The Nordic Bronze Age / Ancient History Documentary

[Music] over 3000 years ago a mysterious and unique culture held sway in the far north of europe far beyond the limits of the mediterranean world in the realm known to the greeks as hyperborea in later ages said to be populated by giants living beyond the north wind an elite class of god kings held sway clad in gold riding upon the backs of mighty chariots wielding magnificent swords of bronze this elite class of warrior kings ruled over an astonishingly complex and for the first time in history connected [Music] society to the greeks and romans of the later classical age the lands beyond the mediterranean were seen as a world apart inhabited by illiterate barbarians capable of little more than warfare and slavery [Music] in reality by the time the great city of rome was founded in the 8th century bc scandinavia had already been part of a vast interconnected trade system for more than a thousand years in the process creating some of the most impressive artifacts found anywhere during that time period and regularly seeing ambitious chieftains on walker news ferrying out amber and skins from the baltic down the river systems of eastern europe in return for resources from half a world away the most important of all these trade goods and the one that kick-started this ancient societal revolution in the first place was bronze [Music] for many experts the catalyst for the birth of the modern world a composite of tin and copper molded together in intense heat with a bellows bronze making has developed uniquely in many places on earth but arguably the earliest and the most important for our story was in mesopotamia in the middle of the 4th millennium bc copper had been smelted before but when combined with tin the metal entered into a new leak being much more solid and versatile than any other resource ever known a material culture never before seen nor available soon began to take hold bronze was used to make agricultural tools hunting spears daggers status symbols ornamental grave goods drinking vessels jewelry and weapons of war as the secrets of bronze smelting gradually filtered outwards from the near east ambitious individuals quickly realized the immense potential it held as demand skyrocketed this new invention kickstarted the rise of an international economy [Music] the very first eurasian world system [Music] metal working had existed before in europe the first smiths living over 6 000 years ago in the balkans with sites such as the varner necropolis containing immense amounts of gold metal work [Music] though this was a localized culture and soon died out due to environmental catastrophe the expertise gradually made its way west with people throughout europe utilizing local copper and gold to make items copper smelting is a dangerous pursuit however releasing deadly noxious fumes when the secret of adding tin became known a difficult to find resource the entirety of europe soon became linked into a singular trade system reliant on that tin it was one that would flourish until around 1200 bc though the bronze age kings eventually lost their power due in part to the fragility of the trade system itself and also to the discovery of an easier to produce and more abundant metal in the form of iron such was the power of the scandinavian system that it survived for at least 500 years longer than the traditional end of the near east bronze age system leaving throughout scandinavia the evidence of this captivating prehistoric age that still litters the landscape today in burial mounds and magnificent artifacts this is the story of the nordic bronze age six thousand years ago much of europe was an unrecognizable place ancient primordial woodland extended across much of the land mass and a hardy population of hunter-gatherers lived in much the same way that they had done for tens of thousands of years by around 4000 bc however a new revolutionary technology began filtering north and west from the fertile crescent in the form of two curious little seeds wheat and barley in time domesticated animals would follow too agriculture changed everything in europe not only the old growth landscape which would now become part of a slash and burn style of agriculture for thousands of years to come but society too allowing a food surplus the growth of some kind of a priestly class and when the population allowed it the development of vast megalithic structures communal places of worship to celebrate the natural world and perhaps pay homage to the ancestors these great structures roughly contemporary to the city-states of sumer and the earliest egyptian pyramids are found in great numbers from sardinia to orkney the sheer man-hours that must have been involved with these projects plus the huge flint mines found at sites such as norfolk in eastern england hint at an exceptionally robust and determined society in scandinavia however the population was simply never high enough to develop the same megalithic traditions as their southern contemporaries excavated campsites and kitchen middens of the early scandinavian hunter-gatherers arriving in the region in around 8000 bc are filled with sea creatures and shells even at this early point there was an obsession with the sea there a unique archaeological culture known as the funnel beaker gradually developed as agricultural and pastoralist technologies filtered up from the middle east through central europe and towards the baltic contacts with central europe gradually brought carts and domesticated animals to scandinavia and in time the next technological revolution metallurgy and with it social stratification [Music] in egypt technologies such as metallurgy had led to great building projects such as the great pyramids and in the north it would change everything too in time creating an outward looking elite and a single grave culture rather than a communal society suggesting an increased emphasis on the power of the individual rather than the group [Music] though this gradual shift towards social stratification may have begun midway through the third millennium bc an unprecedented event leaving its mark on the very language most europeans speak today was about to sweep away the old world and build anew [Music] the language almost all europeans speak today is derived not from the neolithic people who