Norwegian Vikings grew hemp

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zdI3hWhaPQrCwKpuTQqbYSjcKpVlOdUlMn8RASZnMntE8o2SfJBFDAc6GdMlLJD_L0xw3XhtoJ-QRIKfzVJUv4qWrgSeUlRCa5vrNgPI0NjEy99SQ6Meg19Tvbb0z85wqrKDDe2htPo/s1600/norsehemp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zdI3hWhaPQrCwKpuTQqbYSjcKpVlOdUlMn8RASZnMntE8o2SfJBFDAc6GdMlLJD_L0xw3XhtoJ-QRIKfzVJUv4qWrgSeUlRCa5vrNgPI0NjEy99SQ6Meg19Tvbb0z85wqrKDDe2htPo/s320/norsehemp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i><b>Cannabis was cultivated 1,300 years ago at a farm in Southern Norway</b></i><br /><br /><br />The Sosteli farmsted, in Norway's southermmost Vest-Agder County, offers strong evidence that Vikings farmers actively cultivated cannabis, a recent analysis shows. The cannabis remains from the farmsted date from 650 AD to 800 AD.<br /><br />This is not the first sign of hemp cultivation in Norway this far back in time, but the find is much more extensive than previous discoveries. “The other instances were just individual finds of pollen grains. Much more has been found here,” says Frans-Arne Stylegar, an archaeologist and the county's curator.<br /><br />Sosteli is also further away from current-day settlements than other sites where cannabis finds have been made. Hemp is the same plant as cannabis, or marijuana. But nothing indicates that the Vikings cultivated the plant to get people high.<br /><br />Most likely it was grown for making textiles and rope.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://sciencenordic.com/norwegian-vikings-grew-hemp" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from Science Nordic</a></b><br />

Norwegian Vikings grew hemp

Cannabis was cultivated 1,300 years ago at a farm in Southern Norway The Sosteli farmsted, in Norway's southermmost Vest-Agder County, o...

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Oar walking, underwater wrestling and horse fighting – historian examines the sports and games of the Vikings

<br />Playing ball games is an activity played by children around the world. While today’s parents might worry that their sons and daughters might get scrapes and bruises, in the Viking world such a game could end with an axe being driven into an opponent’s head.<br /><br />This detail comes from a new article, ‘What the Vikings did for fun? Sports and pastimes in medieval northern Europe’, which was published last month in the journal World Archaeology. In it Leszek Gardeła of the University of Aberdeen uses saga accounts and archaeological evidence to see what men, women and children from Scandinavia and Iceland amused themselves with during the Viking-era, and found that their were several popular pastimes.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.medievalists.net/2012/07/02/oar-walking-underwater-wrestling-and-horse-fighting-historian-examines-the-sports-and-games-of-the-vikings/" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net</a></b><br />

Oar walking, underwater wrestling and horse fighting – historian examines the sports and games of the Vikings

Playing ball games is an activity played by children around the world. While today’s parents might worry that their sons and daughters might...

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Researchers look to save deteriorating Viking treasures of Oseberg

<br />Conservation experts in Norway are conducting tests to see if a solution can be found on how to save important archaeological finds from the Viking Age that were discovered in Oseberg in 1904.<br /><br />Researchers from the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, working closely with Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), have been studying ancient wooden Viking artefacts at the synchrotron radiation source BESSY II. The conservators expect this non-destructive method will yield crucial insights into the degradation of these unique works of art.<br /><br />The wooden artefacts come from a Viking grave found in 1904 at Oseberg near the Oslo fjords. The Oseberg finding is considered one of the most important testimonies of the Viking Age and is one of the most frequently visited sights in Norway. Yet, they are now in serious danger of collapse because the wood fibres in the artefacts are disintegrating.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.medievalists.net/2012/06/06/researchers-look-to-save-deteriorating-viking-treasures-of-oseberg/" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net</a></b><br />

Researchers look to save deteriorating Viking treasures of Oseberg

Conservation experts in Norway are conducting tests to see if a solution can be found on how to save important archaeological finds from the...

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Immigration in the Viking era

