Archaeology of Northern Europe

The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain, roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.

See also: Scandinavian prehistory and History of Germany § Prehistory

The region entered the Mesolithic around the 7th millennium BC. The transition to the Neolithic is characterized by the Funnelbeaker culture in the 4th millennium BC. The Chalcolithic is marked by the arrival of the Corded Ware culture, possibly the first influence in the region of Indo-European expansion. The Nordic Bronze Age proper began roughly one millennium later, around 1500 BC. The end of the Bronze Age is characterized by cultural contact with the Central European La Tène culture (Celts), contributing to the development of the Iron Age by the 4th century BC, presumably the locus of Common Germanic culture. Northern Europe enters the protohistorical period in the early centuries AD, with the adoption of writing and ethnographic accounts by Roman authors.

Clothing worn by the Huldremose Woman, Denmark, 2nd century BC

Hjortspring boat, Denmark, c. 400 BC^[8]

Gundestrup Caudron, Denmark, 2nd-1st century BC

Jastorf culture gold ornaments, Germany (replicas)

Various artefacts, northern Germany

Reconstructed Iron Age house at Funkenburg, Germany, c. 200 BC

Fortified settlement of the Eburones, Germany, c. 50 BC

Model of Hodde Iron Age village, Denmark, c. 100 BC^[9]

Archaeology of Denmark

List of archaeological periods

Prehistoric Europe

Ringwall

Jørgen Jensen (2002): I begyndelsen, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarks Historie (Vol. 1), 87-89068-26-2 (in Danish)

ISBN

J. Brandt, Jastorf und Latène. Internat. Arch. 66 (2001)

John Collis, The European Iron Age (London and New York: Routledge) 1997. The European Iron Age set in a broader context that includes the Mediterranean and Anatolia.

W. Künnemann, Jastorf – Geschichte und Inhalt eines archäologischen Kulturbegriffs, Die Kunde N. F. 46 (1995), 61–122.

Herwig Wolfram, Die Germanen, Beck (1999).

Ove Eriksson, B, Sara, O. Cousins, and Hans Henrik Bruun, "Land-use history and fragmentation of traditionally managed grasslands in Scandinavia" Journal of Vegetation Science pp. 743–748 ()

On-line abstract

Mapping Ancient Germania: Researchers crack the Ptolemy code (Spiegel International 2010)

Fighting wars, gaining status: on the rise of Germanic elites (Burmeister 2018)

Media related to Archaeology of Northern Europe at Wikimedia Commons