built stonehenge the basques of northern spain being the only linguistic survivors of that ancient tongue today western europeans speak a language that likely originated far to the east on the central asian step the tongue of the indo-europeans as early as the 17th century linguists from all over the world began to wonder about the apparently related nature of a vast number of languages not just the european tongues of french german english italian and greek but armenian indian and even the taqarian languages of central asia all seem to have been derived from a common ancestor thus the enigma of the indo-europeans began the hypothetical wellspring from which came most of the languages of europe soon enough it was realised that words such as cart horse and wheel all derived from this mother tongue perhaps suggesting a military takeover of ancient europe by an outside force one of the major theories developed first in the 1800s by the german linguist otto schrader and expanded upon by maria gimboutas in the 1950s is that these proto-indo-europeans perhaps after experiencing some kind of technological revolution like the domestication of the horse left their homeland on the pontic step to fan out in all directions and thus play a significant role in practically all of the civilizations of the ancient world in the indus valley indo-europeans may have destroyed one of the most advanced civilizations on earth in egypt carried on a never-before-seen technology chariots they or a slightly related people made themselves masters of most of the country in less than two centuries leaving a lasting legacy in the region in the form of chariot warfare in greece such as their reputation that they were remembered down the ages as centaurs half man half horse hybrids whose wildness and craving for women and wine aroused both fear and wonder in europe they gave us the vast majority of languages we know today suggesting a subjugation of the previous population or at the very least take over by a new elite inspired by the culture of the newcomers if not led by them themselves this begs the question were the indo-europeans responsible for the destruction of the megalithic society of western europe or did the existing population merely shift their society as new belief systems flooded in from the east in scandinavia which had a smaller population in the first place indo-europeans certainly left their mark [Music] in the form of burial mounds horses carts and eventually as the technology developed chariots though here this culture merged with a native shipbuilding tradition to create something entirely new and unique of course competing theories exists too with various scholars suggesting anatolian origins for the indo-europeans or denying the outside invasion entirely instead suggesting a natural progression of native european beliefs in recent years however backed up by an increasing amount of archaeological evidence by far the most convincing argument is that the homeland of the proto-indo-europeans lay on the plains to the north of the black sea the homeland of stepped people for thousands of years to come at an archaeological culture called the yamnaya by around 3300 bc distinctive yamnia archaeology begins to be found on the step this was a mobile wagon and herding based economy which itself experienced a societal revolution when it began to herd animals rather than simply hunting thus providing a future food source for themselves in the form of cheese and milk as well as meat this was a single grave barrow-building culture based on individualistic perceptions of power this was a culture that would spread across europe showing up for millennia to come in places as seemingly distinct as homer's odyssey and beowulf it was also out here on the step that horses were domesticated and ridden for the first time probably after being kept as a food source for several generations the very first remains of wheeled carts have been found out here on the step too dating from at least 3600 bc likely developing from sleds perhaps with the addition of animals to pull them these were not quite spoked wheels yet like on chariots but still a massive increase in technology that as it spread into europe allowed for far increased agricultural yields by using pack animals and carts to till the earth the reason for the yamnaya spread into europe remains shrouded in mystery though some such as jean manco have suggested a detrimental climate change after around 3200 bc which could have caused the shift to the west thus thousands of years after being hunted to extinction in europe horses were to return ridden by step nomads along with a new way of life perhaps introducing metallurgy to some of the areas they entered as well as their single grave status-based culture [Music] this process was by no means uniform in some perhaps most places in scandinavia the archaeological evidence suggests that no actual fighting took place with certain areas perhaps developing their own native elites though after a few hundred years the language at least of the newcomers had taken over along with an entirely new outlook on life [Music] the archaeological evidence suggests that by around 2300 bc this new people or at least their culture had advanced deep into scandinavia into upland and the oslo fjord carrying with them the language that was the ancestor of the modern germanic tongue these new tribes known to us today as the corded ware culture were individualistic and clearly patriarchal their main symbol was the battle axe [Music] and soon enough these corded ware people or their culture at least would spread north to mold with existing funnel beaker traditions and create a new society known as the battle axe culture in the south and in the north such was the influence of the sea that they would be known as the botax culture both are known from thousands of graves that still litter the landscape today interestingly in the last couple of years even more evidence has been found for the step origins of at least some of the corded ware people an archaeological culture which stretched from the rhine to the vulgar at its height genetic study recently found that out of the corded where graves tested a large percentage of those buried could trace their dna directly back to the yamnaya important to note that these archaeological cultures were by no