<br />Knut Kjeldstadli of the University of Oslo has led a group a researchers who have studied Norway’s immigration history from the Viking Age up to the present. He says the tracks left by immigrants and visitors traverse the entire period.<br /><br />“Irish slaves came in the Viking Age. And around the year 1000 another import came that was to have a huge impact on Norwegian culture: Christianity," says the history professor.<br /><br />The kings brought along specialists in Christianising people. These were priests and monks from Germany and England. Even the Anglo-Saxon bishop and advisor – who canonised Olaf Haraldsson, was a Brit.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVmavysFx39H95PuwBFjDPBWjCbkY7Su6UY2dNIdj-wcXmdUcyyhOCkF5xU4XWpBvxsk7d86c1CB57_2fd756vEJFhrJtOAOiqtDGWZ0r9RkQqxC8zAxumKZZ3qJdTRoxxMzsVZQfpgUA/s1600/Prospekt_av_Bryggen_J.J._Reichborn_1768.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVmavysFx39H95PuwBFjDPBWjCbkY7Su6UY2dNIdj-wcXmdUcyyhOCkF5xU4XWpBvxsk7d86c1CB57_2fd756vEJFhrJtOAOiqtDGWZ0r9RkQqxC8zAxumKZZ3qJdTRoxxMzsVZQfpgUA/s400/Prospekt_av_Bryggen_J.J._Reichborn_1768.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Kjeldstadli points out that multiple groups immigrated to Norway in the Middle Ages.<br /><br />At the bottom of the social ladder were the Irish slaves, or thralls. They might not have had too much of an impact on the culture. Around 1250 the first refugees came from Russia. They had been pressed westward by Mongolian tribes.<br /><br />But a number of career immigrants − specialists in various professions − probably had the biggest influence. Some followed in the wake of the new religion.<br /><br />“The men of the church in this context were not just the priests and monks, but also stonemasons and other craftsmen,” says Kjeldstadli.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://sciencenordic.com/immigration-viking-era" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from ScienceNordic</a></b><br />

Immigration in the Viking era

Knut Kjeldstadli of the University of Oslo has led a group a researchers who have studied Norway’s immigration history from the Viking Age u...

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New Norway Viking settlement discovered

<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBsOsclrlUQFoYdzCoXUe6pqhufJBbZ8AX3QqAgAU4-OyZ-DlxPo3-njYeshNgf1vwYz0jvUT7S4jW-5m0u2Xe2gte7iXPSdkLxu9sKs3N56bRd1ai6zMgWZ12hN1-t5g4hlsAuM00ZI/s1600/Norway.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBsOsclrlUQFoYdzCoXUe6pqhufJBbZ8AX3QqAgAU4-OyZ-DlxPo3-njYeshNgf1vwYz0jvUT7S4jW-5m0u2Xe2gte7iXPSdkLxu9sKs3N56bRd1ai6zMgWZ12hN1-t5g4hlsAuM00ZI/s320/Norway.JPG" width="275" /></a></div>Using a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometer, surveys have revealed the settlement in Sandefjord in Gokstadhaugen, eastern Norway, has 15 buildings, an 80-metre long street and a port.<br /><br />Archaeologists from Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History and the Norwegian Institute for Cultural heritage Research (NIKU) were among those that made the discovery, in cooperation with Vestfold County.<br /><br />Work in Gokstadhaugen began in 2011 with drilling there, as well as experts making geophysical surveys from the sea a northwards in what is called Gokstad Valley (Gokstaddalen).<br /><br />NIKU’s Knut Paashe told Aftenposten, “There is no doubt that we have encountered a market town-like structure from the Viking age with houses and streets.”<br /><br /><b><a href="http://theforeigner.no/pages/news/new-norway-viking-settlement-discovered/" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from The Foriegner</a></b><br />

New Norway Viking settlement discovered

Using a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometer, surveys have revealed the settlement in Sandefjord in Gokstadhaugen, eastern Norway...

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Norway: Ancient coins offer clues about medieval society

Norway’s economic system in the Middle Ages was more sophisticated than previously thought. This claim is based on research on coin circulation in Norwegian society in the years between 1050 to 1320. In this period the use of coins was widespread and frequent, according to historian Svein Gullbekk at the University of Oslo. His study, <i>The velocity of circulation of Norwegian coins c. 1050 to c. 1320</i> was recently published in a history periodical.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKyh03uf29jG7kw3bgSCAIZfPjP3KJD6vLNiRFLFnL3cbmjoMr4e0j4x9XhOYdvqvygAzAhMT3pARKKlaKrF-k0NPg1mrDSwf9wDgXwBMKvKADDCl5Y8YNmZ6YGP9ZoY0GJWFxbuBN8o/s1600/norwaycoins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKyh03uf29jG7kw3bgSCAIZfPjP3KJD6vLNiRFLFnL3cbmjoMr4e0j4x9XhOYdvqvygAzAhMT3pARKKlaKrF-k0NPg1mrDSwf9wDgXwBMKvKADDCl5Y8YNmZ6YGP9ZoY0GJWFxbuBN8o/s400/norwaycoins.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />“This debate has been going on for 10 to 15 years,” says Svein Gullbekk. “The main question has been if goods were paid for by coins or commodities.”<br /><br />The answer to the question reaches further than one might think. Coin circulation in a medieval society says something about its economic system, and whether it was possible for the national government to organize, carry out, and maintain a system based on a fixed currency.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://sciencenordic.com/ancient-coins-offer-clues-about-medieval-society" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from ScienceNordic</a></b><br /><br /><br />

Norway: Ancient coins offer clues about medieval society

Norway’s economic system in the Middle Ages was more sophisticated than previously thought. This claim is based on research on coin circulat...

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