Stone Age Scandinavia: First People In the North (10,000-5000 BC)

[Music] Copenhagen European Capital International City of Culture here you can find people from all over the globe over 600,000 of them from all of Earth's nations but let's turn the clock back back to a time when there were no nations back to a time when there were barely 600,000 people in the entire world to a time of immense cold of trackless wilderness and a constant ever pervasive battle against the elements let's go back 15,000 years to a time when no people lived in Scandinavia humans have lived in Europe before this time not quite the Homo sapiens who walk the earth today but close enough to be recognizable Homo neanderthalensis as the Neanderthals fossil evidence suggests that the Neanderthals died a slow death leaving their genes behind however in modern Europeans before they disappeared entirely next in cro-magnons distinct from their Neandertal forebears by the use of weapons and tools and increased social skills though they too disappeared before long driven south by encroaching walls of ice from the north for this some 25,000 years ago with the latest cold event of the last ice age close to 10,000 years to come much of northern Europe found itself coated in a thick layer of inhospitable glacial ice finally by around 15,000 years ago a warm climate period started to begin freeing up adventurous groups of people to begin venturing north little by little they pushed ever onwards into the fertile grasslands cleared up by the passing of the ice let us follow one such group as they journey into this unknown wilderness filled with giant woolly mammoths and wild horses yet it was not these great beasts who brought the earliest inhabitants of Denmark to the far north the archaeological record suggests that it was probably reindeer little dove these first people know it was in crossing into the Jutland Peninsula then a much larger landmass linking up to Britain and the rest of Scandinavia over long disappeared languages due to the much lower sea level but they were traveling farther north than any humans had ever traveled before for they were the first people in Scandinavia [Music] it didn't take long for the landscape to gradually begin to change human clans were very small at this time and whilst they possessed the secret of making a fire one of the primary reasons for our great success as a species they didn't yet have the means to grow their populations to a high enough level to alter the landscapes around them for these people hunters foragers and increasingly fishermen had no knowledge of Agriculture the wild grasses and grains that would eventually become crops had not yet evolved helped along their path by the selective hand of humans and gradually lush forests began to grow up in the formally open plains this landscape mostly filled with wild birch trees became a haven for the first people inadvertently providing them with great cover for hunting thus signalling the beginning of the end for the wooly mammoths but a great landscape for another food source the giant elk around ten thousand years ago one group of hunters would gather at a lakeside in Denmark's kohlberg region there they probably waited for elk and other forest creatures before harpooning them from makeshift watercraft as they tried to swim away something went wrong however and one of the group young man in his early 20s drowned there leaving his remains to be rediscovered all those millennia later he is the earliest person ever found in Denmark [Music] yet these earliest Scandinavians were not alone they traveled with a trusted companion the only domesticated animal these people knew first brought into the fold from 15,000 years ago dogs in this case probably resembling the Siberian Spitz were indispensable partners for tracking game in a thick forest by threatening the wild animals the dogs would slow their advance confuse the animals and thus give the hunters and time to shoot their prey but why did dogs do this bone analysis suggests that these early hunting partners were rewarded well for their help eating the same food as their masters some were even given distinguished burials like deer family members large areas of Denmark were covered in marshy wetlands during this time it was this landscape which first led to the widespread usage of boats little more and simple hollowed-out canoes fit for one person though the very earliest ancestor of the Viking longboat it was from these mobile platforms that the first people hunted their prey with primitive harpoons and Spears thousands of these early bone and Flint spear heads as well as other more mysterious ornaments have been found throughout Denmark more often than not dredged up by fishermen in their nets the last relics of this long gone by age [Music] in 1900 an important archaeological discovery was made in western zealand the site called mag Lumos would eventually lend its name to an entire archaeological culture of hunter-gatherers one which spanned both sides of the North Sea between around 9,000 and 6,000 BC these people mainly settled by lake sides and coasts moving to Highlands in the winter for the better conditions there the reason for their being on both sides of the sea well for the most part the sea didn't exist the entire southern portion of the North Sea being a vast open plain known to us today as doggerland it wasn't until around 6,000 BC but this genuine Atlantis finally some completely beneath the waves going along with it anyone unfortunate enough to still be living there and of course all of their archaeological remains by the time of the advent of the maglaj culture in around - 9000 BC the lightly coated birch forests which once covered Denmark doggerland and Britain had given way to a much thicker and Wilder