Norse Civilization and Roman Scandinavia???? Some Questions

Sarthak

Sarthak

Now before some people start shouting ASB, hear me out.

So I have a kind of hobby with Norse history. Norse history before 500 AD seems to be very very very blurry. Now, based on the title i can assume, some people will be thinking about Roman settlement in Scandinavia. This isn't what i am going on about. i was wondering how to create an earlier Norse civilization, with trading and some contact with the Romans?

Is this possible? Obviously the terrain and climate isn't the best, and the water levels are around 2 meters higher than today back then.

So how could we make an earlier, albeit primitive Norse civilization come forward? The roman idea is just my own, you can have your own ideas.


Also one question: Does anyone have any sources (proper ones anyway) on Scandinavia during the time of the Roman Empire?
 

Gloss

Some scholars I have seen argued that the Nordic Bronze Age was the second most opulent Bronze Age civilization in Europe after the Myceneans and I've seen arguments that there must have been somehow a lot of inspirations from the Myceneans in Nordic art given the strong resemblance of themes and styles between the 2 not seen anywhere else inbetween, along that line one could imagine that the Nordic Bronze Age could adopt iron earlier from Anatolia through some one-off event.
Even if just used in a minor fashion when bronze supplies are available, when the trade crisis sets instead of being behind in the adoption iron compared to the Mediterranean Scandinavia could be a new center of iron working, thus accelerating the spread of metallurgy in the region and probably allowing Scandinavians(and north Germans) and not just Hallstatt Celts to be more active participants in Central European trade and contact with the Greeks and Eastern Nomads through river ways.

During Roman times, the bulk of the demographic and economic power was more or less concentrated on the Elbe basin in Germany, not northern Denmark anymore, on that sense I would work with PODs that have the Romans be far weaker on the limes, some good PoDs around the Germanic wars or even late Roman republican or even imperial civil wars could work, but it really depends on what POD you want.
 
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Skraea

Furthest north the Romans got was Scotland and they had trouble with the Picts. I could see them developing trade with the Norse,but Scandinavia might be too cold for the Romans.
 
Sarthak

Sarthak

Skraea said:
Furthest north the Romans got was Scotland and they had trouble with the Picts. I could see them developing trade with the Norse,but Scandinavia might be too cold for the Romans.
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I know. I am just trying to find a plausible way for an early Norse civilization.
 

Gloss

Is there anything in particular you want to know or a particular period you want to focus on?
 

Brady Kj

To increase trade and contact with Rome, you'd need the Norse to invent their wonderful ships earlier. I don't think better metallurgy is needed for this, but I'm not an expert on boats. By civilization, do you mean more big cities? I assume that would require more intensive agriculture, and I'm assuming what was limiting that agriculture was that the summers were too cool. It's not a coincidence that the Viking Age happened during centuries when Scandinavia was far warmer than it usually is. The warmer weather supported more agriculture, which supported far more people. An earlier warming of Scandinavia might be needed for Scandinavia to have big cities in the 5th century.
 

Jürgen

Brady Kj said:
To increase trade and contact with Rome, you'd need the Norse to invent their wonderful ships earlier. I don't think better metallurgy is needed for this, but I'm not an expert on boats. By civilization, do you mean more big cities? I assume that would require more intensive agriculture, and I'm assuming what was limiting that agriculture was that the summers were too cool. It's not a coincidence that the Viking Age happened during centuries when Scandinavia was far warmer than it usually is. The warmer weather supported more agriculture, which supported far more people. An earlier warming of Scandinavia might be needed for Scandinavia to have big cities in the 5th century.
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You pretty much need iron working to make a “Viking“ ship. Of course you don’t need steel. So a independent development of iron working much earlier would be needed to create earlier Viking ships.

As for agriculture, Denmark (and the area around it) was relative densely populated even before the introduction of agriculture, thanks to the shallow and rich waters,. In Denmark we split the Stone Age in three periods; hunter, fisher and farmer. A interesting aspect about the Fisher Stone Age, was the fact that their sign of agroforestry with the hazel trees being very widespread (likely because of the removal of competing trees).
 
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