Textile Resources in Viking Age Landscapes
The overarching project aim is to contribute to the understanding of the great need for textiles resources and its impact on the use of the Danish landscapes and influences on settlement structure with case studies around Limfjorden and Southwest Zealand. Furthermore, to integrate the results and make them visible and accessible to the study of socio-political structures.
This is the first time, the results of landscape analysis of textile resources, combined with textile tools and contexts investigations, are included in interpretation of the variation, organization and impact of textile production in Viking Age Society.
Objectives
This project will combine landscape analysis of textile resources with analysis of textiles, textile tools, and contexts investigations to determine the variation, organization and impact of textile production on the known Viking Age landscape. The project will demonstrate how textile research can be used to get a greater and more diverse understanding of the Viking Age Society and its actors. It will answer the research questions 1) How an increasing demand for textile raw materials affected the landscapes and settlements 2) How an increasing consumption of textiles affected the production of textiles as well as the organization of said production and 3) Whether only local raw materials were used or supplemented by an import of raw materials and/or textiles.
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Objective one is to create an overarching framework and methodology that directly integrates the importance of textiles and textile resources in current debates on Viking Age economy, power and politics.
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Objective two is to make the results of textile research on Viking Age materials and contexts accessible to the study of settlements and landscapes, at both local, regional and inter-regional levels.
Background
The end of the Late Iron Age and Viking Age (AD 550-1050) was a period of transition and change, characterized by overseas trade, warfare, and colonization, where the socio-political development supported the formation of centralized kingdoms within the Scandinavian homelands (e.g. Hedenstierna-Jonson 2009). This is also a period in which textile production gets a deeper impact on society, clearly indicating a new consumption of sails that supported long distance travels as well as a new fascination and use of luxury clothing (Andersson 2003a, Andersson Strand 2016, 2021; Bender Jørgensen 1986; Mannering 2017).
The introduction of the sail in the 7th century was without a doubt one of the most important and innovative technological developments of the period, (Kastholm 2014, in prep; Ravn et al. 2016) and allowed the Scandinavian communities to travel long distances over the open sea, in order to engage more efficiently in trade and raiding, and to explore new lands. The project hypothesis is that the use of sailcloth and changes in textile production demanded physical labor as well as a large supply of raw material, which would result in an increase in land use for sheep grazing and large-scale cultivation of textile crops as well as changes in settlement structures.