landscape of deciduous woodland hazel trees lime elm and oak became common groups of humans had to adapt their ways in order to survive life in the woodland wasn't easy but of course we are an adaptable species into these woodlands came a variety of wild beasts and animals from the South many of who do not exist anymore likely being driven to extinction by humans in their prime they would have made a fearsome sight wild aurochs the ancestors of today's domestic cow first arrived in the region by around 9,000 BC male bulls were the largest and most dangerous animals in the forest it would be millenia yet until a few particularly daring humans would first attempt to domesticate this noble and fierce animal and that probably took place far away to the south excavated specimens found at Denmark's Lake Vic region dating to around 8,000 600 BC a thought to have weighed in at over 1,000 kilos old scars on the ribs suggests that at least one of these giants had survived a number of earlier encounters with humans his lifetime until finally he was fatally wounded and brought down by the time doggerland finally sank under the waves in around 6000 BC the Oryx of the North were mostly gone hunted to extinction oh the Beast stalk the woodland to bass Wildcats links all provided much-needed first to protect people against the elements as well as skins from deer and fearsome boar whose tusks perhaps a symbol of prowess were used as amulets [Music] the bones of great elk and Oryx made fine material for axis chisels and knives deer antlers were perhaps seen as a symbol of vitality and rebirth due to the young stags shedding these impressive apertures and regrowing new ones every spring the great forests that grew up in Northern Europe eventually provided vast amounts of food material goods and symbolism for the first Scandinavians so much so at the period between 8700 to around 6500 BC is sometimes called the bone age during this time other more curious items begin to show up in the archaeological records - besides everyday use items and hunting weapons we begin to see jewelry ornaments and astonishingly musical instruments the undeniable signs of a thriving culture and perhaps early attempts by these people to not only make sense of the world around them both to define their place in it [Music] in ancient days music was closely linked with magic and spiritualism the earliest depictions of a shamanistic figure playing a musical instrument come from the destroyed fray hay paintings in southern France a relatively lush region dating to thousands of years before this time in the north however were no tradition of cave paintings for this time has been found we instead get the real deal [Music] usually carved into animal boned these instruments called bull roars and mouth bows may have been used for spiritual means at ritualistic ceremonies these items don't exist in a vacuum they must have been part of a rich tradition dating back to a far earlier age eventually evolving into such wonders as the Melara instrument dating from 7,000 BC the oldest string instrument in the world [Music] tiny keepsakes begin to be carved during this time too from the relatively abundant Scandinavian resource that would later be known as the gold of the north fossilized tree resin amber [Music] mysterious drawings of animals and shaman's entrants are often seen on excavated beads sometimes with early examples of the evil eye a symbol thoughts to be a protection against evil spirits [Music] these items may represent the beginnings of a religion and the idea of the other world populated by beings outside of our mortal plane an idea prevalent all shamanistic religions yet the days of these people were numbered for a cataclysm of epic proportions was headed their way one that would undoubtedly change them forever [Music] the four 7000 BC people could have walked all the way from Zealand to Britain without crossing any water a [Music] thousand years later after a warming climate period began the thawing of the North American bases half a world away doggerland disappeared under the ocean to be replaced by the North Sea and the Straits of Kattegat perhaps this rising sea event was remembered in later millennia is the Biblical Flood [Music] life was hard for these survivors more people lived in a smaller landmass with uncertain climate and weather this new archaeological culture sometimes called the conquer mouse from around 6,000 to 5,000 BC clung to coastlines in order to make sure they had food often in the form of shellfish seals and whales they're also deer and boar the survivors of the great beasts of the woodland though these people had to constantly move because of changing sea levels today most of their settlements live under the sea finally by around five thousand five thousand BC scandinavian hunters made first contact with a mysterious new group heading north from the fertile river systems of central europe for these four the first farmers in Europe yet search was the entrenched lifestyle of these Hardy northerners that it would take more than a thousand years before cereals and domestic animals were finally fully adopted in Scandinavia and even then these people would continue to hunt and fish as primary forms of sustenance now added to my tweets and grains eventually leading to the first permanent settlements within a few generations of farming a much larger population was possible which of course led to competition and the first battles [Music] [Music]

Channel: History Time

Views: 557,113

Rating: 4.8232732 out of 5

Keywords: neolithic, stone age, history documentary, documentary, first people, hunter gatherers, neolithic denmark, doggerland, ice age, glacial maximum

Id: aRCKWarkULc

Length: 18min 12sec (1092 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2019