Papers
THE STATE AND THE STRANGERS:THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL FORCES IN A PROCESS OF STATE FORMATION IN
published in: Viking And Medieval Scandinavia 5, 2009, 65-104
This contribution focuses upon the role of external forces (strangers) in state formation. In many societies, the process of state formation appears to have conflicted with traditional patterns of social organization, which constrained the leading promoters of the state. In this situation, the incorporation of a third party of agents constitutes a potential strategy for those promoters to bypass the established order of society and implement a new organizational structure. Based on this assumption, archaeological data relating to a particular process of state formation, namely Viking-Age south Scandinavia (c. 900–1050), are evaluated. Individuals and groups of people of foreign origin are identified in the context of runic monuments, settlements, burials, and treasure finds.
The roles of these ‘strangers’ in internal social affairs and the presuppositions and consequences of their involvement are discussed. It is argued that they functioned as influential catalysts, not only in the implementation of structural principles of state organization, but also in its later collapse.
Keywords: state formation, foreigners, Scandinavia, Viking Age, protohistoric archaeology
Download (.pdf) Who was in Harold Bluetooth’s army? Strontium isotope investigation of the
co-authored with: T. Douglas Price, Karin Margarita Frei, Niels Lynnerup & Pia Bennike
published in: ANTIQUITY 85 (2011): 476–489.
The circular fortress of Trelleborg on Zealand in Denmark is well known as a military camp with a key role in the formation of the Danish state under Harald Bluetooth in the tenth
century AD. Taking a sample of 48 burials from the fort, strontium isotope analysis once again demonstrates its ability to eavesdrop on a community: at Trelleborg, the young
men in its cemetery were largely recruited from outside Denmark, perhaps from Norway or the Slavic regions. Even persons buried together proved to have different origins,
and the three females sampled were all from overseas, including a wealthy woman with a silver casket. Trelleborg, home of Harald Bluetooth’s army, was a fortress of foreigners
with vivid implications for the nature of his political mission.
Keywords: southern Scandinavia, strontium isotopes, migration, bioarchaeology
