The Vikings were notorious raiders, but they were traders too, establishing vast trade routes that flourished from the 8th to 11th centuries.
Because reindeer herds only lived in northern Scandinavia, this suggests either the antlers or the combs themselves were imported to Hedeby.
Previous research indicates just 0.5 percent of antler waste at Hedeby came from reindeer. And despite ample evidence of antler-working in the town, that mostly dates to later in Hedeby's heyday, with no sign of comb production in the site's earlier phases. The researchers claim that all of this points to imported combs, though some could have been personal items owned by"mobile individuals." In either case, the combs wound up in Hedeby after being produced elsewhere, possibly hundreds of kilometers away in upland Norway or Sweden.If the combs were imported, this also points to the existence of a long-range, large-scale trading relationship between Hedeby and the far north, the team says.
The new study is part of a trend in research on Vikings, seeking to understand the links between urban centers like Hedeby and far northern towns such as Kaupang or Birka in Scandinavia. "The work at Hedeby is particularly interesting, as it tells us about connections between the mountains of upland or Arctic Scandinavia and this large town at the gateway to continental Europe," AshbyIt also"points to a window in the ninth century when these northern links must have been particularly strong," he
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