means singular nationalistic identities they are far more likely to have been a vast collection of tribal groupings unified by a common culture and belief system though as much at conflict with each other as other groups they came into contact with groupings overlapped over time with the only constant throughout europe being the eventual adoption of metallurgy and single graves as time went on [Music] we know that some people did travel around a lot during this time the chieftain known as the amesbury archer found in england in around 2300 bc is testament to that when his dna was tested it was found that he originated far to the south in the alps he was a member of the culture that took over from the megalithic builders known as the bell beaker often seen as the western contemporaries of the corded ware the movement of ideas from east to west was by no means a given eventually it was people from the bell beaker culture or at least their material goods that would spread back east to supersede that of the corded wear but by that time bronze had finally arrived in the north and completely changed everything as the second millennium bc dawned an increased demand for luxury goods gradually filtered into scandinavia along with new avenues of wealth and power for those daring enough to look outwards from their homeland connections were being made between societies on a much broader scale than ever seen before seeing previously insular places like scandinavia develop links across eurasia [Music] as northern europe's bronze age finally dawned the first linked-up eurasian economy truly began for the north had a highly sought after luxury good to offer one that appears in tombs and archaeological sites from egypt to anatolia amber [Applause] [Music] it was also at this time that another indo-european people perhaps cousins to the corded ware began yet another significant population shift from the steppe the sintarsha archaeological culture descendants of the yamnaya are thought to have been the first people to develop spoked wheels rather than their solid block predecessors by 2100 bc centaursha kings were buried with impressive war chariots the earliest found in history in the succeeding generations chariots left their mark on peoples from the nile to the oxus the hittites future makers of one of the greatest of all bronze age empires were descended from these people likewise the mittani and the hixos may have been at least in part indo-european in origin though these invasions were devastating at first in time the introduction of spoked wheels led to an even more linked up system and often the revitalization of the regions they came into contact with closer to the north the sintarsher left an impact on early mycenaean greece and the flourishing metalworking culture of the danube it was these people in modern day hungary and romania whose scandinavians first began to make sea voyages to trade with [Music] the carpathian basin had a flourishing bronze industry that produced finely cast elaborate objects and elite weapons and it was probably along these routes down the river systems of eastern europe the knowledge of the spoked wheel and the two-wheeled chariot together with well-trained horses began to reach the north the maritime nature of scandinavian society in the second millennium bc is amply demonstrated by the ship imagery that pervades the archaeological record perhaps most notably in sweden where artists worked for centuries etching into the exposed bedrock the artworks are varied those ships and sometimes fleets of ships purveyed the atlantic and north sea coastal regions of scandinavia and the baltic areas were united by a vigorous maritime economy permitting a far wider geographical spread and a closer cultural unity than any of the interior continental cultures could attain to seafaring cultures like this one the ocean was a highway and not a divider this route to the south known as the amber road already well established by the bronze age was an important artery between north and south nearly all of the amber of scandinavia found during this time is in the countries of the middle east the big four powers of babylon assyria egypt and the hittites waging a perpetual political battle against one another also like in future generations the slave trade likely existed too with captives taken in war being sold to the south thus a determined band of voyagers not too dissimilar to their viking descendants some three millennia later could have traveled across europe making the overland portages along the vistula odor and elb all the way down to the headwaters of the danube perhaps having their slaves carry the cargo of amber and skins traded with the northern laps before selling everything to southern bias around 1800 bc the first bronze begins to appear in the north in significant amounts and as the southerners developed more of a taste for amber everything was about to change [Music] around 1700 bc metal begins to flow in in some quantity with copper tin and gold becoming abundant by the middle of the millennium where once the battle axe culture had been buried with copper axes now leading men were being buried with bronze swords [Music] burial mounds not too dissimilar to the kurgans built by the yamnaya lie everywhere in denmark thousands of them often looking outwards towards the sea the source of their wealth and power [Music] at the mount of moldberg's chieftain typical of the nordic bronze age were found mycenian gold beads on a bronze dagger [Music] at goldhi mound another chieftain was found with a type of folding chair reminiscent of those discovered in the eastern mediterranean in greece crete and egypt clearly showing just how far-flung the world of these people was though native metal workers were producing an array of items too often superior in quality to those of surrounding regions [Music] though scandinavians depended on long-distance trade they did create a unique insular civilization too adapting imports to a uniquely scandinavian context ultimately the bronze age would usher in a time of cultural advance in scandinavia and a period of stunning artistic and technical achievements that could only imply a certain amount of opulence and success in the king's grave for example was found more gold than the entirety of viking age fines in scandinavia [Music] by around 