Footnote:
Also issued in print: 2024. - Includes bibliographical references and index. - Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on November 1, 2023)
Description:
The Vikings continue to fascinate us because their compelling stories connect with universal human desires for exploration and adventure. In 'Age of Wolf and Wind', Davide Zori argues that recent advances in excavation and archaeological science, coupled with a re-evaluation of oral traditions and written sources, inspire the telling of new and engaging stories that further our understanding of the Viking Age. Drawing upon his fieldwork experience across the Viking world, he proposes that the best method for weaving together these narratives is a balanced, interdisciplinary approach that integrates history, archaeology, and new scientific techniques.
"The story of the Vikings is one of voyages. In the Viking Age, Scandinavian voyagers from today's Denmark, Norway, and Sweden encountered new people and novel landscapes with an unprecedented intensity. The movement of people brought transfers of ideas, sharing of technologies, trade in material goods, intermarriage, and warfare. The Viking Age (c. 790-1100) is primarily represented in popular culture as a violent age, and it was. It was also much more. Vikings were farmers, raiders, traders, and settlers. Most Viking Age Scandinavians probably would not have thought of themselves as "Vikings." The word víking did exist at the time, but it referred strictly a to sea-borne raider, essentially a pirate. It was an occupation, and could be seasonal work, a multi-year engagement, and at times a lifetime commitment. In fact, Scandinavian víking raiding parties could and did incorporate peoples from other linguistic, ethnic, and cultural groups. Nonetheless, for convenience and because of broadly understood conventions, scholars often use the term Vikings to refer broadly to Viking Age Scandinavians"--