places) and in Norway (at Mören, on Lade &c.) inevitably fall into decay, and are succeeded by churches in honour of the White Christ. Even at that time the gap between the development of culture in Denmark and in the rest of the North, which from the Age of Stone was steadily decreasing, had been considerably lessened. Thenceforth it was destined to become gradually more and more filled up by the essential uniformity of Christian culture. A full historic age had at last with the introduction of Christendom arisen throughout the North. Far down however into the Middle Ages the remains of the original heathenism, and of the prehistoric conditions of settlements and culture generally, continue to glimmer through the new social organisation and general internal development of culture in the various regions of the North. But in every way the traces of the ancient heathenism grew fainter in Denmark than in the neighbouring kingdoms of Norway and Sweden to the north, which were Christianised at a later time, and still more than in the distant republic of Iceland, which Norway when still purely heathen had founded. Thus it was that Iceland in its institutions its national life and its remarkable saga literature has been the means of throwing a flood of light and splendour over the Viking-life and decline of heathenism in Norway, its motherland, and in the North generally. Nor is this all. As the light steadily grows and penetrates the darkness of heathenism in its last stronghold among the Germanic peoples in the far North, it begins to reflect a remarkably clear light back across the previous ages of almost vanished heathen conditions in other lands to the west and especially to the south, where Gotho-Germanic races had once parted from their near kindred, to find after many changes and chances a new and abiding home in the Scandinavian North. APPROXIMATE CONSPECTUS OF THE PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE IN THE SCANDINAVIAN NORTH. I. At least 3000 years before Christ: Early Stone-Age, come from the south-west, reaching only as far as Jutland and the Danish Islands, on the coasts creeks rivers and lakes, vanishing on the extreme coasts of Scania and the Cattegat at the most southerly point of Norway. The rest of the North uninhabited. Contemporaneous Late Stone-Age in the South and West of Europe. II. About 2000-1000 B.C.: Later Stone-Age, also from the southwest; in the Danish lowlands and interior; spreading gradually to the southernmost portion of the great Scandinavian peninsula, to about 59°. North of this no settlement, or only very faint. Full Bronze-Age at this time in the lands on the Mediterranean. III. About 1000-500 B.C.: Early Bronze Age, from the south, little by little to about the same extent northwards, perhaps further to the extreme west coast of Norway; elsewhere in Norway and the north of Sweden general Stone-Age for the first time. Among the Lapps and Finns in the high North an "Arctic" Stone-Age comes in from the north-east. Iron-Age and classic culture then advancing in southern Europe. IV. About 500 B.C. to the time of Christ's Birth: Later Bronze Age, spread thickly to lat. 59°; further northwards,-in north Sweden to lat. 62°, and in Norway to lat. 66°, slowly driving the Stone-Age back. A considerably developed pre-Roman Age of Iron reached the centre and West of Europe. V. About the time of Christ's Birth till 450 A.D.: Early Iron Age, at first pre-Roman, but mostly Roman, and as yet prevailing only in the old Danish lands, in any case very faint in central Sweden and the south of Norway; Bronze-Age, for the most part higher northwards as far as the domains of the "Arctic" Age of Stone, which continued still in full force. VI. About 450-700 A.D.: Middle Age of Iron (or first period of the Later Iron Age), at last virtually over the whole North, even remarkably high to the north, especially on the coasts rivers and lakes in Sweden to 63° N., in Norway to 69°. The real Early Iron-Age for north Sweden and the north of Norway. Foreign Romano-Germanic influence preponderates. VII. About 700-1000 A.D.: Viking-Times (or second period of the Later Iron-Age). Iron-culture common and peculiar to nearly the whole of the North both on the coasts and interior, as well as in some degree among the Northern colonists abroad, but least distinctly heathen in Denmark. The Stone-Age meantime scarcely yet completely driven out of the extreme north of Finmark and Lapland. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. |