1500 bc the societal system of the north had become so intricate that it absolutely relied on foreign imports to survive in terms of material goods the northern bronze age now becomes comparable to the near east and is only surpassed in europe by those of the mycenaeans we know of elite lifestyles from the thousands of burial mounds across the region but of the houses and day-to-day living conditions of the nordic bronze age we know relatively little it's thought that people would often have lived in quite impressive buildings though because they were made of wood they are near impossible to find in the archaeological record especially due to modern agricultural techniques often leaving no trace whatsoever [Music] in some places however when modern agriculture never quite took hold we do get glimpses into this world one of these places is dartmoor in southwestern england here we gain a glimpse into the bronze age with the land divided into numerous pasture ridges for animals suggesting a partly pastoralist society though roots were beginning to be put down in the form of villages [Music] for the poorest in society life had probably changed little since the late stone age for the most part slash and burn agriculture was still prevalent with people moving from village to village over the span of generations and thus still vaguely living a nomadic lifestyle well over a thousand years later the roman writers tacitus and julius caesar talked about cattle raising being the favored lifestyle of the germanic this was almost a status symbol for a people who only farmed reluctantly was this a cultural leftover of the indo-european arrival in the third millennium bc indeed fines such as carved ox men and horned animals on oak coffins do suggest a fixation with large horned animals a fixation also found in other post-indo-european societies such as minoan crete the home of the minotaur [Music] of the lives of people besides kings we also gain a glimpse at sites such as ectfed where we have evidence of a bronze age girl dating to around 1370 bc along with the everyday items she was buried with cutting-edge scientific evidence suggests that the ectv girl had originally lived in the black forest region of germany before marrying and moving to denmark she is believed to have traveled back and forth between the two areas until she was finally laid to rest in her new homeland [Music] perhaps the most famous example of the material culture of the nordic bronze age however comes in the form of the trund home sun chariot dating to around 1400 bc originally this bronze model would have consisted of two horses each pulling a representation of the sun the addition of spoked wheels perhaps enabled priests to lead chariots like this around at solar ceremonies similar depictions are also found on rock carvings in sweden [Music] the idea of the horse-drawn sun on the blue fields of heaven is thought to have been indo-european in origin and is seen in pre-indian and early greek mythology [Music] it also has its parallels in far later viking mythology as recorded by the icelandic writer snorri sterlison in the early 13th century with the mighty horse skin facts drawing the light of day each morning across the world of man ever pursued by the great wolf fenrir who seeks to swallow the sun and usher in ragnarok the end of days [Music] there are many interpretations of the religion of these people with some suggesting the sun as representative of the heavenly gods of the cattle breeders a belief system that seems to have merged somewhat with the native earth goddess of agriculture many carvings seem to illustrate the coming together of these two religions could this be the origins of the older viking deities of the vanir and the newer editions of the aesir and thus could thor a storm god be of a similar origin to the hittite storm god and the greek zeus [Music] the sun cult itself depicted in strange rituals on swedish rock carvings remains captivating and mysterious priests if that's what they are seem to be wearing elaborate headdresses could these be a variation of the golden sun hats found in germany from the same period [Music] the true golden age of the scandinavian bronze age lasted for a brief hundred years or so around the year 1250 bc not only the whole of denmark and southern sweden but much of the baltic mainland and river systems found themselves united into one vast cultural area the multiplicity of imported trade goods engraved during this period in particular bears testimony to the importance of these lengthy sea voyages to the danish islands across the baltic to poland the coasts and river mouths of germany and perhaps across the north sea to britain and ireland to find tin and copper so firmly rooted was the bronze age system here that it survived for 500 years longer than it did in the near east which collapsed in around 1177 bc not long after this point however a new culture begins to cremate the dead rather than bury them and as such our information the archaeological record drops off the nordic bronze age faced a slow lingering end and by the time of caesar it left little more than burial mounds on the landscape though the culture and belief systems developed during that ancient time no doubt seeped into the germanic peoples that came after [Music] thank you for watching this documentary this was part of a mass bronze age collaboration of history youtubers so i highly recommend you go and check out the other videos in the playlist two of the videos that are roughly contemporary with this one are knowledgia's video on the anatolian bronze age and stefan melo on egypt's great pyramid i've put links to everything in the description below don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed the video and as always any concerns or questions let me know in the comment section below

Channel: History Time

Views: 846,696

Rating: 4.8482413 out of 5

Keywords: iMovie, brozne age, bronze age, the bronze age, nordic bronze age, bell beaker culture, corded ware culture, yamnaya culture, yamnaya, corded ware, battle axe culture, battle axe, boat axe, boat axe culture, indo europeans, ineo-europeans, indo-european, kurgan, kurgan hypothesis, jean marco, david anthony, scandinavia bronze age

Id: s_OFqGuLc7s

Length: 36min 23sec (2183 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 22 2019