The Nordic Bronze Age is the name given by Oscar Montelius (1843-1921) to a period in Scandinavian pre-history, ca 1700 BC -500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia [1]
Even though Scandinavians joined the European Bronze Age cultures fairly late through trade, Scandinavian sites present rich and well-preserved objects made of wool and imported Central European bronze. The Scandinavians adopted many central European symbols at the same time that they created new styles and objects. From this period there are many mounds and fields of petroglyphs, but their signification is long since lost.
The Nordic Bronze Age evolved continuously through the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age into the Germanic Iron Age and consequently both linguists and archaeologists believe that the culture of the Nordic bronze age and the expansion of the following Iron Age cultures corresponded to that of the Proto-Germanic and the Germanic tribes.
It was characterized by a warm climate (which is compared to that of the Mediterranean), which permitted a relatively dense population, but it ended with a climate change consisting of deterioriating, wetter and colder climate (sometimes believed to have given rise to the legend of the Fimbul Winter) and it seems very likely that the climate pushed the Germanic tribes southwards into continental Europe. During this time there was Scandinavian influence in Eastern Europe (and a thousand years later, the numerous East Germanic tribes that claimed Scandinavian origins (e.g. Langobards, Burgundians, Goths and Heruls) rendered Scandinavia (Scandza) the name womb of nations in Jordanes' Getica).
See also
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References
Demougeot, E. La formation de l'Europe et les invasions barbares, Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1969-1974.
Kaliff, Anders. 2001. Gothic Connections. Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000 BC – 500 AD.
Musset, L. Les invasions: les vagues germanique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965.
Nordgren, I. 2004. Well Spring Of The Goths. About the Gothic Peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent.