scandinavian kings are known only for the later part of the Viking Age, and only after the end of the Viking Age did the separate kingdoms acquire a distinct identity as nations, which went hand in hand with their Roman Catholicization. Thus the end of the Viking Age for the Scandinavians also marks the start of their relatively brief Middle Ages.

Erikson was an Icelandic explorer, probably the first European visitor to North America, 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

Leif Erikson (also spelled Ericsson, or Eiriksson) was the second of three sons of Erik the Red, who established a settlement in Greenland after he was exiled from Iceland. Leif Erikson's story was recorded in several different sagas, but the accounts they give are so different it is impossible to be certain of the details of his life.

He is thought to have visited Norway in around 1000 where he was converted to Christianity by King Olaf I, who sent him back to Greenland to convert the settlers there. In one story, on his voyage to Greenland, he sailed off-course and arrived in a place he called 'Vinland', because of the abundant grapes growing there, and the general fertility of the land. In another - the Groenlendinga saga - he heard of a land in the west from an Icelandic trader, and went to find it.

The precise identity of Vinland remains uncertain, with various locations on the North American coast identified. In 1963 archaeologists found ruins of a Viking-type settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, in northern Newfoundland, which correspond to Leif's description of Vinland  .

National Museums of Scotland
During the Viking Age, from A.D. 750-1050, Viking influence covered a huge expanse, reaching from the Caspian Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the south, throughoutNorthern Europe, across the Atlantic, and touched the homelands of diverse native groups in Eastern North America.

In addition to being the fierce warriors of popular stereotype, Vikings were master craftsman, shrewd businessman, and fearless explorers. Their activities stimulated political changes in Europe and Russia; created lasting new societies in Iceland and Greenland; and led to the discovery of North America 500 years before Columbus. Now, at the turn of the new millennium, we invite you to follow in their wake!

Answers to these questions are found in many places. Fragile objects and archaeological sites are used to track the Vikings’ western expansion. Ice-core samples and pollen remains help reconstruct the environment during the Viking age and later. Manuscripts preserving the deeds and words of the Vikings tell their own part of the story. For modern scholars, uncovering the Viking past is a constant journey of discovery.

In the 19th century, Scandinavian descendants of the Vikings began emulating their heroic ancestors. Paintings, literature, clothing, poetry, and operas all drew on Viking themes of great battles and powerful gods, inspiring tales and memorable poetry. Scandinavians who immigrated to America during the 19th and 20th centuries kept this tradition alive, creating imitation Viking artifacts in the New World.

Though well intentioned, this enthusiasm for things Viking led to many misconceptions, speculative theories, and even occassional archaeological frauds. This includes the popular, but erroneous, symbol of the Vikings -- the horned helmet. Vikings never wore horned helmets!

Beginning with the attack on Lindisfarne Monastery, England, in 793, small bands of Scandinavian warriors made violent incursions into European towns and religious centers. The historical accounts of their daring raids on these bastions of Northern European culture are undeniable, although the frightened monks likely exaggerated and dramatized the details of the events.

But Viking pillaging of places such as Lindisfarne were not brought on by a love of violence, as popularly assumed. Rather, the intense political rivalry between Viking chieftains demanded the constant influx of precious goods, primarily from raids but also from trade. Successful leaders then gave these items to their followers in exchange for loyal

The Viking Age was a time of transition and upheaval in Scandinavia. Viking raiders returned to their homes with foreign slaves, new materials, and revolutionary ideas. Viking chieftains often converted to Christianity as a condition of peace agreements.

In the process, Norsemen changed -- sometimes violently -- not only the politics of those they met but also their own culture. In Scandinavia, Christianity began to replace traditional pagan religion, small farm production gave way to organized craft centers in places like York and Birka, and local areas gradually lost sovereignty to national kings. By the early 12th century, Scandinavian had become integrated into medieval, Christian European society, and descendants of Vikings who had settled abroad had little in common with their pagan ancestors.

During the prosperous, and slightly warmer, Viking Age, the rich resources of the North Atlantic (stretching from coastal Norway to the shores of eastern Canada) encouraged many to seek opportunities abroad, including the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland Islands. Here the goal was not raiding or even trading, but rather permanent settlement.

Farmers first and foremost, Vikings in the North Atlantic islands recreated the daily life of their homelands. They kept pigs and tended sheep, cattle, and goats for needed wool, leather, meat, and milk. Climate permitting, Norse grew crops such as peas and cabbage, but primarily harvested grains for producing bread and beer. Wild animals, especially sea mammals, supplemented their diet and provided skins, ivory, and oil - important trade commodities back home.

In the mid 9th century, Vikings in Norway and Scotland as well as in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, turned their attention to uninhabited islands reported further west - first the Faeroe Islands, then Iceland, and later Greenland. In these virgin and delicate island ecosystems, the Viking settlers had a sudden, dramatic impact on the environment by cutting down forests, hunting unsuspecting wildlife, and introducing new animals and plants. This process was known as landnám, literally “land-taking.”

These hearty settlers came from all over the Viking world, and brought with them new ideas about everything from house building to law, creating a unique culture known as Norse. Sagas, an innovative literature found only in Iceland, were a blending of Viking oral poetry and storytelling with Christian and Irish written traditions.

According to the sagas, at precisely A.D. 1000, Leif Eriksson, first son of the notorious Erik the Red, voyaged from Greenland for lands sighted to the west. He then landed on the shores of a beautiful place he named Vinland (Vine land). Later voyagers to Vinland met strange peoples, whom they called skraeling.

Ever since these tales became widely known in the 19th century, scholars have debated their veracity while enthusiasts have proclaimed locations from Labrador to Florida as Leif’s Vinland.

But in 1960, undeniable proof of Vikings in North America came to light at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. Several Norse Viking pieces and clear Icelandic- style house foundations gave proof positive that Vikings had indeed landed, and briefly settled, in North America 500 years before Columbus.

More recent archaeological work has revealed over 300 years of sporadic contact between the Greenlandic Norse and various Indian, Inuit, and other Native American peoples, concentrated primarily in the Canadian Arctic.

When Erik the Red settled in a land to the west of Iceland, he named it Greenland, saying that people would want to settle there if it had an attractive name. Recent environmental research has shown that the climate was warmer 1000 years ago.

Here the Vikings tried to maintain their hunting and livestock-raising lifestyle, though as the temperature became colder in the 13th century, hunting became more of a necessity to augment dwindling livestock.

Despite these hardships, the Norse Greenlanders clung to many traditions of Christian Europe. There were over 20 churches serving a peak population of around 3000. The church controlled trade, and bishops held most of the power.

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