Iron Age Scandinavia

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The Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe, 4th century BC - 1st century BC

The expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – AD 1 (after the Penguin Atlas of World History 1988): Settlements before 750BC New settlements until 500BC New settlements until 250BC New settlements until AD 1

The Iron Age in Scandinavia and Northern Europe begins around 500 BC with the Jastorf culture, and is taken to last until ca. AD 800 and the beginning Viking Age. It succeeds the Nordic Bronze Age with the introduction of ferrous metallurgy by contact with the Hallstatt D/La Tène cultures.

Pre-Roman Iron Age (5th to 1st centuries BC)
Roman Iron Age (1st to 4th centuries AD)
Germanic Iron Age (5th to 8th centuries AD)
- Vendel era

The Northern European Iron Age is the locus of Proto-Germanic culture, in its later stage differentiating into Proto-Norse (in Scandinavia), and West Germanic (Ingvaeonic, Irminonic, Istvaeonic) in northern Germany.

iron axe found in Gotland (drawing from the Nordisk familjebok, 1904–1926)

[edit] References

Bente Magnus, G Franceschi, Asger Jorn, Men, Gods and Masks in Nordic Iron Age Art (2005).
J. W. Jamieson, The Nordic Face: A Glimpse of Iron Age Scandinavia (1996)
M Zvelebil, Iron Age transformations in Northern Russia and the Northeast Baltic, Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe (1985).